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Aldous
Huxley and the Perennial Philosophy, Part 1
(Two Definitions of the Perennial Philosophy)
One of the central tenets
of all religions is that there is something other than
what we see, and that the religious seeker is trying to
participate in That.
Huxley's First
Definition of The Perennial Philosophy
This is the first tenet of
the Perennial Philosophy, an idea that was stated most
eloquently by Aldous Huxley. In the Introduction to the book
named after the philosophy, Huxley called the Perennial
Philosophy "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, divine Reality; [and] the ethic that places
man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and
transcendent Ground of all being" (vii).
Note that Huxley uses
"divine Reality" in the first two statements, and
"the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being" in
the third; these are homologous descriptions. Taking "the
divine Reality" as the standard expression, we can approach
it, following Huxley, from three angles:
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Metaphysically,
the Perennial Philosophy teaches that the divine Reality is
the substance (or in some systems the creator) of all that
we see;
-
Psychologically,
the Perennial Philosophy tells us that the divine Reality is
the model and "home" of the individual soul; and
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Ethically, the
Perennial Philosophy says that the divine Reality sets a
standard for human behavior through knowing--and presumably
therefore accessing--that divine Reality.
So although the divine
Reality is both "immanent and transcendent," both
inside the world and outside of it, this Reality has real
implications for the way we understand the world, the way we
understand ourselves, and the way we think and behave in this
very life. This is reminiscent of a note found on Charles
Lindbergh's nightstand the morning after his death: "I know
there is infinity beyond ourselves. I wonder if there is
infinity within." The Perennial Philosophy asserts that
there is, and that it is intimately connected with the
"infinity beyond."
Huxley's Second
Definition of The Perennial Philosophy
Huxley clarifies this
relationship elsewhere, in his Introduction to the Bhagavad-Gita
(Prabhavananda and Isherwood):
At the core of the
Perennial Philosophy we find four fundamental doctrines.
First: the phenomenal
world of matter and of individualized consciousness--the world
of things and animals and men and even gods--is the
manifestation of a Divine Ground within which all partial
realities have their being, and apart from which they would be
non-existent.
Second: human beings are
capable not merely of knowing about the Divine Ground
by inference; they can also realize its existence by a direct
intuition, superior to discursive reasoning. This immediate
knowledge unites the knower with that which is known.
Third: man possesses a
double nature, a phenomenal ego and an eternal Self, which is
the inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the
soul. It is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify
himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground,
which is of the same or like nature with the spirit.
Fourth: man's life on
earth has only one end and purpose: to identify himself with
his eternal Self and so to come to unitive knowledge of the
Divine Ground.
Each of Huxley's four
points postulates a mode of connection between the divine
Reality and the individual Soul. First, he asserts that
apart from the divine Reality nothing at all would
exist--including individual Souls. Second, he claims that
individual Souls can know the divine Reality directly, and be
united with it. Third, he says that it is possible for
each person to identify her- or himself with the eternal Self
rather than the phenomenal ego, and thus be identified with the
divine Reality. Fourth and finally, he says that the
entire purpose of human life on earth is to achieve this union.
First:
The Phenomenal World Manifests a Divine Ground
The first statement, that
everything exists only in that it is the
"manifestation" of the divine Reality, is clearly a
reflection of the metaphysical statement above. In talking about
That and This, the higher and lower orders of reality, Huxley
points out that virtually all religions hold that That order is
responsible for the existence of This. In the monotheistic
systems, God--the personification of That--creates This.
Hinduism is more in tune with Huxley's position that That
manifests itself as this. Buddhism (always a special case) is
less clear on this position, but if we accept Mahayana concepts
of emptiness and Buddha nature as normative, then it is an
easier step to understanding that This that we see is generated
by That.
"The heavens declare
the glory of God," the Psalmist writes at 19:1, "and
the firmament sheweth his handywork." Yet he stops short of
saying that the heavens (or the earth) actually are God.
In the Western tradition, Huxley's assertions are most tenable
when we are discussing mysticism. A Sufi Master, a Kabbalist, or
St. John of the Cross, might be more comfortable with saying
that what we see is a reflection of the divine nature, or of God
himself. The Gnostic Christ, too, reflects this thinking: In the
Gospel of Thomas he says: "I am the light that is
above them all. I am the all; the all came forth from me, and
the all attained to me. Cleave a (piece of) wood; I am there.
Raise up a stone, and you will find me there." The myths of
ancient peoples are even more explicit, being filled with
stories of the dismemberment of gods and other primordial beings
in order that the stuff of their bodies--which is clearly part
of That--can become the basic stuff of This.
Even the more philosophical
systems derive This from That. Plato's Theory of Forms
postulates that everything we see in This sensible world has a
perfect original in a realm of unseen Reality. Christian
Neo-Platonism, too, builds on the idea of Christ as Logos,
establishing an ordering principle out of which everything
develops. Its near-cousin, Gnosticism, sees the material
devolving out of the spiritual. And so it goes. We even see this
on a biological level, at least in the human realm: virtually
everything starts with an Idea. Inventions, industries, even
families generally begin with a vision or a concept which is
brought into physical "being." Dare we say that even
instinct in animals is an unseen driving force that seeks to
ensure the survival of species? And what about Life itself?
Huxley's first point, then,
that what we see comes from what we don't, seems easy to grasp.
