Firstly, I subscribe to the ideas contained within the perennial philosophy. I've read Huxley's book on the topic twice.
One criticism I have of Huxley here is that seems to be (to some extent at least) cherry picking extracts from Saints/Mystics/Enlightened Ones.
For example, there are many mystical saints within the Catholic Church who hold quite dogmatic (and I would say harmful) beliefs. Padre Pio was a man who appears to meet all the criteria of a mystic. He had a love, a humility, and a selflessness unmatched by most - at least from what I know of him. Yet, he seemed to have a very legalistic doctrinaire apporach to religion. He subscribed to all that nonsense about needing to be baptised or you go to hell forever. He even appeard to claim that some of these ideas he got through his direct encounters with God. For example, he claimed that he saw someone known to him in hell. There are many more examples like this - it's even found in "inspired" literature everywhere.
I’ve been reading Aldous Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy and it is exquisite! What other authors or texts contain a similar topic or express ideas on such a philosophy?
I'm curious about this sub's opinion on this debate since it seems to straddle the line between Post-structural philosophy and Mystical speculation
The idea of the Perennial Philosophy, as popularized by Aldous Huxley and many of his contemporaries, while still big in pop culture is extremely unpopular with contemporary anthropologists/social scientists. Perennialism assumes that mystical (or transpersonal) experiences have at their core a common phenomenal nature which can be found across multiple cultures. It has been described variously as the loss of sense of indivuated self, a sense of monism/unity and ineffability and experience (sometimes termed 'pure consciousness') which appears to transcend the mental constructs of language and culture.
Most anthropologists like Steven Katz have rejected this idea. They tend to prefer a constructivist view that there is no "universal" nature to mystical experience because mystical experience (along with all human experience) is largely mediated by ones own specific culture and language. In other words it rejects the mystical claim of "pure consciousness" and that one can have an experience without the mediation of language and culture. It also (unsurprisingly) rejects the universality of the concept of that many mystics refer to as "ultimate reality."
I am not a religious person in the sense that most people understand it, if I were to say "I'm religious" or "I'm spiritual". That said, I do believe there are higher, or at least other, levels of consciousness which human beings are capable of experiencing. It seems completely logical to me, even absent any deeper meaning or God or whatever you want to call it. We are working on proving all basic forces are really different manifestations of the same underlying force (e.g. string theory). I see no reason that "consciousness" could not be yet another manifestation which we simply understand very little about. Or which is perhaps unique in its independence.
Aldous Huxley, one of the forefathers of the hippy/psychadelic movement of the 60s and 70s, writes in "The Perennial Philosophy" that all major religions, once stripped of all their clatter and clutter, teach the same things:
There is an underlying reality to the one which we percieve - an immanent and transcendant Ground of Reality.
All life is a manifestation of this Ground.
The goal of life is to realize and experience this eternal Ground.
If you read any religous document, or religious philosophy, Eastern or Western, and keep this perennial philosophy in mind, it rings true. Many great minds, deeply religious, but in very different religions and circumstances, describe union with this eternal Ground in almost identical manners.
Ancient Buddhists and Hindus treated religion very much like a science of the mind, experimenting with deep meditation, recording their findings and refining their techniques.
Getting to my point, as a science minded person, I find it extremely difficult to just wholesale write off the massive amount of evidence in the form of first hand accounts, from all over the world, over thousands of years, that all say there is more to reality than we percieve, and that we are all connected by it.
I guess my question is for those who would say that's all complete nonsense - how do you so easily discredit so many great minds?
It just seems shortsighted to me. Thousands, hell, millions of people have dedicated their lives to trying to get beyond thought and peek at what is there. And they all say there is something. Yet most people I know are absolutely confident in their belief that flesh and bone is all we are. Why?
....as written about by Alduous Huxley, the Traditional School, certain Hindus, etc.,essentially "philosophy and spirituality that views all of the world's religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical truth or origin."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs3Vj1LYPvI&t=976s&ab_channel=PerennialStudies
Asalaamu aleykum,
To all those who are going to go straight to the comments, I would request that you don't comment until you watch at least some of the video. Barak'Allahu Feekum.
