Blurb for Perennial Wisdom summer course

'The Universal Perennial Wisdom' – a joyous celebration of poetry, music and ideas.

Some truths pass - like fashion. Some truths are eternal; they are called Perennial Wisdom.

Perennial Wisdom includes the essential structure of our spirituality and how we function as human beings. By another name that's mysticism' - the heart of religion.
One definition of mysticism is, 'direct experience of ultimate reality'.

When mysticism is shifted from the centre, religion becomes an empty shell. Great mystics include Rumi, Hildegard of Bingen, Abraham Joshua Heschel and many others. What about a modern teacher such as Eckhart Tolle?

Without an active relationship with Perennial Wisdom we, in any age, become lost in a wasteland.

'Universalism' = the realization of oneness - in the light of such teachings as Ghandi's, "God has no religion." He also said when asked if he was a Hindu, "Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew." It is the realization that through the ages humankind, the Holy Spirit and 'God' have always been one, as in; "This is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future." - Baha'u'llah (Gleanings LXX)

Unless we understand our practice we cannot practice our understanding.

Please send a comment if you want details of the summer course.


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Perennial Philosophy is mysticism which is (the heart of) religion.

Perennial Philosophy is mysticism which is (the heart of) religion.

Quotations relevant to Perennial Philosophy & Universalism

"I believe in the fundamental Truth of all great religions of the world. I believe they are all God given and I believe they were necessary for the people to whom these religions were revealed. And I believe that if only we could all of us read the scriptures of the different faiths from the standpoint of the followers of these faiths, we should find that they were at the bottom all one and were all helpful to one another." - M K Gandhi
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QUAKER UNIVERSALISTS
"The Light shines through all." George Fox 1656

"The humble , meek, merciful, just, pious and devout souls are everywhere of one religion; and when death has taken off the masks, they will know one another, though the divers liveries they wear here make them strangers." - William Penn 1693


"There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages has different names; it is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows of what nation soever, they become brethren." - John Woolman 1762


"Even as a tree has a single trunk but many branches and leaves, so there is one true and perfect religion, but it becomes many religions as it passes through the human medium. The one Religion is beyond all speech. Imperfect men and women put it into such language as they can command and their words are interpreted by others equally imperfectly. Hence the necessity of tolerance, which does not mean indifference to one's own faith, but a more intelligent and purer love for it. True knowledge of religion breaks down barriers between faith and faith." - Mahatma Gandhi


"It is a bold and colossal claim that we put forward - that the whole of life is sacramental, that there are innumerable 'means of grace' by which God is revealed and communicated - through nature and through human fellowship and through a thousand things that may become the 'outward and visible sign' of 'an inward and spiritual grace'." - A. Barratt Brown 1932

A spiritual journey examined

Freedom of expression and the spirit of tolerance

Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
Albert Einstein