True, the things in This world can be said to be simply the
physical consequences of physical actions. But what lay behind
those actions? All of history, all of literature, all of
science--indeed, every human and, as mentioned, even animal
enterprise--can ultimately be traced back to forces and
motivations that cannot be accounted for. Not only "In the
beginning," but at every moment, That world impinges on
This, and This depends on That.
Second: Humans Can
Know the Divine Ground by Direct Intuition
The second assertion, that
we can know the divine Reality directly, and thus be united to
it, brings us more roundly into the realm of religion.
Or does it? When a grouse
hen feigns a broken wing to distract a predator away from her
nest of young, she is following "mere instinct." And
yet, at that very moment, she is truer to her species--and her
role as a parent--than most human beings will ever be. By
obeying her "hard-wiring," is she not in a way more in
tune with the "divine Reality" than a Hamlet who can
do nothing but deliberate between courses of action, never
landing on one or the other? Perhaps that is why those who
engage in "extreme" sports, like helicopter skiing,
say that when they are in the midst of such activities, making
split-second decisions, they have "never felt more
alive."
In any case, those of us
whose cowardice--or common sense--keeps us from jumping out of
helicopters onto mountains find that there are other ways to
"feel alive." One tried-and-true technique is as
simple as...breathing. In the Eastern philosophies
especially, the practice of mindful breathing or breath control
is a doorway to knowing That better. But the importance of the
breath in meditative technique is not limited to the East. The
ancient "Jesus Prayer" of the Eastern Christian Church
used the formula "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy
on me, a sinner." Each of the four parts of the prayer was
to be recited on an in- or out-breath. Thus the Prayer was tied
to breathing techniques, which Metropolitan Anthony Bloom
connects to Sufi practice. What's more, as early as the sixth
century, Diadochos "taught that repetition of the prayer
leads to inner stillness" (Rossi).
Later, in the Western
church, Ignatius of Loyola wrote in his Spiritual Exercises,
The Third Method of
Prayer is that with each breath in or out, one has to pray
mentally, saying one word of the Our Father, or of another
prayer which is being recited: so that only one word be said
between one breath and another, and while the time from one
breath to another lasts, let attention be given chiefly to the
meaning of such word, or to the person to whom he recites it,
or to his own baseness, or to the difference from such great
height to his own so great lowness.
This point need not
belabored. It will suffice to note the similarity between such
words as "spirit" and "respire," or that God
breathed into Adam at the creation, to see that the connection
between life and breathing pointed from This to That in even the
earliest Western traditions.
As far as ways of
knowing are concerned, Huxley again favors the mystic's route of
"direct intuition, superior to discursive reasoning."
This is a consistent theme in religious literature, this
transcending of discrimination and apprehension of unity. Yet
the ways of doing this vary from meditation to marathons, from
samadhi to sweat lodges. Sitting in stillness works for some,
but for others so do sacraments. In India, for example, the puja
of the bhakti practitioner is every bit as productive as
the exercises of the yogin. Why not, then, the Holy
Eucharist or personal prayer? Further, the path of jnana
is an accepted way of overcoming ignorance, which the East
considers to be one of the (if not the) major impediments
to spiritual achievement. Huxley's prejudice against attainment
through knowing and his embracing of the
"mystic" way is probably more a reaction against his
Western upbringing than a reasoned criticism of a religious
path.
Third: One can Identify
with the Divine Ground
This idea brings us to
Huxley's third proposition, that one simply need adjust one's
point of view from "phenomenal ego" to "eternal
Self" to "identify [one]self with the spirit and
therefore with the Divine Ground." This again emphasizes
the mystic's path, and is especially consonant with Hinduism.
(Let us not forget that this statement of the Perennial
Philosophy is in the introduction to a translation of the Bhagavad-Gita.)
Just as Western orthodoxy cannot accept the identity of knower
with Known proposed in the second statement, so it sees
humankind's spiritual problem as more than a matter of point of
view. Humans are not just ignorant in the Christian
tradition, they are sinful. This is a question not of
understanding, but of morality.
But underlying Huxley's
words is the concept of separation, of humans from the
divine Reality, of humans from the world we see, and of the
world we see from the divine Reality. On this all religions
agree. Whether through wrong actions or wrong perceptions,
humans live in a (perceived or real) state of isolation. Hence
the generally accepted etymology of "re-ligion" as
being to "re-connect" to that which is important. In
Judaism, this is accomplished through membership in the
community; in Christianity, through faith and/or good works; in
Islam, through submission to the will of Allah. In the words of
Bob Dylan, "You gotta serve somebody," and the Western
traditions generally believe that salvation depends on a
commitment to serving God rather than one's own self.
Here, of course, the
traditions of East and West glide close. One chooses the Large
over the Small--That over This. That it is an act of will, and a
relationship with a Person, are details. Strip these away, and
Western theism becomes more compatible with the Eastern (and
Western mystical) ideals of participation in the divine Reality.
Fourth: The Purpose of
Life is to Come to
Unitive Knowledge of the Divine Ground
Finally, then, Huxley's
fourth point is that the "unitive knowledge of the Divine
Ground" is our sole purpose for being here. Given Dylan's
Dictum, this may mean that every quest of humankind is a quest
for the divine Reality--even if that quest is misdirected, it
serves somebody. Implied in Huxley's statement is the
idea that, to the extent one approaches the divine Reality, one
is fulfilled; to the extent that one misses the mark, one is
frustrated and unhappy. Whether it is "knowing God" or
"being one with the universe," the attainment of re-ligion
described above leads to personal happiness.
Contents
(C) 2006 James Baquet
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