The basic idea of the Perennial Philosophy is that there are certain universal truths common to all cultures and systems of knowledge. The German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz first used the term in this sense, when he defined it as the eternal philosophy that underlies all religions. The term, further refined by twentieth-century philosopher Aldous Huxley, has come to mean the most basic and everlasting universal truths sensed by all human beings. In other words, down through history, people in many different cultures and times have experienced similar feelings about the nature of reality and the meaning of existence. Differences arise only when some authority attempts to control or adapt these basic ideas into a rigid system of behavior.
In this view, the world’s nations and religions are constantly fighting each other over minor, cultural variations in the same basic belief system. Unlike dogmatic religion, which encourages these petty sectarian disputes, the Perennial Philosophy states that there are as many roads to God as there are people in the world. The three fundamental tenets of alchemy and the Perennial Philosophy of which it is part are:
-
The material world is not the only reality. Another hidden level of reality exists that determines our existence. The physical world is a shadow or projection of a higher reality that cannot be grasped by the senses. Only the higher faculties of the human mind and spirit can perceive it.
-
The basic duality of material versus nonmaterial realities is mirrored in human beings. Our material body is subject to the physical laws of birth and death; our nonmaterial body (called soul or spirit) is not subject to decay or loss and carries the essence of who we are. This divine energy at the heart of everything is known as the Quintessence, the Fifth Element, in alchemy, or the life force in most other traditions.
-
All human beings possess the capacity to perceive these separate levels of reality, both in themselves and in nature, but we are taught to ignore the subtle clues to this greater reality. The perception and application of this ultimate truth is the goal of human beings and the purpose of our existence.
What makes alchemy different from other mystical systems that are part of the Perennial Philosophy is that alchemy attempts to apply this wisdom in practical ways in the everyday world. No other discipline has taken such a down-to-earth and in-your-face approach to working with these mystical pri
... keep reading on reddit ➡I finished it recently, and it most accurately expresses my own spirituality more than anything else I've read, besides Rumi. It's a masterpiece. I would love to find more like it, but such gems seem few and far between. Any suggestions?
In Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy, he goes to great lengths to demonstrate the common themes which are present in religions across the planet, and tie them together into what he terms the perennial philosophy. Huxley believes that throughout history a few humans, such as Buddha and Christ, have come in contact with a similar experience which he calls divine Reality. He makes no claims about the existence or non-existence of God, the morals of religion, or anything other than this shared experience and its implications. Essentially, the divine Reality is a direct, enormously significant encounter with the underlying nature of the universe. It is a knowledge of the preciousness of existence, the purity of life, and the interconnectedness of all things - along with this comes an understanding of our true selves and our relationship to the universe.
The question I pose to you: is it possible that there is an experience which is so rare, so impossible to put into words or rationalize, that those few people to have witnessed it have been misinterpreted as Gods or prophets by those who have not? And, if this experience is valid, can it coexist alongside rationalism, despite the fact that rationality has no way to fit it into its narrative?
I'm interested to hear your thoughts. I expect few of you will be impressed by the prospect of such a realization, but that's why I ask.
At its core, Capitalism is not a “worldview” or even a “philosophy”, but rather the natural state of human transaction. Certainly since the 1700s in western Europeans come have come to revere this phenomenon, and naming it “capitalism” as opposed to feudalism, communism, etc. Markets, pricing, value, and risk have always been present however, whether whether or not they have the blessing of the regime of the day.
- Ancient Africans bartered services in exchange for goods (or cowrie shells) under numerous kingdoms/tribal regimes
- The silk road that crossed Eurasia was essentially a free market, with various marginal restrictions on commerce depending on which kingdom you found yourself in
- Even in restricted command economies, people will trade goods/services in black markets. Where prices vary based on value, risk, scarcity, etc
- Markets are not a human invention, rather they are a natural phenomenon of how people interact with their material world and each other
Any talk of Capitalism as a philosophy assumes that it is a trend which was invented recently, and can one day disappear/be repealed, or molded.
