The Perennial Philosophy
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The Perennial Philosophy
by Aldous Huxley
4.01 · Rating details · 6,212 ratings · 250 reviews
The Perennial Philosophy is defined by its author as "The metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds." With great wit and stunning intellect, Aldous Huxley examines the spiritual beliefs of various religious traditions and explains them in terms that are personally meaningful.
An inspired gathering of religious writing ...more
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Paperback, 336 pages
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Connor
Apr 13, 2009Connor rated it it was amazing
This book redefined the way I look at religion. It speaks of the philosophy which connects all religions, and should be used as a way of relating to one another.
I found this particular passage quite engaging:
"The invention of the steam engine produced a revolution, not merely in industrial techniques, but also much more significantly in philosophy. Because machines could be made progressively more and more efficient, Western man came to believe that men and societies would automatically register a corresponding moral and spiritual improvement. Attention and allegiance came to be paid, not to Eternity, but to the Utopian future. External circumstances came to be regarded as more important that states of mind about external circumstances, and the end of human life was held to be action, with contemplation as a means to that end. These false and historically, aberrant and heretical doctrines are now systematically taught in our schools and repeated, day in, day out, by those anonymous writers of advertising copy who, more than any other teachers, provide European and American adults with their current philosophy of life. And so effective has been the propaganda that even professing Christians accept the heresy unquestioningly and are quite unconscious of its complete incompatibility with their own or anybody else's religion." -- Well said Hux. (less)
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Bryon Medina
Dec 28, 2007Bryon Medina rated it it was amazing
Recommends it for: ...anyone who cares.
Dear Aldous Huxley,
I know that you where pronounced dead a long time ago, but because of this book, you are a living presence in my life today.
Thank you,
Bryon.
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Adam
Jul 03, 2015Adam rated it liked it
Shelves: 1900-1969, myth-religion, eastern-philosophy
To begin, I must note that I am not "spiritual," if spirituality is taken to indicate belief in spirit, to point to crystals and new-agey-ness and tarot and so on. I also do not consider myself "enlightened," but I think I get on a gut level a basic idea of what that state might be like.
The greatest fault Huxley's book has is its attempt to force varying traditions of mysticism into one "perennial philosophy." The Perennialists, Huxley included, seem not to acknowledge the diversity of views within the mystical tradition. That is a shame. And yet there is a category known as the mystical, to which various traditions speak. It is a real category of experience and, as far as I'm concerned, is totally fascinating. The book is mostly Huxley's commentary, but a very large portion of it is quotations from various texts, either mystical or interpreted as such by Huxley. It is well-written and, as single-volume accounts go, a pretty good one. And buried within Huxley's sometimes frustrating notion that he is capable of uncovering the esoteric truth of esoterica are some pretty excellent observations and some very good writing. For instance:"Samsara and Nirvana, time and eternity"; "Nirvana and Samsara are one"; for instance: "the path of spirituality is a knife-edge between abysses"; for instance: "to be diabolic on the grand scale, one must, like Milton's Satan, exhibit in a high degree all the moral virtues, except only charity and wisdom."
Huxley also does a pretty good job of explaining why mysticism is not equivalent to sticking one's head in the sand, and why its denial of self-separateness is not the same as the dangerous forms of collectivism and indifference to difference. For instance, he identifies "political monism" as something very different to monism in its more genuine sense. There is a cult of unity that is not the religion of unity, but is "only an idolatrous ersatz." He gets at everyday ignored truths in a blunt and (to me) refreshing way: he notes that "bondage to self-will" is "the root and principle of all evil."
It's often really hard to explain my interest in the mystical, given that it coincides in me with much its opposite. Some of it is just having been obsessed with The X-Files and the esoteric in general, but never having donned a tinfoil hat or purchased crystals. That's not so odd in itself. But mysticism? Unity with the One that is all, whether you call it Brahman or the Tao or the Nature of Things or Allah or God? How can someone be interested in that but be almost anti-religious, and think that everything has a material explanation at some level?
I think Huxley's book has helped me understand my interest in mysticism. A lot of it has to do with how mysticism is not boring, but very interesting as a way of perceiving the world. And there is also great ethical potential in all this, which is to an extent simply about a species of passivity combined with profoundly active awareness, in which one is neither an unaware imbecile nor an overactive shit-stirrer. I almost wrote "not boring as a mode of thought." Except, of course, meditative states, "centredness," certain experiences possible through psychedelics, and so on do not necessarily revolve around thought or knowledge. They do not revolve around the self, around your past or your future or your dreams and desires and attitudes.
They revolve around the realized real, something almost indescribable (and I cannot describe it or pretend to) that happens when one engages in contemplative practice. And this practice and what happens within it are so fucking fascinating precisely because it's just something you have to do to get there and because it will dramatically affect your everyday experience of the world. "the saving truth has never been preached by the Buddha, seeing that one has to realize it within oneself"- Sutralamkra. There is the possibility of pure(-seeming) awareness. Awareness without the ego's involvement. Experience of reality, in other words, without the mediation of time-oriented, result-oriented thought. This awareness is a way out of the self, a way out of what David Foster Wallace has famously called our default setting, in which I am and you are and everyone is at the centre of their own little universes, in which one's self is what processes all incoming information. Huxley says: "there has to be a conversion, sudden or otherwise, not merely of the heart, but also of the senses and of the perceiving mind... metanoia, as the Greeks called it, this total and radical 'change of mind'." This change of mind is about, in large part, "the elimination of self-will, self-interest, self-centred thinking, wishing and imagining." Underpinning all this is an understanding of the difficulty of the transition and of its potential value. At the risk of sounding like the shittiest Beatle not named Ringo, imagine a world in which self-interest is not merely questionable, but is blasphemy, in which "individual self-sufficiency" is a thoroughly blasphemous idea.
