I need something more nihilistic

Huxley basically reads selections from different religious books and religious thinkers and adds some of his own commentary. Add in some majorly weird claims (Huxley tells us that "No one can seriously claim that psychic powers aren't real!") and you end up with something that didn't really do anything for me.

For someone looking for interesting sources of comparative religion that really make you think I would send them toward Alan Watts over this any day.

I read this years ago (around 2003-4) and remember liking it a lot. I was remembering it because a passage from it is quoted in Back to the Truth by Dennis Waite, which I'm reading now.

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 excerpts from the myriad of texts were wisely chosen and fit the chapter topics and provided a jumping of point for further exploration.

From Zen to Christianity, Buddhism to Islam, Christ to Rummi, and all religions and philosophies in between, Huxley provides an great introduction to the underlying stream of commonality linking us all together in the greater whole of the universe. A thread that has stitched the saints and prophets throughout the ages and presents us with such a simple path that is oh so difficult to follow. The annihilation of self, the achievement of charity and the ultimate path of existence; it is in here.

This book is not a light read by any means and it forces one to take a long hard look at life. My hat is off to Huxley, that it is. Read it!

This book is dense, but well worth the effort to finish. I read it in very small chunks (2-3 pages a day) over period of a few months. It opened my eyes to the nature of religion, spirituality, and humanity in ways that I will be contemplating for a long time to come.

The n  Perennial:n 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 divine Ground and of the world conceived as its manifestation. For the present, therefore, we must be patient with the linguistic eccentricities of those who are compelled to describe one order of experience in terms of a symbol-system, whose relevance is to the facts of another and quite different order.

I have a special shelf in my library where I place the sacred books such as the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible or the Sutras; I shall place this book very near to it.

The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God, as if He stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge. — Eckhart

Charmingly, fascinatingly terrible. Really more of an antique piece at this point, a perfect encapsulation of the tedious synthesis found in various books from the 1950s and 1960s (see also Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, etc.). This synthesis invariably consists of:

(1) always, first and foremost, anti-Christian animus, though the authors typically try to extract Eckhart and whichever other 'spiritual' writers that can be plausibly removed from the tradition and made vaguely Buddhist

(2) a surface-level understanding of religious history

(3) pop psychology / self-help platitudes

(4) a shallow infatuation with Eastern religion (which is so 'exotic' and non-Western! and therefore good!)

(5) weak 'analysis' of terrible English translations of religious texts

(6) various arguments that always add up to the laziest and most shallow sort of moral therapeutic deism, i.e. 'spiritual but not religious,' 'all religions are really the same,' etc., playing with religious concepts and never actually recommending or enacting any sort of disciplined or serious religious practice



The thing about perennialism is that its adherents have no path to sainthood, no path to Enlightenment. All religions are really the same, therefore just doing whatever you were already doing is sufficient -- which is very convenient! (Huxley's own path involved, apparently, ingesting lots of psilocybin and taking it easy.) Paradoxically, nothing is more opposed to the message of all religions than "truth is just a few vague propositions, you don't need to change who you are, just live how you like and be generically nice to people." When postmodern perennialism starts producing saints then maybe I'll start paying more attention.

I thought this book was incredibly impressive. It's deeply philosophical and very religious. It had more than a couple of quotes in there which got me thinking of things that I've never thought of before. That's probably the biggest accolade I can give to that book. Don't wanna say too much myself so here are the best bits:

Two of the recorded anecdotes about this Sufi saint deserved to be quoted here. When bayazid was asked how old he was he replied: four years. They said how can that be? He answered: I have been veiled from God by the world for 70 years but I have seen him during the last four years. During the time in which one is veiled does not belong to one's life. On another occasion someone knocked at the Saints door and cried is bayazid there. Bayazid answered: is anybody here except God?

Man he declared in his famous thesis is a fallen being incapable of good unless united to the divine light.

Among the maoris for example every human being is regarded as a compound of four elements: a divine eternal principle, known as toiora, an ego which disappears at death, a ghost shadow or psyche, which survives death: and finally a body.

Nobody has yet invented a spiritual calculus in which we may talk coherently about the divine ground and of the world conceived as its manifestation. For the present therefore we must be patient with the linguistic eccentricity's of those who are compelled to describe one order of experience in terms of a symbol system whose relevance is to the facts of another and quite different order.

What is man? An Angel an animal a void a world and nothing surrounded by God, indigent of God, capable of God, filled with God if it so desires. This quote is by Berulle.

