Certain Hindus of old blessed our epoch not because it is good but because, being bad, it includes by way of compensation spiritual grace that make easy what is in itself difficult, provided man is sincere, pure,
humble, and persevering.
Frithjof Schuon in Prayer Fashions Man
The disproportion between the natural virtues and those having a supernatural essence or between those tainted by a secret vanity and those that are pure and deep implies that virtues of the second category may be at times less apparent than those of the first and that a certain spiritual modesty may even conceal them. It may also be
that some inner reality, misunderstood from without, may seem to contradict them.In a similar manner gnosis sometimes gives rise to paradoxical expressions, which in reality indicate theualitative separation between the profane and spiritual planes; but this discontinuity is only one aspect alongside another that is more important, that of analogy and essential continuity.
Frithjof Shuon in Prayer Fashions Man