THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY
Aldous Huxley
From the Introduction: "The Perennial Philosophy is the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, the divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being - the thing is immemorial and universal."
|
|
| 1 |
"It is because we don't know Who we are, because we are unaware that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, that we behave in the generally silly, the often insane, the sometimes criminal ways that are so characteristically human. We are saved, we are liberated and enlightened, by perceiving the hitherto unperceived good that is already within us, by returning to our eternal Ground and remaining where, without knowing it, we have always been."
|
|
| 2 |
"Immortality is participation in the eternal now of the divine Ground."
|
|
| 3 |
"The discovery of Wisdom is the surpassing good. When this is found, all the people will sing." Philo
|
|
| 4 |
"Every individual being, from the atom up to the most highly organized of living bodies and the most exalted of finite minds 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."
|
|
| 5 |
"Almighty Love….is stronger than death." John Smith, the Platonist
|
|
| 6 |
"The Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman, the Absolute Principle of all existence; and the last end of every human being is to discover the fact for himself, to find out Who he really is."
|
|
| 7 |
"The Godhead IS, and his 'isness' contains goodness, love, wisdom, in their essence and principle." Meister Eckhart
|
|
| 8 |
"That Self who is free from impurities, from old age and death, from grief and thirst and hunger, whose desire is true and whose desires come true – that Self is to be sought after and enquired about, that Self is to be realized." The Chandogya Upanishad
|
|
| 9 |
"Love is the motive power of the mind." St. Gregory the Great
|
|
| 10 |
"The existence of sentient creatures has a goal and purpose which is ultimately the supreme good of every one of them."
|
|
| 11 |
"God in time is grounded in the eternal now of the modeless Godhead. It is in the Godhead that things, lives and minds have their being; it is through God that they have their becoming."
|
|
| 12 |
"The aim and purpose of human life is the unitive knowledge of God."
|
|
| 13 |
"Every thing, event or thought is a point of intersection between creature and Creator, between a more or less distant manifestation of God and a ray, so to speak, of the unmanifest Godhead; every thing, event or thought can therefore be made the doorway through which a soul may pass out of time into eternity."
|
|
| 14 |
"For though she sink all sinking in the oneness of divinity, she never touches bottom. For it is of the very essence of the soul that she is powerless to plumb the depths of her creator. And here one cannot speak of the soul any more, for she has lost her nature yonder in the oneness of divine essence. There she is no more called soul, but is called immeasurable being." Meister Eckhart
|
|
| 15 |
"The one happiness is the Life, the Light, the Spirit of God, manifested in nature and creature."
|
|
| 16 |
"The Inner Light is beyond praise and blame; like space it knows no boundaries, yet it is even here, within us, ever retaining its serenity and fulness." Yung-chia Ta-shih
|
|
| 17 |
"What would learning do without love? It would puff up. And love without learning? It would go astray." St. Bernard of Clairvaux
|
|
| 18 |
"Build yourself a spiritual cell, which you can always take with you, and that is the cell of true self-knowledge; you will find there the knowledge of God's goodness to you." St. Catherine of Siena
|
|
| 19 |
"Learn to look with an equal eye upon all beings, seeing the one Self in all." Srimad Bhagavatam
|
|
| 20 |
"To the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy,….the important thing is that individual men and women should come to the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground."
|
|
| 21 |
"It is only by becoming Godlike that we can know God – and to become Godlike is to identify ourselves with the divine element which in fact constitutes our essential nature."
|
|
| 22 |
"The Dharma-body (the Absolute) of all the Buddhas enters into my own being. And my own being is found in union with theirs." Yung-chia Ta-shih
|
|
| 23 |
“The great fact of God as the First Mover of a universe which partakes of His divinity has always been recognized.”
|
|
| 24 |
"The Perennial Philosophy teaches that it is desirable and indeed necessary to know the spiritual Ground of things, not only within the soul, but also outside in the world and beyond world and soul, in its transcendent otherness."
|
|
| 25 |
"The importance, the indispensable necessity, of self-knowledge has been stressed by the saints and doctors of every one of the great religious traditions."
|
|
|
|
Randomize this reference |
New random category
Add a comment
Reference and bibliography |
All quotes, by category
We are gathering together the primary insights of spirituality and bringing them together into one place.
This archive contains 11,754 quotes, taken from 635 references,
organized in terms of 39 primary categories. Quotes are randomized and appear in a different way at every click.
Explore the navigation options to review these insights.
We include
- All major spiritual and religious traditions, from all cultures, and all historical epochs
- Major psychologists, philosophers, writers, scholars and leading religious personalities
- Sources in classical religion as well as voices from new consciousness, esotericism and mysticism
- Choices are guided by the spirit of oneness, love, kindness, inclusion and community
|
|
|