The saint is one who knows but every moment of our human life is a moment of crisis for every moment we are called upon to make an all important decision: to choose between the way that leads to death and spiritual darkness and the way that leads towards the light and life.

What we do depends in large measure upon what we think, and if what we do is evil there is good empirical reason for supposing that our thought patterns are inadequate to material mental or spiritual reality.

More systematically perhaps than any other religion the Buddhism of the Far East teaches the way to spiritual knowledge in its fullness as well as in its heights in and through the world as well as in and through the soul. In this context we may point to this highly significant fact which is that the incomparable landscape painting of China and Japan was essentially a religious art inspired by Taoism and Zen Buddhism. In Europe on the contrary landscape painting and the poetry of nature worship were secular arts which arose when Christianity was in decline in derived little or no inspiration from Christian ideals.

You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself flows in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars, and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world and more so because men are in it who are every one soul as well as you are. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God as misers do in gold and kings do in sceptre's you can never enjoy the world.

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. It is the paradise of God. It is more to man since he is fallen than it was before. It is the palace of angels and the gates of heaven.

Metanoia as the Greeks called it, is the total and radical change of mind.

For example has the ability to travel in 12 hours from New York to Los Angeles given more pleasure to the human race than the dropping of bombs and fire has given pain? There is no known method of computing the amount of felicity or goodness in the world at large. What is obvious however is that the advantages accruing from recent technological advances or in Greek phraseology from recent acts of hubris directed against nature are generally accompanied by corresponding disadvantages that gains in One Direction until losses in another and that we never get something except for something.

I did not ask where perfection lies. But how to attain it. Charity he said again that is both the means and the end the only way by which we can reach that perfection which is after all but charity itself. Just as the soul is the life of the body so charity is the life of the soul.

When the spring dries up the fish are all together on dry land. They then moisten each other with their dampness and keep each other wet with their slime but this is not to be compared with forgetting each other in a river or a lake. The slime of personal and emotional love is remotely similar to the water of the godhead spiritual being but of inferior quality and precisely because the love is emotional and therefore personal of insufficient quantity.

With mass production and mass distribution go mass financing and the three have conspired to expropriate ever increasing numbers of small owners of land and productive equipment thus reducing the sum of freedom among the majority and increasing the power of a minority to exercise a coercive control over the lives of their fellow men. For modern war cannot be waged except by countries with an overdeveloped capital goods industry, countries in which economic power is wielded either by the state or by a few monopolistic corporations which it is easy to tax and if necessary temporarily to nationalize. Countries where the laboring masses being without property or rootless easily transferable from one place to another highly regimented by factory discipline.

Suppose a boat is crossing a river and another boat an empty one is about to collide with it. Even an irritable man would not lose his temper but suppose there was someone in the second boat. Then the occupant of the first boat would shout to him to keep it clear. If he did not hear the first time nor even when called 2/3 times bad language would inevitably follow. In the first case there was no anger in the second case there was because in the first case the boat was empty in the second case it was occupied. And so it is with man. If you could only pass empty through life who would be able to injure you.

When the heart weeps for what it is lost, the spirit laughs for what it has found.

In practice the command to become as little children is identical with command to lose one's life. One cannot know created nature in all its essential sacred beauty unless one first learns The Dirty devices of adult humanity.

It is only when we have renounced our preoccupation with I, me, mine that we can truly possess the world in which we live. Everything is ours provided that we regard nothing as our property and not only is everything ours it is also everybody else’s as well.

Among advanced educationists there are many people who seem to think that all will be well so long as adolescents are permitted to express themselves and small children are encouraged to be creative in the arts classes. But plasticine and self expression will not solve the problems of education. Nor will technology and vocational guidance nor the classics and the 100 best books. He knows nothing as he ought to know who thinks he knows anything without seeing its place and the manner in how it relates to God angels and man and to all the creatures in earth heaven and hell time and eternity.

The fact that human nature is tripartite consisting of a spirit as well as of mind and body, the fact that we live on the borderline between two worlds: the temporal and the eternal.

A drunken man who falls out of a cart though he may suffer does not die. His bones are the same as other peoples, but he meets his accident in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not conscious of riding in the car: neither is he conscious of falling out of it at. Ideas of life death fear and the light cannot penetrate his breast: and so he does not suffer from contact with objective existence. If such security is to be got from wine how much more is it to be got from God? Wow.

