All the greatest mystics throughout history have sought to teach us that there is an Absolute Truth, at the core of our essence, which we are usually unaware of, but have the possibility to know directly. Aldous Huxley refers to this teaching as the “perennial philosophy”, which, in my opinion, is a very appropriate term because humanity has known this teaching since the dawn of time; the problem is that we seem unwilling to understand it.
What does “perennial philosophy” mean?
The main thesis of the perennial philosophy, and therefore the message hidden in all the world’s greatest religions and in the teachings of all the greatest mystics in history, is that reality is non-dual: our true identity is Being, Spirit, Infinite, Absolute, Consciousness. What we really are is That – call it whatever you like.
In this article, I will write about what the Absolute is and describe it, but it is obvious that trying to describe the Absolute through words is impossible. To paraphrase Alan Watts: trying to describe the Absolute through words is like trying to drink the Pacific Ocean with a fork, which is quite impossible.
Why don’t we experience the Absolute?
You might ask, “If I am the Absolute, why don’t I experience it in everyday life?” The main problem is that we live in a conceptual reality, perceiving our ideas about reality rather than reality itself. These ideas and concepts are limitations imposed on reality, which don’t exist in reality itself.
The main problem is that in everyday life, we don’t live in reality itself, but in a conceptual reality. What does a conceptual reality mean? It means that we don’t perceive reality itself, but our ideas about reality. What are ideas and concepts? They are limitations. We impose limits on reality itself, which don’t exist in reality itself.
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
– William Blake
What makes us impose these limits on reality? It is our ego. In fact, the primary boundary we impose on reality is the boundary between the self and the non-self, and from this primary boundary, all other boundaries arise that prevent us from perceiving the Absolute aspect of Reality.
What I have just said should shock you, because it means that unless you have already had a mystical experience of union, you have never truly perceived reality itself: you have always lived in a reality made of ideas, in a reality that doesn’t really exist.
The perennial philosophy and spiritual enlightenment
Spiritual enlightenment is nothing more than the present moment, devoid of the symbolic representations that our mind projects onto it. We don’t experience the Absolute in our daily lives because our mind projects limits onto Reality that Reality itself doesn’t have.
Your true identity is so obvious that it ceases to be obvious. Try to imagine something so simple, so intuitive, so direct, that it ceases to be simple, ceases to be direct, and becomes incredibly complicated to understand and realize.
Why is it so hard to realize our true Nature?
To try to grasp how complicated it is to understand your true identity, try to imagine how complicated it might be for a fish to realize what water is or, even better, try to imagine how complicated it might be for a drop of water to understand that it is inside the ocean. It would be nearly impossible because the drop of water only perceives water. We find ourselves in this situation: we are in the Absolute, we are the Absolute, and that is precisely why it is so complicated to understand that we are an integral part of the Absolute, of the Infinite.
To be able to return to the Absolute, which we have never really left, we must destroy every limit about ourselves and about life, about everything that surrounds us. If the primary limit, the limit from which all other limits arise, is the ego then to experience the Absolute, you must free yourself from yourself, so that you can be able to re-enter the Absolute.
What is the Absolute according to the perennial philosophy?
As long as I am this or that, or have this or that, I am not all things and I do not have all things. Become pure to the point of being neither this nor that; then you will be omnipresent and, not being either this or that, you will be all things.
– Meister Eckhart
This is precisely what Jesus is referring to when he says, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” That is, it is impossible for you to experience the Absolute and at the same time continue to remain what you believe you are, to continue to be mentally rich, to be rich in concepts.
To enter the Absolute, you must free yourself from every limit, you must free yourself from everything you believe you are, which is somewhat the same thing that Plotinus tells us when he states, “Whoever becomes someone is no longer the whole.” You can choose to be yourself, but then you are no longer the Absolute; you are something different from the Absolute because, by definition, the Absolute is everything, it is the absence of limits, the absence of boundaries.
Living the perennial philosophy means the end of you
This is why we don’t really want spiritual enlightenment. Spiritual enlightenment means the end of you; you cannot return to the Absolute and maintain your identity. This, in my opinion, is the true act of faith: when you are at the crucial moment, when you are letting go of every limit of yours, you are abandoning every boundary you believe you have, it is as if you are consciously choosing to throw yourself off a cliff. Obviously, I am not advising you to throw yourself off a cliff; what I am trying to describe is what it feels like when you are about to become part of the Absolute.
The feeling you get is the feeling of being about to die, which is why mystics have overcome every single fear; every fear is ultimately the fear of death. When you face death, what you discover is that after death there is only more life. When you throw yourself off the cliff, it is as if you begin to float in the Infinite. The Infinite is nothing other than everyday reality; this is why spiritual enlightenment is called the cosmic joke.
The cosmic joke and Buddha’s smile
Everything you have always sought has always been before your eyes. The Infinite has always been in front of you; you just believed that it was not Infinite, you believed that ordinary reality was something different from Being, because you projected limits that do not exist in Being itself.
How can you be sure that this exact moment is not what it feels like to be dead? How do you know that there is a difference between life and death? If you analyze these questions, leaving aside everything you believe about these topics, you will have to admit that you cannot know; you cannot know that death is truly different from life and that life is truly different from death.
The perennial philosophy and the nature of reality
Let’s try to understand a little better what Being is: if I told you that the Absolute is the absence of limits, try to reflect on what could be the only thing that has no boundaries. The only thing that has no limits is Nothing; Nothing is the only thing that is able to become all things. Nothing is nothing other than the other side of the Absolute. Nothing is the only thing that can take any form: if Nothing were only beautiful, it could not be ugly; if Nothing were only good, it could not be bad; if Nothing were only right, it could not be wrong, and so on for every other pair of dualities.
To help you understand a little better what Nothing is and what it feels like to experience it, imagine becoming every single pixel in your visual perception, instead of identifying only with your body. Your identity ceases to be your body, your mind, the voice in your head, and becomes whatever you are able to perceive: the perceiver, the perceived object, and the process of perception become a single entity. You are no longer able to perceive between what you are and what you are not; it is at this point that you become Everything, Infinite.
How to experience the perennial philosophy?
At this point, you might say to me, “Okay, nice speech, but how can I directly experience what you have wrote?” My advice is to study these topics; there are thousands of books and teachers who talk about what I have just discussed. By studying the perennial philosophy, you will begin to get an idea of what spiritual enlightenment is, although of course spiritual enlightenment is not the idea you will have of spiritual enlightenment. Furthermore, it is necessary to trust that it is possible to know the Truth directly.
For now, I can give you an exercise that might help you intuit your true nature: try to identify the exact point where your body ends and external reality begins. If you contemplate this question for a long time, you will come to the conclusion that there is no real boundary between your body and external reality.
Ultimately, the journey to enlightenment is one of remembering who we have always been. Like a long-lost friend, the Absolute has been waiting patiently for us to recognize its presence within and around us. By opening ourselves to this recognition, we can begin to experience the joy, freedom, and boundless love that is our birthright as integral parts of the infinite tapestry of existence.