I am talking in terms of psychology. That's important to emphasize. Yes, it's still my brain processing input. But what is different in the throes of the mystical experience is that the software running from the hardware (let's pretend that's a valid way of looking at it) changes entirely. Everything begins to look different. That is still a chair, but it is no longer my chair, my pain, my love, my anger, my ambition. And that sort of dissociation (a dangerous psychological disorder according to the DSM, that great manual of the Cult of Self) is but a fraction of the larger picture. Freud is more Fraud than ever before. Jung starts to make sense in a way previously inaccessible to me. The categories of Western psychology start to reveal themselves as deeply mistaken and even stupid, and the Buddhist philosophers are revealed as the greatest psychologists and phenomenologists to date. The issue is not with the Western psychologists' accuracy of description. It is that they have an extremely narrow account of reality and of the possibilities of the human mind, and make their system make sense by excluding anything out of the ordinary, making it disorder and insanity. To quote Huxley: "one of the most extraordinary, because most gratuitous, pieces of twentieth-century vanity is the assumption that nobody knew anything about psychology before the days of Freud." Unfortunately, we are still dragging that nonsensical baggage behind us, even as we enter into a larger and more comprehensive understanding of mind and brain.
I suspect that my meditative practice has led me to what the mystics call the "divine" anyway. I just don't think it's divine. So a large portion of what Huxley talks about here and what is central to the mystical tradition makes sense to me, because I have had what counts as "mystical" experiences. That is not to say that mystical experiences are a matter of divine contact, only that there is such a thing as a "mystical experience." I mean that there is a sort of experience that many human beings have and have had that matches a list of criteria that makes it count as this certain sort of experience. An experience that often leads to a taste of beatitude, blessedness, which as Huxley notes is "something quite different from pleasure... [it] depends on non-attachment and selflessness, therefore can be enjoyed without satiety and without revulsion."
And it is no wonder that the mystics, whether Sufi, Catholic, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, etc. consider this experience a matter of unity with the divine. For the experience is a profound alteration of consciousness, a gaining of distance from the myopic, obscenely self-centred, violently egotistical standard mode of operation of the human being. And this standard mode has coloured most religious practice as well as led to our obscenely disgusting obsession with consuming and retaining material goods. The mystical is a way out of what Huxley calls "a certain blandly bumptious provincialism which, if it did not constitute such a grave offence against charity and truth, would be just uproariously funny."
Of course, not all those in the mystical tradition are all that concerned with God. Huxley neatly steps past Orthodox Buddhist thought to focus on the more spiritualist Mahayana practices, for instance. He ignores the possibility, recognized by some, that several prominent Sufi mystics come very close to denying to the "divine" any of the characteristics that make it properly divine. The amazing thing about the mystical tradition is that it repeatedly de-emphasizes and even annihilates everything bad about religious practice and belief.
The mystical tradition's view of God also bears so strong a resemblance to Spinoza's discussion of God that one might ask of it the same things one asks of Spinoza: is he a pantheist, a panentheist, an atheist? After centuries of debate, nobody's figured out with any certainty what Spinoza is. And that's that!
The contemplative tradition is one that needs to be taken account of. It is, instead, largely ignored (or, even more bizarrely, equated to the dangerous and dark forms of religious practice more common among humans). Why? Because it leads one to mysterious places and we want to pretend we know everything with certainty.
To end, I'll note that the book contains some unexpected surprises, including Huxley's various interesting, if not (in my mind) accurate, readings of various poems and the like. Also some psychological and philosophical perspectives on mind that I had never encountered before.
Three of the many quotations I underlined:
"Do not build up your views upon your senses and thoughts, do not base your understanding upon your senses and thoughts; but at the same time do not seek the Mind away from your senses and thoughts, do not try to grasp Reality by rejecting your senses and thoughts. When you are neither attached to, nor detached from, them, then you enjoy your perfect unobstructed freedom, then you have your seat of enlightenment"- Huang-Po
"With the lamp of word and discrimination one must go beyond word and discrimination and enter upon the path of realization"- Lakavatara Sutra
"Nothing burns in hell but the self"- Theologia Germanica (less)
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Ashlie
Jul 23, 2012Ashlie rated it it was amazing
Everyone should read this book. It is one of the best inspirational, inquisitive philosophy texts I have ever read.
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Paul Gleason
Nov 15, 2013Paul Gleason rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
I first read this book when I was on a Huxley kick when I was a teenager. Brave New World inspired me to read everything I could get my hands on by him. Needless to say, The Doors of Perception was more my speed then than The Perennial Philosophy.
I recently read Mike Scott's autobiography, Adventures of a Waterboy, and discovered that this book meant a lot to him and his spiritual life. I picked up a copy at the library and felt a spark of recognition: I'd read this book before but was too young (and probably too Catholic!) to understand a word of it.