Thus in many Buddhist societies the manufacture of arms the concoction of intoxicating drinks and the wholesale purveying of butchers meat were not as in contemporary Christianity rewarded by wealth and political influence: they were deployed as businesses which it was thought made it particularly difficult for their practitioners and for other members of the communities in which they were practiced to achieve enlightenment and liberation. Similarly in medieval Europe Christians were forbidden to make a living by the taking of interest on money or by cornering the market. It was only after the Reformation that coupon clipping, usury, and gambling in stocks and commodities became respectable and received ecclesiastical approval.

The history of all the religions is similar in one important respect: some of their adherents are enlightened and delivered because they have chosen to react appropriately to the words which the founders have let fall: others achieve a partial salvation by reacting with partial appropriateness: yet others harm themselves and their fellows by reacting with the total inappropriateness: either ignoring the words altogether or more often, taking them too seriously and treating them as though they were identical with the fact to which they refer.

Up then noble soul! Put on by jumping shoes which are intellect and love and over leap the worship of the mental powers, over leap thine understanding and spring into the heart of God into his hiddenness where thou art hidden from all creatures.

God however is not a thing or event in time and the time bound words which cannot do justice even to temporal matters or even more inadequate to the intrinsic nature and our own unitive experience of that which belongs to an incommensurably different order.

Because technology advances we fancy that we are making corresponding progress all along the line: because we have considerable power over inanimate nature we are convinced that we are the self sufficient masters of our fate and captains of our souls and because cleverness has given us technology and power we believe in spite of all the evidence to the contrary that we only have to go on being yet cleverer in a yet more systematic way to achieve social order, international peace and personal happiness. Sunny: how can you call it progress if you don’t know the direction you are going in?

For knowledge is in the knower according to the mode of the knower.

The popular philosophy of life has ceased to be based on the classics of devotion and the rules of aristocratic good breeding and is now molded by the writers of advertising copy whose one idea is to persuade everybody to be as extroverted and uninhabitably greedy as possible since of course it is only the possessive the restless the distracted who spend money on the things that advertisers want to sell. Technological progress is in part the product of the somatotonic revolution in part the producer and sustainer of that revolution.

In other living creatures ignorance of self is nature in man it is vice.

The displacement of fear by charity: fear cannot be got rid of by personal effort but only by the ego's absorption in a cause greater than its own interests. Absorption in any cause will rid the mind of some of its fears but only absorption and the loving and knowing of the divine ground can rid it of all fear.

You are as holy as you will to be.

The city of God is made by the love of God pushed to the contempt of self: the earthly city by the love of self pushed to the contempt of God.

It seems to be abundantly clear that most of the religions and philosophies which take time too seriously are correlated with political theories that inculcate and justify the use of large scale violence. The only exceptions are those simple epicurean faiths in which the reaction to an all too real time is: eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we will die.

Benares is to the east, Mecca to the West but explore your own heart for in there are both Rama and Allah.

Buddhism accepts the doctrine of reincarnation but it is not a soul that passes on, Buddhism denies the existence of a soul: it is the character. What we choose to make of our mental and physical constitution in the course of our life on earth affects the psychic medium within which individual minds lead part at least of their amphibious existence and this modification of the medium results after the body's death in the initiation of a new existence either in heaven or purgatory or another body.

The most popular and influential of all our recent inventions, the radio, is nothing but a conjurer through which prefabricated din can flow into our homes. And this din goes far deeper of course than the eardrums. It penetrates the mind filling it with a Babble of distractions news items, mutually irrelevant bits of information, blasts of Corybantic, or sentimental music continually repeated doses of drama that bring no catharsis but merely create a craving for daily or even hourly emotional anemas.

This is a very general belief that way gadgets are concerned we can get something for nothing: can enjoy all the advantages of an elaborate top heavy and constantly advancing technology without having to pay for them by any compensating disadvantages.

Fanaticism is idolatry and it has the moral evil of idolatry in it: that is, a fanatic worships something which is the creation of his own desire and thus even his self devotion in support of it is only an apparent self devotion: for in fact it is making the parts of his nature or his mind which he least values offer sacrificed to that which he most values. The moral fault as it appears to me is the idolatry the setting up of some idea which is most kindred to our own minds and there putting it in the place of Christ, who alone cannot be made an idol and inspire idolatry because he combines all ideas of perfection and exhibits them in their just harmony and combination.

There is another disadvantage inherent in our system of organized sacramentalism, it is that it gives to the priestly cast of power which is all too natural for them to abuse.

