I definitely need to read this again as it didn't click the first time through.

This is a gem for anybody who wants to penetrate deep and explore through the mystery of life.

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.

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.

As the Rig Veda says, "Truth is one, sages call it variously," and at the heart of every religion is the same mystical truth. Here, Huxley sets out to show that identical kernel of truth at the center of a wide variety of religions and wisdom traditions. It's a noble effort, but also a rather dry and academic one. I found the endless block quotes kind of exhausting. Huston Smith does a much better job laying this all out in his classic The World's Religions.

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.

This is the kind of book that is downright dangerous if you really take its religiosity seriously. This themes of this book are often prematurely associated with with New Age-ism, and while there may be some overlap with certain facets which the New Age movement subsequently borrowed, Huxley's Perennial Philosophy is more far-reaching and profound; in fact, I would go as far as to say it is the anti-thesis of the modern New Age movement. The latter is a romanticized, do-as-one-wishes, laissez-faire, anti-intellectual psuedo-spirituality, while the Perrenial Philosophy is a rather dense and studious intellectual effort to synthesize major world spiritual and religious practices into a unified thesis which with intent to be put into practice.

The Perennial Philosophy" is the common factor of all the central philosophies and writings of the great saints, mystics and prophets who have experienced a "direct spiritual knowledge" of the "Divine". The author quotes the great Taost Philosophers, the followers of Buddha, Mohammad, the Brahman Scriptures and Christian Mystics. "The Perennial Philosophy is the philosophy of the "One". Man's final end or purpose is to know, love and be united with this "One", "Godhead" or "Ground. This is a very challenging book but one that can be referred to and studied over and over again. I would recommend this book

Ovo je bila teška knjiga. Vrlo zanimljiva, ali baš sam se namučila s njom. S jedne strane zbog zahtjevnog jezika, a s druge zbog teme koja mi je strana i daleka. Duhovnost. Nisam je u stanju (još) ni konceptualno pojmiti, a za istinsko razumijevanje tekstova potrebna je barem nekakva iskustvena spoznaja. Unutar knjige lakši su mi bili autorovi komentari, analize i sinteze, od originalno iskorištenih tekstova. Definitivno knjiga koju bih trebala čitati kad za to postanem spremna.

Huxley demonstrates his wide knowledge of the world's religions in this extended essay, and attempts to derive a spiritual foundation common to all these traditions, which he dubs the 'perennial philosophy', a name that immediately alludes to figures like Guenon and Coomaraswamy, some of whom are cited here. Also impressive are citations to Ramakrishna and Aurobindo; Huxley was, after all, involved with the Vedanta Societies of his time and wrote the preface to the first translation of Ramakrishna's Kathamrita: this is a side of the author of Brave New World which is not very well known.

The perennial philosophy is built on a recognition of the Impersonal Absolute said to be the ultimate deity behind all the (idolatrous) deities worshipped by the world, and hence ultimately reaffirms a worship of the Holy Spirit in all religious traditions. Devotees of personal gods would, obviously, not agree with Huxley, so the extent to which he can claim universalism is suspicious.

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."

I think one of the best books ever written. Covers the Godhead in all it's human imaginary manifestations. For anyone that wants to think of God/religion in a universal human mysterious sense.