But, I realized, that the book somehow lit an unconscious spark in me. It's precepts are essentially a reiteration of the beliefs that I've developed on my own through reading the writers whom Huxley surveys. Heck, I've even become a member of the Unitarian Church - which is largely influenced and informed by this book.
I realize that this isn't so much a review as it is a self-indulgent memoir - the kind of thing that goes against the precepts of the book. It's an ego-based piece of writing. But the book was a VERY necessary read for me at this point in my life. So I thank Mike for - yet again - pointing me in the right direction, the direction of healing. (less)
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dely
Apr 07, 2017dely rated it liked it · review of another edition
Recommended to dely by: Dhanaraj Rajan
Shelves: spirituality-religion, 0-uk
This is an interesting book but the style and the language are pretty difficult (at least for me). I think that who is into philosophy will have less problems than me to understand the language.
It doesn't talk about the dogma of the main religions (Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism), but about the philosophy and the spiritual side that are very similar if not the same. This is what I like the most: to see the points in common of religions, and not the differences.
There are a lot of quotes from different holy scriptures and from the writings of saints and mystics. I found them all very inspiring.
I recommend this book to who is interested in religions and their philosophical side, but be aware that it isn't a fast or easy read. (less)
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Susan Steed
Mar 20, 2016Susan Steed rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
I was talking to a friend about how much I hated the baggage I felt I had inherited from my loosely Christian upbringing. Some kind of female guilt about sex. Why I couldn't bear going to any more political events because I kept seeing this oppressive good v's evil narrative. So, for example if I went to events organised by the Left I kept feeling I had been co-opted by some church of people who believed they were the chosen ones, the 'good people' who would change the world, and we are in a war with the 'bad' tory people.
My friend said that he didn't think this is the ultimate truth of most religions, and told me to read this book. In this book, Huxley presents his version of the Perennial Philosophy. It brings together writing from Christian Mystics, Sufi Islam, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism and more. Sure, to some people this may be height of hippy bullshit. But, for me, the ideas presented here, that heaven and hell are not external but are within all of us, resonate very deeply with me. Or, put slightly nicer by Rumi 'If thou has not seen the devil, look at thine own self'. Or, in the words of William Law;
"The will is that which as all power; it makes heaven and it makes hell; for there is no hell but where the will of the creature is turned from God, nor any heaven but where the will of the creature worketh within God".
The book presents loads of really interesting ideas. I was interested in the ideas I mention above about the nature of good and evil, heaven and hell. But also the nature of capitalism, the violence of Christianity and Imperialism (and other religions). For me his presentation of the environment is also something I have been thinking about recently. The idea that God is in nature. It reminds me of an example that Wangari Maathai gives of Christian missionaries who went to Kenya and told the indigenous population that they were wrong for thinking that God living in the mountains. Then the mountains ceased to be sacred. They began to be exploited.
This will be a book I'll be drawing on and rereading for many years to come. As well as having loads of incredible quotes from thinkers and movements I'll be sure to look up and read more of, it also has some banging analysis that Huxley makes of the time in which he was living, much of which is still very relevant today. I like this quote:
"Our present economic, social and international arrangement are based, in large measure, upon organised lovelessness. We begin by lacking charity towards Nature, so that instead of trying to cooperate with Tao or the Lagos on the inanimate and subhuman levels, we try to dominate and exploit, we waste the earth's mineral resources, ruin it's soil, ravage its forests, pour filth in its rivers and poisonous fumes into its air…. Upon this fairly uniform ground work of loveless relationships are imposed others. Here are some examples, contempt and exploitation of coloured minorities living amount white majorities, or of coloured majorities governed by minorities of white imperialists… And the crowing superstructure of uncharity is the organised lovelessness of the relations between state and sovereign state - a lovelessness that expresses itself in the axiomatic assumption that it is right and natural for national organisations to behave like thieves and murderers, armed to the teeth and ready, at the first favourable opportunity, to steal and kill."
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Danns
Dec 12, 2011Danns rated it it was amazing
I picked this book up almost two decades ago coming off a run Robert Anton Wilson and a deep interest in Eastern Philosophies, particularly Taoism. I had never finished the book at the time as the real life of a young adult took sway. Coming back almost 20 years later this book still holds it's allure.
This is not an easy book to digest and Huxley did an amazing job presenting such a succinct overview of the Perennial Philosophy drawing from so many resources, it's just plain awe-inspiring. The e ...more
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Nati S
Jan 14, 2021Nati S rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Recommends it for: those who are spiritually inclined
Shelves: everything, i-know-nothing, general-knowledge, metaphysics, philosophy, want-to-reread, would-recommend, 2021, favourites
The Perennial: that which is everlasting and continually recurring.
This book is the result of Huxley's deep study on the writing of the mystics from the great traditions of the east to the enlightened Christians of the west.
An anthology of mystical writing.
... in all expositions of the Perennial Philosophy, the frequency of paradox, of verbal extravagance, sometimes even of seeming blasphemy. Nobody has yet invented a Spiritual Calculus, in terms of which we may talk coherently about the di
...more
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Nikki
Apr 03, 2010Nikki rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Huxley is referring to the perennial philosophy as those universal truths that span culture and religion. He shows in this book how all of the ancient traditions implemented these truths...or didn't. He is clearly very erudite and the book is full of quotes from early "saints", from both the East and the West.
