Quotes from The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley Page number precedes each quotation. 32 He who thinks Got has any quality and is not the One, injures not God, but himself. Philo. 32 Thou must love God as not-God, not-Spirit, not-person, not-image, but as He is, a sheer, pure absolute One, sundered from all two-ness, and in whom we must eternally sink from nothingness to nothingness. Eckhart. 43 The saint is one who knows that every moment of our human life is a moment of crisis; for at every moment we are called upon to make an all-important decision-to choose between the way that leads to death and spiritual darkness and the way that leads towards light and life; between interest exclusively temporal and the eternal order. Huxley. 47 O Friend, hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live, understand whilst you live; for in life deliverance abides. If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of deliverance in death? It is but an empty dream that the soul shall have union with Him because it has passed from the body; If He is found now, He is found then; If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death. Kabir, The Rule of Perfection. 61 When Enlightenment is perfected, you are free from the bondage of things, but you do not seek to be delivered from things. The world of becoming is not hated then nor is Nirvana loved. When perfect Enlightenment shines, it is neither bondage nor deliverance. Prunabuddha-sutra. 67 You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars. Thomas Traherne. 69 What I know of the divine sciences and Holy Scripture, I learnt in woods and field. I have had no other masters than the beeches and the oaks. St. Bernard. 69 Listen to a man of experience: thou wilt learn more in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach thee more than thou canst acquire from the mouth of a master. St. Bernard. 69 Here, my brothers, are the roots of trees, here are empty places; meditate. Unknown Buddhist writer. 76-77. The ruler of the Southern Ocean was Shu, the ruler of the Northern Ocean was Hu, and the ruler of the Center was Chaos. Shu and Hu were continually meeting in the land of Chaos, who treated them very well. They consulted together how they might repay his kindness, and said, "Men all have several orifices for the purpose of seeing, hearing, eating and breathing, while this ruler alone has not a single one. Let us try to make them for him." Accordingly they dug one orifice in him every day. At the end of seven days Chaos died. Chuang-tze. 81 Heavens, deal so still! Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man That slaves your ordinance, that will not see Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly. Shakespeare. 81 We can only love what we know, and we can never know completely what we do not love. Huxley. 107 Seen through the dung-colored spectacles of self-interest, the universe looks singularly like a dung-heap; and, as through long wearing, the spectacles have grown on to the eyeballs, the process of "cleansing the doors of perception" is often, at any rate in the earlier stages of the spiritual life, painfully like a surgical operation. Huxley. 109 The goods of the intellect, the emotions and the imagination are real goods; but they are not the final good, and when we treat them as ends in themselves, we fall into idolatry. Huxley. 129 Homo loquax, the talking animal, is still as naively delighted by his chief accomplishment, still as helplessly the victim of his own words, as he was when the Tower of Babel was being built. Huxley. 134 To suppose that people can be saved by studying and giving assent to formulae is like supposing that one can get to Timbuctoo by poring over a map of Africa. Huxley. 138 Sixty-six times have these eyes beheld the changing scenes of Autumn, I have said enough about moonlight. Ask me no more. Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars, when no wind stirs. Ryo-Nen. 141 Reason is like an officer when the King appears; The officer then loses his power and hides himself. Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun. Rumi. 142 Because technology advances, we fancy that we are making corresponding progress all along the line; because we have considerable power over inanimate nature, we are convinced that we are the self-sufficient masters of our fate and captains of our souls; and because cleverness has given us technology and power, we believe, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that we have only to go on being yet cleverer in a yet more systematic way to achieve social order, international peace and personal happiness. Huxley. 161 In other living creatures ignorance of self is nature; in man it is vice. Boethius. 161 If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion. Huxley. 171 Industry without art is brutality. Ruskin. 174 Two students from the University of Paris came to visit Ruysbroeck and asked him to furnish them with a short phrase of mottoe, which might serve them as a rule of life. "Voc estis tam sancti sicut vultis," Ruysbroeck answered. "You are as holy as you will to be." 188 Past and future veil God from our sight; Burn up both of them with fire. How long Wilt thou be partitioned by these segments, like a reed? So long as a reed is partitioned, it is not privy to secrets, Nor is it vocal in response to lip and breathing. Rumi. 195 Another practical corollary of the great historical eternity-philosophies, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, is a morality inculcating kindness to animals. Huxley. 216 Rhetoric and fine language about the things of the spirit is a vainer babble than in other matters; and he that thinks to grow in true goodness by hearing or speaking flaming words or striking expressions, as is not much the way of the world, may have a great deal of talk, but will have little of his conversation in heaven. William Law. 216 He now know does not speak; He who speaks does not know. Lao-tze. 217 What need of so much news from abroad, when all that concerns either life or death is all transacting and at work within us? William Law. 233 I saw a mass of matter of a dull gloomy color between the North and the East, and was informed that this mass was human beings, in as great misery as they could be, and live; and that I was mixed up with them and henceforth I must not consider myself as a distinct or separate being. John Woolman. 250 Self-reproach is painful; but the very pain is a reassuring proof that the self is till intact; so long as attention is fixed on the delinquent ego, it cannot be fixed upon God and the ego (which lives upon attention and dies only when that sustenance is withheld) cannot be dissolved in the divine Light. Huxley. 259 Can you walk on water? You have done no better than a straw. Can you fly in the air? You have done no better than a bluebottle. Conquer your heart; then you may become somebody. Ansari of Herat. 263 Buddha then warned Subhuti, saying, "Subhuti, do not hink that the Tathagata ever ponders in his own mind: I ought to enunciate a system of teaching for the elucidation of the Dharma. You should never cherish such a thought. And Why? Because if any disciple harbored such a thought he would not only be misunderstand the Tathagata's teaching, but he would be slandering him as well. Moreover, the expression 'a system of teaching' has not meaning; for Truth (in the sense of Reality) cannot be cut up into pieces and arranged into a system. The words can only be sued as a figure of speech." Diamond Sutra. 274 Some of those who use spiritual exercises make progress in the life of the spirit; others, using the same exercises, make no progress. To believe that their use either constitutes enlightenment, or guarantees it, is mere idolatry and superstition. To neglect them altogether, to refuse to find out whether and in what way they can help in the achievement of our final end, is nothing but self-opinionatedness and stubborn obscurantism. Huxley.