Huxley's "Minimum Working Hypothesis", Personal & World Peace

     The core of perennialism can "be found in all mystical traditions … 
     Augustine himself had written: ‘That which is called the Christian Religion existed among the Ancients, and never did not exist …’ 
     In Vedanta for the Western World (1945), Huxley had outlined his core idea in terms of what he called ‘the minimum working hypothesis’:

          THAT there is a Godhead or Ground, which is the unmanifest principle of all manifestation.
          THAT the Ground is transcendent and immanent.
          THAT it is possible for human beings to love, know and, 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.

     … mystical experience is real and valuable, 
     … specific privileging of mysticism as the root of all religion, (is) supported by the testimonies of such adepts as Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, Rumi, St. Teresa of Avila, the Buddha, Kabir and Shankara … 

     If the world was ever to live in peace, it would have to learn to distinguish this deepest core of Truth from the various ways it is packaged in the traditional religions.”

       Dana Sawyer “Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper. Living the World’s Religions. The Authorized Biography of a 21st Century Spiritual Giant.” Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY, 2014.

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Transpersonal - Peak - Experiences

     "Humanistic psychologists wanted to study human experience and what was most central to life and well-being, rather than what was easily measured in the laboratory. One discovery in particular was to have an enormous impact and eventually give birth to transpersonal psychology. Exceptionally psychologically healthy people tend to have 'peak experiences': brief but extremely intense, blissful, meaningful, & beneficial experiences of expanded identity & union with the universe. Similar experiences have been recognized across history and have been called mystical, spiritual, and unitive experiences, or in the East, samadhi and satori.

     Transpersonal experiences may be defined as experiences in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche, and cosmos."

       Walsh R, Vaughan F eds. Paths beyond ego. The transpersonal vision. Penguin Putnam Inc, NY, 1993.

 

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