While much of the material is quite interesting I wondered if he didn't write the book simply to show how Christianity has 'gone wrong'. His anti-Christian bias is pretty obvious.
This book is NOT a light read and you should only pursue it if you are really interested in this topic. On the positive side, this book did cause me some introspection on certain subjects and I feel like it has helped me in some of my own spiritual pursuits.
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Tomaj Javidtash
Feb 23, 2015Tomaj Javidtash rated it it was amazing
This book is a gem, a must read, for people with even the slightest interest in the esoteric dimension of religions, any religion. It is a lucid presentation of exalting and inspiring quotes from mystics and saints throughout history. I believe it is the most comprehensive book on the subject of Sophia Perennis from the point of view of its practitioners.
Rumi, Meister Eckhart, Augustine, Shankara, etc. are among the many others whose memorable words about the Ground of Being are presented in this book.
It is one of the rare books that I can read many many time. Highly recommended.
Tomaj Javidtash (less)
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Theresa Leone Davidson
Jul 03, 2011Theresa Leone Davidson rated it it was amazing
Huxley examines a whole host of religions, from Buddhism to Catholicism and everything in between, explaining what the enduring philosophy of each is and what similarities they have to one another. In the end he makes the brilliant point that no matter how different each religion may be, they are, at their core, seeking the exact same thing. Anyone remotely interested in religion should read this. Highly recommend!
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Liam
Mar 19, 2012Liam rated it liked it
"Puffing Billy has now turned into a four-motored bomber loaded with white phosphorus and high explosives, and the free press is everywhere a servant of its advertisers, of a pressure group, or of the government. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, the travellers (now far from gay) still hold fast to the religion of Inevitable Progress -- which is, in the last analysis, the hope and faith (in the teeth of all human experience) that one can get something for nothing. How much saner is the Greek view that every victory has to be paid for, and that, for some victories, the price exacted is so high that it outweighs any advantage that may be obtained!" (79)
"If specific exercises in self-denial are undertaken, they should be inconspicuous, non-competitive and uninjurious to health." (101)
"Here we may remark in passing that mechanization is incompatible with inspiration. ... The automatic machine is fool-proof; just because it is fool-proof it is also grace-proof." (171)
"Original ignorance is the same thing as original sin." (250) (less)
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Whitney
Dec 09, 2013Whitney rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: non-fiction, philosophy, spirituality, favorites
Huxley gets to the root of The Thing by examining religious texts from around the world. He finds out what they have in common to get to the parts that are not human projection, idolatry, and bullshit. It's all around us and we are part of It. (less)
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Justina Hayden
Aug 15, 2009Justina Hayden rated it it was amazing
Recommends it for: spiritual seekers who have not yet settled
Shelves: books-i-reread-frequently
This book explain the ways in which ALL the world's religions, taken at their core, express the "Perennial Philosophy". He quotes at length from Catholic saints, Martin Luther, the Vedantas, the Tao te Ching, George Fox, the Upanishads, the writings of many Buddhists, and so on. I know I've left some out; I'm not looking at the book as i write, and it has been probably 10 years since I read it last.
Nonetheless, a major formative book for my life, which I discovered when I was 13 or 14 and have been rereading ever since. (less)
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CV Rick
Sep 25, 2011CV Rick rated it really liked it
Shelves: literature, philosophy
Lest anyone doubt that one of the greatest philosophers of the modern age is Aldous Huxley I give you The Perennial Philosophy. Huxley boils all religious tradition into its basic universal truths. It is through this discovery that he finds what he is good in the best teachings and what is manipulative in its tenets.
I am constantly amazed by the breadth of thought that Aldous Huxley explored during his lifetime and how relevant that five years today. I will probably be thinking about this volume for many years to come. (less)
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S. Jay
Jan 02, 2017S. Jay rated it it was amazing
The Perennial Philosophy
Forget self to discover the Self
The book A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson, is essentially a history of science book. This book is a history of philosophy and summary of major religion, organized into different points. In both, I ran out of room to review. Link to complete review at the end. The main idea is this – all religions are essentially saying the same 27 things and here’s what they are. I found it very neat to jump from a Sufi mystic to a Catholic saint to a Hindu or Buddhist scholar and say, wow, yes, they are all saying the same thing. There is an additional layer suggesting you can join the elite crew that gets it and practices the perennial philosophy, but I think that detracts a bit from the overall summary. There’s a tendency to evangelize to join this group, and a bit of the Western bias of passion = bad. Never the less, it’s detailed and comprehensive, not a good introduction to the topic of eternal questions but good if you’re along the path of the pursuit of the truth and dedicated to the mysteries of life.
A bit different structure than usual. I’m going to do one more overall paragraph then I’ll go through the majority of topics where I’ll describe the central idea and sample quotes.
So. If all religions are saying the same thing, what is it? We are all one. That God dwells in each moment and in each being (including ourselves). Life purpose is “unitive knowledge” that God and self and others and existence are one. Awareness can be achieved through detachment to central desires and denial of ego, eye on the divine but unconcerned with the outcomes of effort (a very odd balance called “holy indifference”). That path is not easy, but when you undertake the right actions eventually you can “catch a glimpse of the Self that underlies separate individuality.” Modesty, humility, and simplicity will get you there. The kingdom of heaven is within you and eternity can be attained in your lifetime. Never forget we are one, that God allows us to participate in this sacred moment called life. We are kidding ourselves if we think our perspective is in some way different than any others.
