glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Matter, in fact, refers in the final analysis to the divine Substance. [FDH, Structure and
Universality of the Conditions of Existence]
Matter is the final point of the descent of the objective pole. [FDH, Consequences
Flowing from the Mystery of Subjectivity]
Matter, though divine inasmuch as it forms bodily creatures, nonetheless includes an
aspect of hostility to the Spirit. [TB, The Mythology of Shinto]
Matter . . . is nothing else but the extreme limit or precipitation-point in the process of
manifestation, at least for our world; consequently, it is the “lowest” thing to be found
within that reality that concerns us. It might nevertheless be asked whether this lowest
thing is not on the contrary a consciousness of sorts, namely the principle of evil, that
very Mara who tempted the Buddha, or Satan who tempted Christ? This difficulty is
resolved if one distinguishes in the cosmos two poles, one existential, blind and passive
and the other intellectual, therefore conscious and active: matter is the point of
precipitation in relation to the existential pole alone, whereas the intellectual pole gives
rise, at the extreme limit of the process of flight from God, to the personifiable force, or
that perverted consciousness, which is Satan or Mara. In other words, matter is the
existence most remote from pure Being, and the devil is the consciousness most remote
from the divine Intellect; and just as on the intellectual plane this remoteness can only
spell subversion or opposition, that intelligence which is most remote from the Absolute
will be the one that denies the Absolute as “intelligently,” or rather as “consciously,” as
possible. Existence – the materia secunda or natura naturata – by drawing away from
pure Being becomes hardened and at the same time segmented; matter is the “heaviest”
and the most discontinuous, the most “broken” existence there is – seen always from the
point of view of the human state, for there are other worlds and other limits of
manifestation – and Satan is the most subversive, the most perverse intelligence;
compared with Satan, matter – though hardened and corrupted – remains innocent. [TB,
Cosmological and Eschatological Viewpoints]
As for matter, it is, still more directly than the subtle or animic substance, universal
substance ‘congealed’ or ‘crystallised’ by the cold proximity of ‘nothingness’; this
‘nothingness’ the process of manifestation could never reach, for the simple reason that
absolute ‘nothingness’ does not exist, or rather that it exists only by the way of
‘indication’, ‘direction’ or ‘tendency’ in the work of creation itself; an image of this is
seen in the fact that cold is only a privation and thus has no positive reality, though it
transforms water into snow and ice, as if it had the power to produce bodies. [GDW,
Seeing God Everywhere]
Matter (physical substance): Physical substance – in its “present” and “post-Edenic”
state – is in reality but a kind of “accidental” crystallization of the subtle substance (the
sukshma sharira of the Hindus); whatever its consistency or its quality, it is none other
than the extreme limit or “point of precipitation” – for our sensible world – of the
demiurgic process of manifestation. [TB, Cosmological and Eschatological Viewpoints]
Maya: Maya is an exclusively Vedantic term, often rendered as “universal illusion”, or
“cosmic illusion”, but she is also “divine play”. She is the great theophany, the
“unveiling” of God “in Himself and by Himself” as the Sufis would say. Maya may be
likened to a magic fabric woven from a warp that veils and a weft that unveils; she is a
87