Written at the crux of World War II’s conclusion and British decolonization-neocolonization, The Perennial Philosophy follows a strikingly similar path to Alan Watts’ comparative literature on East-West philosophies, drawing conclusions from the nexus of Christianity and Buddhism, European and Indian sciences/traditions, and world mysticism regardless of religion, region, or century. As a result of Huxley’s hefty subject matter and sampling, the greatest praise anyone can give this book is its tremendous scope - almost indiscriminately spanning thousands of years and dozens upon dozens of disparate religions, philosophies, sects, traditions, and individual mystics.

tThat said, a main counterweight to the above praise comes with an examination of which samples are given the greatest import and room on the page. Contrary to what some (mainly Christian) commentators have remarked - among them, W.R. Inge musing that the book might be “more Buddhist than Christian” in world view - Christian sources make up the predominant strand throughout. Call it part and parcel of Huxley’s upbringing as a child of England’s “intellectual aristocracy”, but the Christian elements here seem to more often than not inform his analysis of Taoist, Buddhist, and Hindu elements, not the other way round. For instance, his commentary includes phrases like ‘God-eclipsing’ far more than its siblings in non-Abrahamic language, i.e., ‘Tao-eclipsing’ or ‘maya-embracing’. Furthermore, the three writer-thinker-theologians who receive the greatest page space throughout the book are Meister Ekhart, William Law, and Fenelon. Nothing is wrong with this (they’re fantastic sources on all subjects Christianity), that is, unless one wishes to get views of Christianity or other religions that aren’t filtered through the eyes of Ekhart, Law, or Fenelon.

tThis is not in itself a downfall of the text; however, this skew combined with a near total absence of African spirituality and the sparseness of non-dominant ‘oriental’ strands (see Edward Said’s Orientalism for more on which Asiatic nations and traditions are visible and which invisible to Western eyes) severely weakens the praise I have for Huxley’s sampling.

tA primary difference between, say, Alan Watts’ East-West discourse and Huxley’s is that Watts doesn’t drink the Kool-Aid he serves. Watts and Huxley are both British writers and contemporaries of one another with hefty educations from Canterbury and Oxford (and both also eventually moved to California to teach and write), both have a penchant for mysticism and religion the world over, and both have excellent biting sarcasm. But where Watts evolved into a largely irreligious professor of divinity, Huxley took the opposite route, deep diving into the common experiences of contemplation and unitive knowledge at the heart of most-all world religions. This is both a source of strength for studies like The Perennial Philosophy and a roadblock to classical science. For instance, one of the greatest criticisms reviewers then and now have pointed out is Huxley’s unassailable belief in the spiritual pollutions of parapsychology and pseudosciences, including but not limited to ESP, clairvoyance, levitation, psychic healing, curative relics, objective spiritual presence manifested through ceremonies, and the power of sacramental objects. Even accounting for the occult’s immense popularity across the West in the early 20th century as well as parapsychology’s relative acceptance in universities of the same period, Huxley’s excessive ‘woo wooing’ was certainly noticed by readers long before he dropped acid (well, mescaline).

tAll this said, The Perennial Philosophy remains a fine starting point for those readers curious in a more global rendering of religion beyond the dandruff of Sunday schools. While contemporary readers will have to adjust to Huxley’s use of language common to the European “intellectual aristocracy” of yesteryear - among them, “oriental”, “occidental”, “primitive”, and “advanced”, yeesh - his work here appears a more benevolent and well meaning intellectualism than many of its siblings like Max Muller’s villainous translations and commentaries on the Vedas and Sutras as well as Ayn Rand’s reductive reviews of Zen (see, or rather don’t see, Muller’s Sacred Books of the East series and Rand’s For the New Intellectual). A great and entertaining strength of the text is Huxley’s insertion of broad passages without attribution until their conclusion; one may be surprised by which passages turn out to be Buddhist and which Christian in origin. This effect certainly supports the core thesis that a pleasant perennialism (of perception, meditation, ethics, morality, and benevolence) lies beneath the scaffoldings of organized religion. If readers are turned on by Huxley’s work here, see also Alan Watts’ The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are and The Way of Zen as well as Carl Jung’s Analytical Psychology.