I should add, ps, most growned up people don’t care about these topics. They become caught up in the false idols of technology, human progress, business, politics, anything temporal. They will look at you like a weirdo if you bring these things up. All are called, but not all are chosen or choose to continue the conversation with the divine. Pursuit this path and you will be different.
Note: If there isn’t a name attached to a quote it’s from Huxley
Point 1 – That are Thou – “you” are not just your ego perspective, you are contained in everyone you see and interact with. We are all one, so do unto others what you would do to yourself because self and other is an illusion.
Quotes
It is ignorance that causes us to identify ourselves with the body, the ego, the senses, or anything that is not the Atman. He is a wise man who overcomes this ignorance by devotion to the Atman. –Shankara (8th century Hindu scholar) 7
Point 2 – The Nature of the Ground – You are part of God, existence happens because you open your eye which is divine. You’re essentially sitting in the palm of God, more so you’re one atom in his / her hand.
Quotes
* The last end of man, the ultimate reason for human existence, is unitive knowledge of the divine Ground – the knowledge that can come only to those who are prepared to “die to self” and so make room, as it were, for God. –21
* The purpose of all words is to illustrate the meaning of an object...For example cow and horse belong to the category of substance. He cooks or he prays belongs to the category of activity. White and black belong to the category of quality…Now there is no class of substance to which the Brahmin belongs, no common genus. It cannot therefore be denoted by words which, like “being” in the ordinary sense, signify a category of things…Therefore it cannot be defined by word or idea; as the Scripture says, it is the One “before whom words recoil.” –Shankara 24
Point 3 – Personality, Sanctity, Divine Incarnation – personality is a distraction, selfhood is a better concept (less egotistical), you are sacred because you are the same as God (only saints recognize this).
Quotes
Insofar as they are saints, insofar as they possess the unitive knowledge that makes them “perfect as their Father which in heaven is perfect,” they are all astonishingly alike. Their actions are uniformly selfless and they are constantly recollected, so that at every moment they know who they are and what is their true relation to the universe and its spiritual Ground. 44
Point 4 – God in the World – because we exist in the world, we shouldn’t shrug off the activities of life, neither should we embrace them fully, but instead use them to further contemplate the divine. Actions and contemplation can lead to a holy end (when properly guided). You are aware when you recognize, in fact, the world is apparition of Mind and therefore beautiful and majestic. Don’t become attached to the world or desires, instead recognize the oneness.
Quotes
* The world is a mirror of Infinite Beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God. –Thomas Traherne 67
Point 5 – Charity – give selflessly and without any expectation of reward
Quotes
* Here on earth the love of God is better than the knowledge of God, while it is better to know inferior things than to love them. By knowing them we raise them, in a way, to our intelligence, whereas by loving them, we stoop toward them and may become subservient to them, as the miser to his gold. –St. Thomas Aquinas 82
Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit; it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love…of all the motions and affections of the soul, love is the only one by means of which the creature, though not on equal terms, is able to treat with the Creator and to give back something resembling what has been given to it. 83
* Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love their cow – for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage. Indeed, I tell you the truth, any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost Truth. –Eckhart 84
Learn to look with an equal eye upon all beings, seeing the one Self in all. –Srimad Bhagavtam 85
Point 6 – Mortification, Non-Attachment, Right Livelihood – death of the self allows the birth of Self. The news of the day doesn’t matter. Have a job that is not in contradiction to the divine path (for example, drug dealing, taking advantage of the poor, producing weapons). Avoid the distractions of power or politics.
Quotes
“Our kingdom go” is the necessary and unavoidable corollary of “Thy kingdom come.” For the more there is of self, the less there is of God. 96
* God, if I worship thee in fear of hell, burn me in hell. And if I worship thee in hope of paradise, exclude me from Paradise; but if I worship thee for thine own sake, withhold not thine everlasting beauty. –Rabi’a (Sufi woman-saint) 102
* Listening four or five times a day to newscasters and commentators, reading the morning papers and all the weeklies and monthlies – nowadays, this is described as “taking an intelligent interest in politics.” St. John of the Cross would have called it indulgence in idle curiosity and the cultivation of disquietude for disquietude’s sake. 104
* A man undertakes the right action (which includes, of course, right recollectedness and right meditation), and this enables him to catch a glimpse of the Self that underlies his separate individuality. 112
Point 7 – Truth – seek the truth but don’t think there is a specific formula for extracting it. Don’t be hubristic and think you can reach it without surrender.
