Echoes of Perennial Wisdom by Frithjof Schuon

The worth of man lies in his consciousness of the Absolute.

The paradox of the human condition is that nothing could be more contrary

to us than the requirement to transcend ourselves, and yet nothing could be more

essentially ourselves than the core of this requirement or the fruit of this self-overcoming.

The way towards God always involves an inversion: from outwardness one must pass to inwardness, from multiplicity to unity, from dispersion to concentration, from egoism to detachment, from passion to serenity.

Man yearns for happiness because Beatitude, which is made of beauty and love, is his very substance.

In order to be happy, man must have a center; now this center is above all the Certitude of the One. The greatest calamity is the loss of the center and the abandon of the soul to the caprices of the periphery. To be man is to be at the Center; it is to be Center.

Faith is to say “yes” to God.

When man says “yes” to

God, God says “yes” to man.

There is no access to the Heart without the virtues.

Virtue is the conformity of the soul to the divine Model and to the spiritual work; conformity or participation. The essence of the virtues is emptiness before God,

which permits the divine Qualities to enter the heart and radiate in the soul. Virtue is the exteriorization of the pure heart.

Man cannot escape the duty of having to do good; it is in fact impossible under normal conditions not to do good; but what matters is that he knows it is God who acts. A meritorious work belongs to God, though we participate in it; our works are good—or better—to the extent we are penetrated by this awareness.

Virtue consists in allowing free passage, in the soul, to the Beauty of God.

Virtue cut off from God becomes pride, as beauty cut off from God becomes idol;

and virtue attached to God becomes sanctity, as beauty attached to God becomes sacrament.

To give oneself to God

is to give God to the world.