http://www.sophia-perennis.com/introduction-eng.htm

What is Sophia Perennis ?
according to Frithjof Schuon

The Sophia Perennis is to know the total Truth and, consequently, to will the Good and love Beauty; and this in conformity to this Truth, hence with full awareness of the reasons for doing so.

The doctrinal Sophia treats of the Divine Principle on the one hand and of its universal Manifestation on the other: hence of God, the world and the soul, while distinguishing within Manifestation between the macrocosm and the microcosm; this implies that God comprises in Himself - extrinsically at least - degrees and modes, that is to say that He tends to limit Himself in view of His Manifestation. Therein lies all the mystery of the Divine Mâyâ...

As for the Good, it is a priori the supreme Principle as quintessence and cause of every possible good; and it is a posteriori on the one hand that which in the Universe manifests the Principle, and on the other hand that which leads back to the Principle; in a word, the Good is first of all God Himself, then the "projection" of God into existence, and finally the "reintegration" of the existentiated into God...

As for Beauty, it stems from Infinitude, which coincides with the divine Bliss; seen in this connection, God is Beauty, Love, Goodness and Peace, and He penetrates the whole Universe with these qualities. Beauty, in the Universe, is that reveals the divine Infinitude: every created beauty communicates to us something infinite, beatific, liberating. Love, which responds to Beauty, is the desire for union, or it is union itself...

Goodness, for its part, is the generous radiation of Beauty: it is to Beauty what heat is to light. Being Beauty, God is thereby Goodness or Mercy: we could also say that in Beauty, God lends us something of Paradise; the beautiful is the messenger, not only of Infinitude and Harmony, but also, like the rainbow, of reconciliation and pardon. From an altogether different standpoint, Goodness and Beauty are the respectively "inward" and "outward" aspects of Beatitude, whereas from the standpoint of our preceding distinction, Beauty is intrinsic inasmuch as it pertains to the Essence, whereas Goodness is extrinsic inasmuch as it is exercised in relation to accidents, namely towards creatures.

In this dimension, Rigor, which stems from the Absolute, could not be absent: intrinsically, it is the adamantine purity of the divine and of the sacred; extrinsically, it is the limitations of pardon, owing to the lack of receptivity of given creatures. The world is woven of two majors dimensions, mathematical rigor and musical gentleness; both are united in a superior homogeneity that pertains to the very fathomlessness of the Divinity." [Roots of the Human Condition, Frithjof Schuon, p. 93-95]

Strictly speaking, there is but one sole philosophy, the Sophia Perennis; it is also - envisaged in its integrality - the only religion. Sophia has two possible origins, one timeless and the other temporal; the first is "vertical" and discontinuous, and the second, "horizontal" and continuous; in other words, the first is like the rain that at any moment can descend from the sky; the second is like a stream that flows from a spring. Both modes meet and combine: metaphysical Revelation actualizes the intellective faculty, and once awakened, this gives rise to spontaneous and independent intellection.

The dialectic of the Sophia Perennis is "descriptive", not "syllogistic," which is to say that the affirmations are not the product of a real or imaginary "proof", even though they may make use of proofs - real in this case - by way of "illustration" and out of concern for clarity and intelligibility. But the language of Sophia is above all symbolism in all its forms: thus the openness to the message of symbols is a gift proper to primordial man and his heirs in every age; Spiritus autem ubi vult spirat.

One of the paradoxes of our times is that esoterism, discreet by the force of things, finds itself obliged to assert itself publicly for the simple reason that there is no other remedy for the confusion of our time. For, as the Kabbalists say, "it is better to divulge Wisdom than to forget it." [The Transfiguration of Man, Frithjof Schuon, p. 9-10]"

...the question may be asked whether the sophia perennis is a "humanism"; the answer would in principle be "yes", but in fact it must be "no" since humanism in the conventional sense of the term de facto exalts fallen man and not man as such. The humanism of the moderns is practically an utilitarianism aimed at fragmentary man; it is the will to make oneself as useful as possible to a humanity as useless as possible.
[To Have a Center, Frithjof Schuon, p. viii]