Quotes
* Even the most ordinary experience of a thing or event in time can never be fully or adequately described in words…God, however, is not a thing or event in time, and the time-bound words which cannot do justice even to temporal matters are even more inadequate do the intrinsic nature of our own unitive experience of that which belongs to an incommensurably different order. To suppose that people can be saved by studying and giving assent to formula is like supposing that one can get to Timbuctoo by poring over a map of Africa. Maps are symbols, and even the best of them are inaccurate and imperfect symbols. But to anyone who really wants to reach a destination, a map is an indispensably useful as indicating the direction in which the traveler should set out and the roads which he must take. 134
* The experience of beauty is pure, self-manifested, compounded equally of joy and consciousness, free from admixture of any other perception, the very twin brother of mystical experience, and the very life of it is super sensuous wonder…it is enjoyed by those who are competent thereto, in identity, just as the form of God is itself the joy with which it is recognized. –Visvanatha 138
Point 8 – Religion and Temperament – think of knowledge as a vertical axis of human capability, there is also a vertical axis that has divine union at its apex and separate selfhood at the base. All religions indicate the same ideas. Be temperate in consummation of knowledge of products.
Quotes
In the West, the traditional Catholic classification of human beings is based upon the Gospel anecdote of Martha and Mary. The way of Martha is the way of salvation through action, the way of Mary is the way through contemplation...in Hindu thought the outlines of this completer and more adequate classification are clearly indicated. The ways leading to the delivering union with God are not two, but three – the way of works, the way of knowledge and the way of devotion. In the Bhadagava Gita Sir Krishna instructs Arujna in all three paths – liberation without attachment; liberation through knowledge of the Self and the Absolute Ground of all being with which it is identical; and the liberation through intense devotion to the personal God or the divine incarnation. 148
“Holy indifference” is the path that leads through the forgetting of self to the discovery of the Self. 155
“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would be seen as it is, infinite.” –William Blake 189
* The aim of revolution is to make the future radically different from and better than the past. But some time-obsessed philosophers are primarily concerned with the past, not the future, and their politics are entirely a matter of preserving or restoring the status quo and getting back to the good old days. But the retrospective time worshipers have one thing in common with the revolutionary devotees of the bigger and better future; they are prepared to use unlimited violence to achieve their ends. 193
Every violence is, over and above everything else, a sacrilegious rebellion against the divine order. 194
* For what is probably the majority of those who profess the great historical religions, it signifies and has always signified a happy posthumous condition of indefinite personal survival, conceived of as a reward for good behavior and correct belief and a compensation for the miseries inseparable from life in a body. But for those who, within the various religious traditions, have accepted the Perennial Philosophy as a theory and have done with best to live it out in practice, “heaven” is something else. They aspire to be delivered out of separate selfhood in time and into eternity as realized in the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground. Since the Ground can and ought to be unitively known in the present life (whose ultimate end and purpose is nothing but this knowledge), “heaven” is not an exclusively posthumous condition. 202
Rest of review / all quotes (future self, you’re welcome)- https://1drv.ms/w/s!AkaMFERCFHxIgegKd...
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Jim Puskas
Feb 22, 2021Jim Puskas rated it it was amazing
Shelves: religion, philosophy
Referring to Huxley as a "bold thinker" would be a gross understatement. While ostensibly just a survey of the world’s great religious movements and the writings of a wide selection of mystics, Huxley takes his argument a great deal further, proceeding to proclaim that a unifying “perennial” truth lies at the heart of all “higher” religions. In so doing, he endeavors to define the very nature and purpose of existence; one could scarcely address any topic more fundamental than that!
I am, of course not at all the sort of reader this book is aimed at; as an avowed agnostic, I’m about as mystical as yesterday’s laundry. So this was a very steep hill for me to climb; I struggled with not only the basic premise of his argument but also the syntax and vocabulary employed express it. The fact that I stuck with it to the end (often shaking my head in bemusement) says much about the quality of Huxley’s work.
Fortunately, Huxley was considerate enough to have offered an introduction to soften the blow, so to speak. Nevertheless, the subtitle to Chapter1 “That art thou” let me know from the outset that I was in for a major challenge; and it doesn’t get any easier. I often found myself re-reading a paragraph half a dozen times, breaking off to look up references, leafing back to previous sections — and at times simply putting the book aside to think through what it was that I thought I had just read.
Does he succeed in convincing me of his general premise? In some small degree, yes. He has a valid point, that all religions boil down to a basic search for the devine. Which would imply that all those thinkers, agreeing on one basic idea, cannot all be completely wrong. But that thesis breaks down the moment one attempts to assign any particularity to that most fundamental notion: the differences among beliefs are so vast that one is inclined to conclude that in fact NONE of them are correct. Dogma, structure and practice get in the way of common sense. In the end, every religion on earth defies logic and demands that its teachings be accepted on faith, or not at all.
Through the first two chapters, when he is setting forth his basic concept and supporting argument for perennialism, he can be quite compelling, even in passages that tax one’s attention span and tolerance for abstruse concepts. That said, I found that as he moved on to peripheral issues such as sanctity, self-knowledge, etc. he became increasingly preachy. His arguments concerning the nature of truth are especially disappointing, relying on quotes from various sages having questionable degrees of relevance; I was hoping he would tie his conclusions back to the matter of objective reality but the chapter just fizzled out.
Huxley regains momentum when he tackles the contentious issue of grace in the context of free will — most tellingly where he quotes St. Bernard: ”Grace is necessary to salvation, free will equally so — but grace in order to give salvation, free will in order to receive it.” His chapter on “Time and Eternity” is also a mind-bendingly compelling discussion.
