The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded: A Guide for the Mystically Inclined - Softcover

Sawyer, Dana

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1958972290 ISBN 13: 9781958972298

Verlag: Monkfish Book Publishing, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Dana Sawyer unpacks the philosophy-spirituality of Huxley, Watts, and Ram Dass (as well as our contemporaries, including Mirabai Starr and Richard Rohr) in ways readers will find intriguing, creating an original view of human nature, revealing why this mystical understanding of our world is called “perennial.”

During the 1960s and 70s, “Perennial Philosophy” was the most popular theory regarding what the world’s mystical traditions held in common, and it was touted as the best platform for understanding the nature of human consciousness, including how to expand it therapeutically with meditation, yoga, and psychedelic drugs. Consequently, books by Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, Huston Smith, Stanislav Grof, Frances Vaughan, Ram Dass, and other Perennialists were widely available and sold like hotcakes. However, during the 80s, their shared perspective fell out of fashion.

The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded corrects several common errors in understanding the perennial philosophy while providing a short, up-to-date overview of the general perspective. The goal is to reveal the continued relevance of perennial philosophy during this time psychedelic renaissance, when many are seeking ways to interpret their experiences, inside an engaging narrative free of philosophical shop talk.

The result is a demonstration of now perennial philosophy applies to all who are interested in self-realization. This book will appeal for the millions today who are involved with mindfulness meditation, hatha yoga, Transcendental Meditation, Tibetan Buddhism, Kabbalah, Zen, Sufism, Shamanic drumming, Christian Centering Prayer, or their own DIY approaches to spiritual awakening.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dana Sawyer is professor emeritus of philosophy and world religions at Maine College of Art & Design in Portland. He frequently teaches at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California and is author of many articles for Tricycle, Parabola, and Yoga Journal. In 2002, he published Aldous Huxley: A Biography (Crossroad Publishing). Subsequently, Sawyer was approached by Huston Smith to write his authorized biography, which came out as Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper (Fons Vitae Press, 2014) and was endorsed, on its back cover, by Jeffrey Kripal, Deepak Chopra, and H.H. the Dalai Lama.

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Collectively, the Perennialist view centers on the value of a particular type of mystical experience—specifically, an awakening into a sense of our unity with all reality. These authors believe that we have a latent, though often undeveloped, capacity to experience deeper levels of our being, revealing insights and understandings lying outside our generally blinkered view of what we are and our place in the world. They believe the truth of life is not a collection of facts, nor a religious dogma, nor a memorized system of philosophy (even including their philosophy), but an experiential truth based in a state of expanded consciousness akin to the sense of cosmic oneness described by mystics of myriad religions. The truth of life is seeing with new eyes rather than simply entertaining new ideas.

            I mention the mystical writings of the world’s religions, but Perennialists aren’t particularly interested in organized religion (more on this in the “religion” chapter). In general, they believe the religions are very different one from the other, with few if any commonalities; however, they also contend there is a particular type of extraordinary experience running like a thread through many of their mystical traditions. Each mystical tradition describes a variety of non-ordinary experiences and paranormal states of consciousness, and each may place different weights and values on these experiences. However, a wide range of mystics have described a particularly valuable experience of “union with ultimate reality” or “oneness with the divine principle” or “merger with God” that Perennialists see as — using Huxley’s term — the “highest common factor” of the mystical traditions. It is an experience that many mystics not only shared but that they believed affords the broadest insight, giving the most benefit for daily life. This book is all about why this is so. Giving just a brief preview of what’s ahead, the mystics argued that mystical experience is a direct experience of ourselves as fundamentally entwined with the universe. During the unitive experience, they say, we know the deepest level of our being as inseparable from the deepest level of all being.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Monkfish Book Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1958972290
• ISBN 13: 9781958972298
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 150
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar