glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Morality (two sources): Morality has two sources, the revealed Law and the voice of
conscience. The Law . . . has in view the Attraction and the Equilibrium of which we
have spoken, in the form of an adaptation to a particular world. Conscience, for its part,
naturally takes account of the legitimate interest of one’s neighbor or of the collectivity as
well as the interest of the soul facing God; that is to say, the conscience of the normal
man, while at the same time determined by a sacred Law, is founded on the evident fact
that “the other” is also an “I” and that our own “I” is also “another,” a truth that bears
fruit to the extent that man is impartial and generous. But there is also, and more
fundamentally, the evident truth that man does not have his end in himself, that he
depends, like the whole world, on a Cause which determines everything and which is the
measure of everything, and from which we cannot escape. We can only draw close to this
Cause for the sake of our happiness, or remove ourselves therefrom to our loss.*
(* “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done
it unto me . . . Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these ye did it not to me”
(Matthew 25:40 and 45). By these words, which identify every ego with the Divine Ego,
Christ testifies to the oneness of the Self, which dwells in every subjectivity.) [LT, The
Problem of Qualifications]
Morality / Virtue: All that has been said up to this point makes possible an explanation
of the meaning of the virtues and of moral laws; the latter are styles of action conforming
to particular spiritual perspectives and to particular material and mental conditions, while
the virtues on the contrary represent intrinsic beauties fitted into these styles and finding
through them their realization. Every virtue and every morality is a mode of equilibrium
or, to be more precise, it is a way of participating, even to the detriment of some outward
and false equilibrium, in the universal Equilibrium; by remaining at the center, a man
escapes from the vicissitudes of the moving periphery, and this is the meaning of Taoist
“non-action.” Morality is a way of acting, whereas virtue is a way of being – a way of
being wholly oneself, beyond the ego, or of being simply That which is. This could also
be expressed as follows: the various moralities are at the same time frameworks for the
virtues and their application to collectivities; the virtue of the collectivity is its
equilibrium determined by Heaven. Moralities are diverse, but virtue as it has been here
defined, is everywhere the same, because man is everywhere man. This moral unity of
humankind goes hand in hand with its intellectual unity: perspectives and dogmas differ,
but truth is one. [UI, The Path]
Moslem: The Moslem . . . consists in opening out into a totality, in ‘surrendering’
(aslama, whence the word islam) his will to God, in ‘abandoning’ it in the mould of a
divine Will which encompasses the whole human personality, from the body to the spirit,
and from birth to the encounter with God. [GDW, The Sense of the Absolute in
Religions]
Muhammadan Substance: The Muhammadan Substance is the love of God combined,
by the nature of things, with contemplativeness and nobleness of character; as also with a
sense of outward or practical values, such as the beauty of forms, and cleanliness, or the
rules of propriety infused with generosity and dignity. The sense of outward things –
although in no wise “vain” – stems in the final analysis from the emphasis on
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