Furthermore it may happen that if the word is simply repeated all whole and not broken up or undone by a discursive analysis the fact for which the word stands will end up presenting itself to the soul in the form of an integral intuition. When this happens the doors of the letters of this world are opened to use the language of the sufis and the soul passes through into reality.

Finally there is the exercise much employed in India which consists in dispassionately examining the distractions as they arise and in tracing them back through the memory of particular thoughts feelings and actions to their origins in temperament and character constitution and acquired habit. This procedure reveals to the soul the true reasons for its separation from the divine ground of its being.

Be patient with everyone but above all with yourself. I mean do not be disheartened by your imperfections but always rise up with fresh courage. I am glad you have made a fresh beginning daily there is no better means of attaining to the spiritual life then by continually beginning again and never thinking that we have done enough. How are we to be patient in bearing with our neighbors faults, if we are impatient in bearing with our own? Who is fretted by his own failings will not correct them, all profitable correction comes from a calm and peaceful mind.

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!

حکمت جاودان" فلسفه ای در پرتو سکوت روشنی بخش"

هاکسلی در دهه های 40 و 50 از آنجا كه شیفتگی خاصی به زندگی معنوی پیدا كرده بود و به ویژه به رابطه بین انسان و الوهیت می اندیشید ، به خواندن بخش عظیمی از نوشته های عرفا و فرزانگان جهان از بودا ، مولوی و خواجه عبدالله انصاری گرفته تا اكهارت و سنت آگوستین پرداخت و سپس به تدوین منتخبی از این آثار همت گماشت و آن را با نام فلسفه جاودان خرد در 1945 منتشر كرد.

عقل و حکمت زیاد همانقدر بد است که عقل و حکمت کم
. انسان باید بیاموزد که راهى براى بودن در این جهان پیدا کند در عین حال که از این جهان نیست. راهها براى زیستن در زمان بدون آنکه زمان او را در کام خود فرو بلعد. ما گمان مى کنیم که خود را به درستى مى شناسیم و مى دانیم که هستیم و چه باید بکنیم ولى با وجود این افکارمان را تجربیات بى واسطه زیستى مان در این کره خاکى تعیین مى کنند . به عبارت دیگر فکر برده و فرمانبردار زندگى است. زندگى هم برده زمان است از این حیث که دم به دم تغییر مى کند تغییر دنیاى بیرون و درون، به طورى که ما هرگز در دو لحظه یکسان نمى مانیم. فکر را زندگى تعیین مى کند و شکل مى بخشد و زندگى را هم زمان گذرنده. اما سلطه زمان مطلق نیست زیرا سرانجام ، زمان هم توقفى دارد، به دو معنى: یک توقف از دیدگاه مسیحى که شکسپیر براساس آن دیدگاه قلم مى زد. زمان لاجرم در نقطه اى متوقف مى شود در روز داورى، روز رستاخیز.
اما زمان در فکر و ذهن فرد هم توقفگاهى دارد آنگاه که انسان مى آموزد حس و مقام بى زمانى و معنى ابدیت را در خود بپروراند.

به اعتقاد هاکسلى در بنیان عالم هستى و در پشت همه ظواهر امرى الهى قرار دارد. این مبدأ واحد الهى در عین حال که فراتر و منزه از عالم است در آن حضور هم دارد. هاکسلى بر آن است که ما درکى ولو مبهم از این وحدت و بنیان الهى داریم. تقرب به این وجود الهى امکانپذیر است. هدف و غایت اصلى زندگى انسان همین است که به وصال برسد اما براى این کار راهى را باید پیمود. با خودخواهى و خودمحورى و خودپرستى نمى توان این راه را پیمود. هرچه انانیت و من (I) بیشتر باشد حضور بنیاد وجود کمتر است. فقط با سیطره بر نفس و تواضع و شفقت و نفع ناپرستى پیشه کردن مى توان این راه را طى کرد. از آنجا که مردم نخواسته اند این راه به رستگارى را طى کنند تاریخ بشر چنین سیرى داشته است. آنها مى گویند که چرا نباید درپى هدفهاى شخصى خود باشند و روزگار خوشى داشته باشند. هاکسلى مى گوید آنها وقت خوش خود را پیدا مى کنند اما به ناگزیر به جنگ و انقلاب و الکلیسم و استبداد هم رو مى آورند و به یأس و ناامیدى هم مى رسند.

