Perennial Philosophy And Law Of Karma

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst

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Johannes Bronkhorst
knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being". This Perennial Philosophy, Huxley claims, is immemorial and universal: "Rudiments of [it] may be found among the traditionary lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions."
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This claim, one might think, should interest scholars of religion. But in spite of the enormous popularity enjoyed by Huxley and his works, his idea of a perennial philosophy does not appear to have been taken seriously by academic scholarship during the half century which has passed since the publication of his book. Most scholars would seem to agree with such a
3. The Perennial Philosophy, 9. In the introduction which he added to the translation of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Prabhavananda (The Song of God: Bhagavad-Gita, London, 1947, rpt. 1953) Huxley specifies the "four fundamental doctrines" at the core of the Perennial Philosophy as follows: "First: the phenomenal world of matter and of individualized consciousness - the world of things and animals and men and even godsis 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 inuer 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" (7). And in his novel Time Must Have a Stop (1944; rpt. London, 1994), Huxley presents the following "minimum working hypothesis": "That there is a Godhead or Ground, which is the unmanifested principle of all manifestation. That the Ground is transcendent and immanent. That it is possible for human beings to love, know and, from virtually, to become actually identified with the Ground. That to achieve this unitive knowledge, to realize this supreme identity, is the final end and purpose of human existence. That there is a Law or Dharma, which must be obeyed, a Tao or Way, which must be followed, if men are to achieve their final end. That the more there is of I, me, mine, the less there is of the Ground..." .." (263). Virtually the same passage was first published (in 1944) in the bi-monthly magazine Vedanta and the West: see Huxley and God, ed. Jacqueline Hazard Bridgeman, San Francisco, 1992, 15.
4. See, however, Huston Smith, "Is There a Perennial Philosophy?", Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LV/3 (1987), 553-66; Jonathan Shear, "On Mystical Experiences as Support for the Perennial Philosophy", Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LXII/2 (1994), 319-42. Among the advocates of this or a similar kind of perennial philosophy Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon may be mentioned in particular (Eric J. Sharpe, Comparative Religion: A History, London, 1975, 262 ff.). New Age authors such as Ken Wilber and Stanislav Grof
The Perennial Philosophy criticism as the following:
Unfortunately, the most doubtful of Huxley's claims is that there is a "perennial philosophy," a "highest factor" common to all the great religions. The religions themselves do not confirm the claim unless one selects only what one wishes to see. Confucianism is barely mentioned in The Perennial Philosophy, except for some atypical elements, Judaism also is all but ignored. Yet Confucianism has had the allegiance of literally billions of Chinese. The significance of Judaism is even more apparent, but Huxley nowhere shows that he cares what Judaism is....
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The same critic continues:
Another claim is also clearly false that the mystics agree on the nature of their experience. To most Christian mystics, "That" is not "thou" and never can be....
This last remark alludes to the famous Upanishadic sentence "That art thou", which constitutes, incidentally, the title of the first chapter of Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy.
Huxley may not have been surprised at the unfavourable reception his book received in academic circles; he may even have expected it. "The Perennial Philosophy", he points out
is primarily concerned with the one, divine Reality substantial to the manifold world of things and lives and minds. But the nature of this one Reality is such that it cannot be directly and immediately apprehended except by those who have chosen to fulfil certain conditions, making themselves loving, pure in heart, and poor in spirit."
This, of course, excludes most, if not all academics. As Huxley himself says, "In regard to few professional philosophers and men of letters is there any
also refer to the philosophia perennis. For the interpretations given to the term philosophia perennis before the twentieth century, see Charles B. Schmitt, "Prisca theologia e philosophia perennis: due temi del Rinascimento italiano e la loro fortuna", in Il pensiero italiano del Rinascimento e il tempo nostro, Florence, 1970, 211-36.
5. Charles M. Holmes, Aldous Huxley and the Way to Reality, Bloomington: Ind. and London, 1970, 145.
6. The Perennial Philosophy, 2.