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chris_chester 's review for:
The Perennial Philosophy
by Aldous Huxley
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.