The Perennial Philosophy: An Interpretation of the Great Mystics, East and West

by Aldous Huxley

A conscious being alone understands what is meant by moving; To those not endowed with consciousness the moving is unintelligible. If you exercise yourself in the practice of keeping your mind unmoved, The immovable you gain is that of one who has no consciousness. If you are desirous for the truly immovable, The immovable is in the moving itself, And this immovable is the truly immovable one. There is no seed of Buddhahood where there is no consciousness. Mark well how varied are the aspects of the immovable one, And know that the first reality is immovable. Only when this reality is attained Is the true working of Suchness understood. Hui Neng These phrases about the unmoving first mover remind one of Aristotle. But between Aristotle and the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy within the great religious traditions there is this vast difference: Aristotle is primarily concerned with cosmology, the Perennial Philosophers are primarily concerned with liberation and enlightenment: Aristotle is content to know about the unmoving mover, from the outside and theoretically; the aim of the Perennial Philosophers is to become directly aware of it, to know it unitively, so that they and others may actually become the unmoving One.