Maybe I’m confusing “markets” with “Capitalism”? But a world consisting of goods and services exchanged for a variable price is a natural feature of human life.
Molinos distinguished three degrees of silence - silence of the mouth, silence of the mind, and silence of the will. To refrain from idle talk is hard; to quiet the gibbering of memory and imagination is much harder; hardest of all is to still the voices of craving and aversion within the will.
The twentieth century is, among other things, the Age of Noise. Physical noise, mental noise, and noise of desire - we hold history's record for all of them. And no wonder, for all the resources of our almost miraculous technology have been thrown into the current assault against silence. The most popular and influential of all recent inventions, the radio, is nothing but a conduit through which pre-fabricated din can flow into our homes. And this din goes far deeper, of course, than ear-drums. It penetrates the mind, filling it with a babel 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 enemas. And where, as in most countries, the broadcasting stations support themselves by selling time to advertisers, the noise is carried from the ears, through the realms of phantasy, knowledge and feeling to the ego's central core of wish and desire. Spoken or printed, broadcast over the ether or on wood-pulp, all advertising copy has but one purpose - to prevent the will from ever achieving silence. Desirelessness is the condition of deliverance and illumination. The condition of an expanding and technologically progressive system of mass production is universal craving. Advertising is the organized effort to extend and intensify craving - to extend and intensify, that is to say, the workings of that force, which (as all saints and teachers of all the higher religions have always taught) is the principal cause of suffering and wrong-doing and the greatest obstacle between the human soul and its Divine Ground.
In short, perennial philosophy argues that all religious traditions are the product of a single shared origin (you could call this origin metaphysical like Wikipedia does but I feel like that term is too loaded).
Obviously the development of zen is not typical of religious traditions, but as a student of Western theology and philosophy I have noticed some rhetorical similarity between the zen masters I read about on this subreddit, and the writings of certain mystics in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
While these mystical traditions are far less developed in each of their respective religions than zen is within Buddhism, I personally feel that they provide some similar insights.
I’m also sensitive to the criticism that the perennialist perspective tends to oversimplify the specifics of the traditions it compares, and I don’t wish to fall victim to this myself.
I have opinions and arguments of my own about this, and more usefully I could name some specific thinkers who express these ideas with more clarity. But if you’re inclined please leave a comment letting me know your thoughts about this general idea
Perennial Philosophy is a term coined by Leibniz meaning eternal DIVINE REALITY. That there is something in the soul(or the soul itself) similar to, or even identical with, divine reality. And this reality is immemorial and universal. The perennial philosophy is primarily concerned with the one, divine Reality, substantial to the manifold world of things and lives and minds.
Check out the series 👉Perennial Philosophy
Every individual being, from atom up to the most highly organized of living bodies, may be thought of as a point where a ray of the primordial Godhead meets one of the differentiated, creaturely emanations of that same Godhead’s creative energy. Now since the creature lacks the intelligence to discover the nature of the divine Ground of its being, it is very far from God, but the creature in its eternal essence is one of the infinite number of points where divine Reality is wholly and eternally present. Because of this, rational beings can come to the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA82L-MCYIM
What is God? What is Consciousness? These are fundamental questions anyone will come across at some point in their spiritual or philosophical quest. To some, God is a being watching their every move. To others, a mythological symbol. Others argue that god could be consciousness itself. God also means different things to different stages of consciousness. What does God mean to you?
Perennial Philosophy is a term coined by Leibniz meaning eternal DIVINE REALITY. That there is something in the soul(or the soul itself) similar to, or even identical with, divine reality. And this reality is immemorial and universal. The perennial philosophy is primarily concerned with the one, divine Reality, substantial to the manifold world of things and lives and minds.
Check the series 👉Perennial Philosophy