And even though I find myself in sharp disagreement with much of what Huxley has to say about religious belief, I wanted to stand up and cheer when I came to the chapter titled “Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum” (To such heights of evil has religion been able to drive men) concluding with a devastating condemnation of the travesty of religious infighting that Sebastiano Castellio addressed to the Duke of Wurtemburg at the height of the Reformation. Including that chapter was indeed a courageous decision, boldly putting his entire thesis at risk by exposing religion’s dirty linen. Huxley was no piker, he chose to face the issues head on.
Huxley was one very smart dude, perhaps one of the most brilliant thinkers of the 20th century. I therefore recommend the book to anyone seeking an intellectual (and perhaps spiritual) challenge. I’m likely to revisit this book many time in the future. So, despite my refusal to accept Huxley’s views, five stars for presenting a powerful, thought-provoking thesis.
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Aelia
Feb 22, 2010Aelia rated it it was ok
Shelves: non-fiction
Written in 1945, the book is an anthology of the Perennial Philosophy and contains vast examples as extracts from scriptures and/or other type of writings from various religious: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, etc.
The central idea of the perennial philosophy is that there exists Divine Truth, Divine Reality which is one and universal, and that different religions are different ways to express that one Truth. However as Huxley writes this one Divine Reality cannot be directly and immediately apprehended except by those whom we generally give the name of 'saint' or 'prophet', 'sage' or 'enlightened one' and the only way is to study, reflect and comprehend their experience, works and writings.
"If one is not oneself a sage or saint, the best thing one can do, in the field of metaphysics, is to study the works of those who were, and who, because they had modified their merely human mode of being, were capable of a more than merely human kind and amount of knowledge" - writes Huxley in the introduction.
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Eric Marcy
Jun 16, 2015Eric Marcy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: favorites
A phenomenal and profound philosophical study, Aldous Huxley seamlessly integrates the thoughts of philosophers, mystics and sages from Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and Islam into a marvelously thought-provoking and coherent book. Wonderfully written, Huxley centers his discussion on man's ultimate end: to know the unitive nature of the Divine. Everything centers around what Huxley views as man's ultimate end, and the discussion of a myriad of spiritual issues centers around what Huxley views as man's unfortunate tendency to confuse means with ends, as people continually fall into the idolatry of means. With hard critiques on the vain foolishness of modern man, Huxley urges his readers to engage on the path of un-selfing, the only way in which God may be revealed to man.
Though I don't necessarily agree with Huxley 100%, his work is remarkably compelling, thoughtful, and earnest, and provides wise counsel to those seeking spiritual enlightenment and the truly moral life in a selfish and violent world. (less)
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Pat Rolston
Oct 22, 2015Pat Rolston rated it it was amazing
If you enjoy the opportunity to better understand eastern and western religious traditions as related through philosophical doctrine and their spiritual traditions this is an outstanding place to start. Huxley takes the actual words and quotes from great teachers, saints, and
sages from the eastern and western traditions to educate the reader about the differences and similarities functionally by subject area from, self, silence, good and evil, eternity and time among others equally compelling to enlighten the reader. He inserts some editorial comment that reflects his personal views, but generally this is an opportunity to come to your own conclusions as well as become more fluent in areas allowing for selected and deeper study. There are few authors you will ever find capable of putting in one place the incredible wealth of knowledge in such a succinct yet comprehensive fashion. (less)
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Callie
May 12, 2019Callie rated it liked it
Alas, I shan't finish this. At another moment in my reading life, I'm sure I would find it spellbinding, but as I just wrote in my other review, I cannot take another ounce of nonfiction.
I made it about halfway through and someday I will read the rest.
I won't lie, through much of this book I found myself uncertain of what he was getting at or barely cottoning on with the merest possible understanding of his general point. Still, I think it's a worthy book and good to have by one's bedside to just read a few pages at a time. Also, one that I should probably own so I can underline things and come back to it once in a while.
It's mainly about mystics and oneness with God and that kind of thing, so right up my alley. I am just really, really in need of a good novel right now. So it will have to be enough. (less)
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Frightful_elk
Jun 09, 2009Frightful_elk rated it it was amazing
Shelves: philosophy, spiritual, eastern-ish, essays-on-life, religion, popular-philosophy, learning
There is a lot to chew over in this book, I think I am going to have to come back for another going over.
