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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
slow-paced
tl;dr A dense anthology of approaches for attaining unitive knowledge of the transcendent Ground of all being for the Universalists out there.
I originally approached The Perennial Philosophy because I saw a passage of it quoted in another book — it was a mini-rant that Huxley indulges in about the cultists for the religion of progress. He rails against the way that nationalism, revolutionism, and an obsession with technological progress (what he calls "acts of hubris directed against Nature) gets in the way of man's pursuit of God.
Ker-POW! When I looked into the book further I found something that seemed to be to my taste.
To wit, Huxley is a Universalist. Citing philosophers in the Taoist, Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu and Christian faiths, he makes the case that all faiths are but human attempts to approach the same ultimate goal of humanity: knowledge of and unity with the divine Ground, which some might call God.
I don't know that I would quite call it anthology, because although it leans heavily on excerpts from philosophers to a great degree, Huxley is using them for a purpose. He wants to sweep away the legalism and idolatry that creep into established religions over time and lays out a road map for spiritual — instead of merely material — progress.
For Huxley, that means abolishing the ego to open one's mind to God. The approach to take is different for everybody, according to one's temperament. For born contemplatives like myself (a cerebrotonic in Huxley's reckoning), introversion can be helpful in trying to approach the infinite, but action is needed as well. Not just prayer, either, but acts of absolution that put moral belief into moral action. For others, it's the opposite — halting perpetual action to contemplate one's place in relation to the infinite of which we are all a part.
There are tons of great pearls of wisdom to be sifted through, and I look forward to going back and re-reading all the quotes I highlighted in my Kindle.
From a critical standpoint, I will say that the book does not read terribly smoothly. It took me six weeks to read 300 some odd pages. I suppose it's the nature of the problem — words are such inadequate symbols when you're trying to describe the soul's relation to the Godhead (even writing that now sounds ridiculous), that The Perennial Philosophy really requires your undivided attention to understand clearly. And even then, Huxley will occasionally move from reality-quaking truth to vague blathering about psychic energies and extra-sensory perception, so you have to remember to keep your skeptic hat on. This was written in 1944 after all.
I don't know whether and to whom I might recommend the book in the future, but I am definitely glad for having read it. At least for a little while, it might be the prod I need to emerge from my head a bit and experience the world in the moment. That may be endorsement enough.
I originally approached The Perennial Philosophy because I saw a passage of it quoted in another book — it was a mini-rant that Huxley indulges in about the cultists for the religion of progress. He rails against the way that nationalism, revolutionism, and an obsession with technological progress (what he calls "acts of hubris directed against Nature) gets in the way of man's pursuit of God.
"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!"
Ker-POW! When I looked into the book further I found something that seemed to be to my taste.
To wit, Huxley is a Universalist. Citing philosophers in the Taoist, Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu and Christian faiths, he makes the case that all faiths are but human attempts to approach the same ultimate goal of humanity: knowledge of and unity with the divine Ground, which some might call God.
"The divine Ground of all existence is a spiritual Absolute, ineffable in terms of discursive thought, but (in certain circumstances) susceptible of being directly experienced and realized by the human being. This Absolute is the God-without-form of Hindu and Christian mystical phraseology. The last end of man, the ultimate reason for human existence, is unitive knowledge of the divide 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."
I don't know that I would quite call it anthology, because although it leans heavily on excerpts from philosophers to a great degree, Huxley is using them for a purpose. He wants to sweep away the legalism and idolatry that creep into established religions over time and lays out a road map for spiritual — instead of merely material — progress.
For Huxley, that means abolishing the ego to open one's mind to God. The approach to take is different for everybody, according to one's temperament. For born contemplatives like myself (a cerebrotonic in Huxley's reckoning), introversion can be helpful in trying to approach the infinite, but action is needed as well. Not just prayer, either, but acts of absolution that put moral belief into moral action. For others, it's the opposite — halting perpetual action to contemplate one's place in relation to the infinite of which we are all a part.
There are tons of great pearls of wisdom to be sifted through, and I look forward to going back and re-reading all the quotes I highlighted in my Kindle.
From a critical standpoint, I will say that the book does not read terribly smoothly. It took me six weeks to read 300 some odd pages. I suppose it's the nature of the problem — words are such inadequate symbols when you're trying to describe the soul's relation to the Godhead (even writing that now sounds ridiculous), that The Perennial Philosophy really requires your undivided attention to understand clearly. And even then, Huxley will occasionally move from reality-quaking truth to vague blathering about psychic energies and extra-sensory perception, so you have to remember to keep your skeptic hat on. This was written in 1944 after all.
I don't know whether and to whom I might recommend the book in the future, but I am definitely glad for having read it. At least for a little while, it might be the prod I need to emerge from my head a bit and experience the world in the moment. That may be endorsement enough.
What to say about this book. It was not easy to get through to be honest and there's a lot of pretty out there metaphysics to wade through to get to the nuggets of wisdom. But the nuggets are certainly there, and as a time capsule it is fascinating. Huxley's critiques of modernism and advertising are pretty poignant given that he saw his time as one of excess commercialism and obsession with the self, keeping in mind this was in the 1940's, and we've only dumped gasoline on that fire in the time since.
As a reformed atheist, I did have to tamp down my skepticism every time god was mentioned (which not shockingly is a lot). But I found if I replaced it with something like "the oneness of the universe" or "the connectedness of all things" (which I don't think is too far from how Huxley saw God) I could get much more into it.
Overall, very interesting, but pretty dry. I'll leave one passage here that I thought was particularly great:
"Molinos (and doubtless he was not the first to use this classification) 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. That 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 the 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 woodpulp, 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 the 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."
As a reformed atheist, I did have to tamp down my skepticism every time god was mentioned (which not shockingly is a lot). But I found if I replaced it with something like "the oneness of the universe" or "the connectedness of all things" (which I don't think is too far from how Huxley saw God) I could get much more into it.
Overall, very interesting, but pretty dry. I'll leave one passage here that I thought was particularly great:
"Molinos (and doubtless he was not the first to use this classification) 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. That 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 the 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 woodpulp, 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 the 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."
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
Lost interest, too dated and verbose
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.
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.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
If I were an accomplished academic or spiritual leader, I would give this book five stars, because it’s clear how much work went into its making. Huxley integrates hundreds of quotations by the most significant leaders in mystical Christianity and Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism, and highlights the common threads between these spiritual traditions: namely, the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground, or call it Enlightenment, or Nirvana, or perfect union with God. But as a young college grad and spiritual seeker of the 21st century, I found Huxley’s writing style wordy, disorganized, and the quotations excessive. Had the book been 80-100 pages, it would be gold. Overall, I appreciated the foundation of Huxley’s project, and the exposure to a multiplicity of spiritual leaders, and the insights it brought to the worldwide pursuit of the Self, Union, God, the Ground of Being, Enlightenment.
Agnostic quasi-religious treatise on how to realize divinity (a.k.a. reality). It seems Huxley's The Divine Within was more than enough for me.