اما تاریخ گواه آن است که مردان و زنانى بوده اند که تن به مخاطره دادند و با اطمینان قلبى سعى کردند بنیان الهى وجود را بشناسند و به او تقرب بجویند. «در سیرو سلوکى طولانى به همان چیزى مى رسیم که در جست وجویش هستیم.»

هاکسلى معتقد بود شواهد فراوانى وجود دارد که برخى از مردم که هیچ فرق بارزى با دیگران جز از این حیث عرفانى ندارند، تجربه هایى روشن از وجود الهى و حیات معنوى داشته اند و به خدا تقرب پیدا کرده اند. به نظر هاکسلى دو راه وجود دارد: یا خودمان را منحصراً با منیت و خواسته هاى تماماً فردیمان یکى بپنداریم و عملاً خدا را در زندگى مان نادیده بگیریم یا به خدایى که در درون و برونمان هست روى بیاوریم و زندگى اخلاقى و پارسایانه اى پیشه کنیم. البته وضع سومى هم وجود دارد وضع کسانى که در میان زندگى خودمدارانه و زندگى خدامحورانه در نوسان و تردد هستند گاه خودخواه و نفس پرست مى شوند گاه متواضع و شریف و مشفق. به هر روى هاکسلى براین عقیده است که انسان تنها با سیر و سلوک در طریق پارسایى و زندگى قدیسانه به خرسندى و هدف اصلى خویش در زندگى نائل مى شود.

هاکسلى در ادامه مى گوید خودسازى و خودپرورى در سطح غیرکلامى قدمتى به اندازه خود تمدن دارد. «آرام باش و بدان که من خدا هستم.» براى اهل بصیرت و عرفاى همه زمانها و مکانها این اولین و بزرگترین فرمانها بوده است. شاعران به الاهگان غیبى خود گوش مى سپردند و به همین نحو اهل بصیرت و عارفان در وضعیت انفعال خردمندانه و خاموشى پویا، از الهامات الهى برخوردار مى شدند. در سکوت و خاموشى ذهنى ـ روانى مى توانیم حقیقت وجودمان را نظاره کنیم.
نقل از بلاگ
https://www.bartarinha.ir/fa/news/428...

مطالعه مقاله ای زیبا از استاد ملکیان درباره سکوت جاودان هاکسلی
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

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.

I think there are a few prerequisites in order to really understand this book. This sounds like an ego boost, which it can probably be and one should be aware of that, but then again every complex book needs a reader who’s not entirely new to the topic (or learns really fast).

1. You need to have thought deeply about the universe for quite some time and contemplated the ineffable mystery of existence and consciousness because that’s what the core of all the ancient teachings is about.

2. It’s advantageous to have some experience with the practice of mindfulness in general, because the quieter the mind, the more focus there will be in awareness. This is directly connected to the “amount of awareness” about the mystery of existence and consciousness. That’s why all sages and prophets have always taught mindfulness in some form.


3. It’s advantageous to like spending time alone, because deep contemplation, which is needed to really understand the core concept of the Perennial Philosophy, requires a lot of time and silence.
Furthermore the illusion of the ego will be less used in solitude, due to the missing conversations with others.


4. At last it’s of an advantage if you have some experience with altered states of consciousness, wether it be through deep meditation, breathing techniques or psychedelic substances.
Meditation and psychedelics both reduce the activity in the Default Mode Network, which is responsible for thoughts about the self and what Buddhists would call the monkey mind.

I had a few mystical experiences (although this sentence doesn’t make any sense because there was no “I” anymore when the experience was had) with psychedelics and meditation this summer, and besides other classics like the Bhagavad Gita this book was the perfect Work to integrate and really understand the experience.


Another great thing about this book is that it clears the myth that religion is about believing in superstition.
Religion has absolutely nothing to do with believing in superstition (in fact, this corruption comes from turning to god before turning from the illusion of the self), it’s more about being deeply aware of the ineffable mystery of existence and consciousness and living that awareness not only in solitary contemplation, but in everyday life through mindfulness and charity.


So, would I recommend this book to everyone? Yes, but no. I’d recommend it to everyone who can either check on the requirements (and I really don’t want that to sound elitist, it’s just likely that the concepts are too abstract if no thought was spend on the strangeness of existence and the reader will be bored and irritated by it) or to those who are currently starting to go the path of practicing contemplation and mindfulness. Although then there are probably easier books to start with, for example „Become what you are“ from Alan Watts.