Happy contemplating!

6/5
Everybody should read it, make it their bible and their religion.
The only true faith is that of love and kindness.
All else is just added nonsense.

Everyone should read this book. It is one of the best inspirational, inquisitive philosophy texts I have ever read.

This portrait of an enlightened island community can’t help but make each reader want to strive for a better world. Shared parenting, experiential learning, care for the environment , a robust democratic press and an opportunity to find one’s true self while dipping into some psychedelic substances. What’s not to like? Oh and how could I forget, the Mynah birds telling everyone to ‘ pay attention!’

Una belleza de libro este que armó Huxley; aunque pesado de leer por los múltiples términos y abstracciones que maneja a la hora de elaborar su teoría de la filosofía perenne se agradece que el autor divida su obra por temas, en donde cada capítulo se compone de uno o dos términos y elautor los va desarrollando de la manera más clara que le permite el tema mismo.
Por otra parte, se agradece muchísimo que no llene el texto con erudiciones y términos de más, en favor de incluir, de muchísimo mejor manera, citas de autores y obras sagradas espirituales no sólo de la cultura hindú sino también recopila palabras sabias del mundo árabe, lo cual en lo personal me pareció fascinante.
No es un libro que se tenga que leer sí o sí antes de morir, pero considero que si te interesan las ondas espirituales y filosóficas llenas de influencias orientales que maneja Huxley este libro te va a gustar mucho.

Not enough Huxley, more clips and quotes from others, but Huxley's take always feels refreshing in how to incorporate mystical religious thought into our interactions with religion. More enlightening (yeah, I know) than the atheist takedowns of religious actions and thoughts when you think of religions as philosophical beliefs run awry.

Out of all the books on the market that explore the perennial wisdom found within all spiritual and philosophical traditions, Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy is hard to top. Huxley proves in this book that he is one of the great polymaths of our time, with such company as Watts and Campbell.
He dissects not only the philosophy underpinning all spiritual traditions, but he also explores the moral and charitable attributes to one who lives within the perennial wisdom being exposed within this book. This book tackles life from every angle, and is essential reading for every human seeking to become truly human. The profundity of this book stands head and shoulders above any spiritual scripture or philosophical treatise. Yet, this book is open to many different interpretations and a beginner on the path will find it difficult to read, but an advanced student of spirituality will be nourished deeply. Recommended for all.

A sweeping review of religions. A masterful work of intellectual contemplation on “The Perennial Philosophy’. How I wish every person in lockdown would read this.

The Perennial Philosophy
Forget self to discover the Self

tThe 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.
tA 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...

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!

Tüm dinlere, her dinin önde gelen insanlarının referanslarıyla güçlendirilmiş birleştirici bir bakış açısı. Okurken biraz sıkılsam da, bitirebildiğim için mutluluk duyduğum bir kitap oldu. İnsanın inanma içgüdüsü, Tanrı inancının tarih içerisindeki gelişimi ve uygulamaları, batı dinlerindeki para ve siyasetin dine alet edilmesi sonrası oluşan değişimler, doğu dinlerinin gözüyle Tanrı inancı gibi konular oldukça derinlemesine anlatılmış. Bu kitaptaki teorik bilgilerinin Ada kitabında pratiğe dönüştürüldüğünü düşündüm. Kesinlikle en güzel Huxley kitabı diyemem. Benim gözümde, Cesur Yeni Dünya, Huxley eserleri arasındaki ilk sırasını hala koruyor.

When I found a copy in the thrift store, I just saw Huxley and philosophy and paid my $0.75. I wasn't expecting a book on mystical religion. During the introduction I thought I was in for a yawner. This was not so. There were several brilliant passages and overall, it was a pretty inspiring read. Huxley includes long passages (probably about 1/4 of the book) from the great mystics of the world's religions both Eastern and Western. Having written this is 1944, Huxley beat the hippies to the east and managed to avoid being goopy and new-agey. I also enjoyed some of his prescient critiques on temporal versus eternal religious mindsets which would be helpful for many American Christians and Islamic Jihadists (I'm not saying they're the same so don't piss yourself) who focus on political power and/or financial well being while killing the spirit of the law. Good book.