Huxley presents his synopsis of spiritual systems, suggesting there are core principles common to all human spirituality, which are constantly refound and reinterpreted in each system. This is essentially a digest of spiritual writers, it has lots of interesting and important ideas, and extensive quotes to help you get a handle on them. Huxley himself seems to be blown away in enthusiasm and the confusion of trying to rebrand some of the non essential ideas attached to the vital philosophy. Well worth a read! (less)
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Ronald Wise
Sep 02, 2011Ronald Wise rated it really liked it · review of another edition
I had no idea what "Perennial Philosophy" referred to when I checked out this book and began reading it. When I learned in the first sentence that it referred to the "divine Reality", I had doubts that I would be able to endure it. However, Huxley's overview of the spiritual proved very interesting in discussing the various aspects of man's pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. Some of his comparisons of the Muslim and Christian efforts in that pursuit were so strikingly pertinant to current events, including the 2004 presidential election now underway. This one was added to my reading list after reading Huxley's Brave New World. (less)
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Robert
Dec 13, 2010Robert rated it it was amazing
Shelves: philosophy, psychology, spirituality
Rational truth can be defined as ideas, definitions, facts, and concepts "about" reality. Mystical truth perhaps can be defined as a direct intuitive apprehension "of" reality. Huxley does a terrific job in using the mystics from the East and the West to help us to understand this most important kind of truth. (less)
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Sally
Mar 27, 2008Sally rated it liked it
Shelves: didn-t-finish
This is a very noteworthy book, but the author's style is such that I couldn't bear to continue reading it, on several tries; maybe in a few years I'll try yet again. Some writing styles are a total slog for one person, but fine or prefered for another. (less)
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Jackson
Sep 04, 2019Jackson rated it really liked it
could be a grad student's best friend ; an avengers level assortment of religious thought across centuries of spiritual exploration ; for the contemplative, one of 'the' defining texts (less)
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Hunter Kinder
Mar 06, 2018Hunter Kinder added it
I definitely need to read this again as it didn't click the first time through. (less)
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Victor Finn
May 31, 2014Victor Finn rated it it was amazing
Shelves: nonfiction, favourite
All I can say is... WOW! Aldous Huxley is a genius. I read his "Brave New World" before (his most popular work) and was thoroughly impressed. It is the perfect prophetic dystopian novel (much more accurate than Orwell's 1984). Indeed, this book is almost a perfect companion to Brave New World because it shows what Aldous Huxley actually DOES believe in (whereas Brave New World shows what he DOESN'T believe in i.e. consumerism, hedonism, etc)
In this very philosophical work of comparative religion Aldous Huxley demonstrates his incredibly vast and original insights on Religion (drawing from sources all over the globe such as the biographies of famous Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian sages), Psychology, society, and philosophy.
Whenever I read myths and folkloric tales from different cultures I was always amazed at how civilizations that grew up independently of each other seemed to be telling the same kind of stories, with similar archetypes and messages. Later when I became interested in religion I noticed the same thing. Society, the media, and especially the school system taught me that each religious belief was mutually exclusive, so that if you followed one you had to hate the others. This leads to the insane idea that God somehow prefers one culture or group of people or way of life over another.
But really, just as different people in the world have different words for "Fire" or "water" but nonetheless they refer to the same things, so to do different people throughout history have different words for God and spiritual experiences but they are truly referring to the same thing. There is one divine reality that has been apprehended by contemplative mystics all around the world, and their testimony of it is what creates and renews religions all around the world. Aldous calls this worldview The Perennial Philosophy, or Perennialism.
I already believed in the essential oneness of the world's rich spiritual traditions, and have heard it expressed in various ways, but never with the brilliantly argued philosophical reasoning that Aldous demonstrates in this work. He says what I always wanted to say in a way better than I ever could have!
Not only that, but he also has brilliant insights I had never thought of before in regards to the implications of Perennialism, it's social implications, and what it tells us about human nature.
All in all, an almost perfect book that is so rich in truth that I fear that much of it may have went over my head, so I'll have to read it again some day. Highly recommended to anyone who liked Brave New World, who enjoys reading Spiritual, Religious or Philosophical books, and for anyone walking the upward path to the Truth.
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Michael David Cobb
Jul 08, 2018Michael David Cobb rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
This is a book that I think I will be referencing back to for the rest of my life. If you basically want to understand the entire perspective of a Western thinker on the commonalities of Eastern religion and mysticism as well as Christian mystic thought, this is the book. Think of it as the complete tutorial on what people *think* they're saying when they utter the cliche "I'm not religious but I'm spiritual." Now if a person were truly that, and very intelligent as well, then this book explains how they might think about God, self, universe, time, idolatry, salvation, truth, good, evil, immortality, mortification, charity, prayer... yeah, you name it everything you've stuffed in a closet in the back of your mind and called it 'religion' is presented here from the mystic point of view and collected wisdom of multiple 'religions'.
This might properly be called, at least I will, the set of ultimate goals for the self, or perhaps the self-less perfection of the realization of the divine in the individual and the purpose of all human consciousness. I'm not used to speaking this way, it will take me some time to get through all of the material in this course of study, but I can feel it working on me.
Several years ago I wrote that all I care about is wisdom. This is true. But one tends to think of wisdom as an attribute of the self. The Perennial Philosophy extends that challenge beyond the self (and yet within the self) towards the human infinite. So instead of the pursuit and capture of wisdom like a trophy to put on your mantle and show off, the Perennial Philosophy explains that this is an attainment of psychic, spiritual as well as intellectual dimensions.
There's some speculation in this which is especially clunky in the dated volume which contemporaries more well versed in psychology will easily spot. Also Huxley had been taken in by claims of faith healing and ESP that should not be taken seriously, but he seems to understand this. Also the book gets a bit murky in dealing with the concepts of time vis a vis Time and Eternity. And yet the book becomes quite persuasive in describing how nations and religions and philosophies that deal with reality in progressive time rather than in eternal timelessness, inevitably make bloody violent sacrifices to time (God the destroyer of all things, in time).
Huxley presents a convincing case for the unification of purposeful thought in this volume by taking contextualized quotes from a variety of wise ancients and mystics. It puts, for me, God back where God should belong in all thought, and the discipline of finding God central in human moral purpose.
I am convinced that this is the kind of material that is central to the human experience. It clears up a lot of things.
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