The sense of the sacred, or the love of sacred things − whether of symbols or modes of Divine Presence − is a conditio sine qua non of Knowledge, which engages not only our intelligence, but all the powers of our soul; for the Divine All demands the human all. The sense of the sacred, which is none other than the quasi-natural predisposition to the love of God and the sensitivity to theophanic manifestations or to celestial perfumes − this sense of the sacred essentially implies both the sense of beauty and the tendency toward virtue; beauty being as it were outward virtue, and virtue, inward beauty. It also implies the sense of the metaphysical transparency of phenomena, that is, the capacity of grasping the principial within the manifested, the uncreated within the created. (Frithjof Schuon)

The sense of the sacred, or the love of sacred things − whether of symbols or modes of Divine Presence − is a conditio sine qua non of Knowledge, which engages not only our intelligence, but all the powers of our soul; for the Divine All demands the human all. The sense of the sacred, which is none other than the quasi-natural predisposition to the love of God and the sensitivity to theophanic manifestations or to celestial perfumes − this sense of the sacred essentially implies both the sense of beauty and the tendency toward virtue; beauty being as it were outward virtue, and virtue, inward beauty. It also implies the sense of the metaphysical transparency of phenomena, that is, the capacity of grasping the principial within the manifested, the uncreated within the created.

Frithjof Schuon

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beauty capacity celestial divine grasping human intelligence inward knowledge love non none outward phenomenon predisposition presence sense sensitivity sine soul tendency transparency virtue things powers

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