Overview
Platonic Surrealism states that there is a ‘so-called’ perennial wisdom, but it’s different than expected.
Here is what Meta.ai said about the traditional perennial wisdom:
“Perennial Wisdom Overview
“Perennial Wisdom” refers to a philosophical and spiritual concept that suggests that certain universal truths and principles underlie all religions and spiritual traditions. This concept posits that these timeless truths are enduring and unchanging, transcending cultural and historical contexts.
Key Aspects
Core Principles
- Unity of existence
- Interconnectedness of all things
- Ultimate reality beyond material world
- Importance of spiritual practices (e.g., meditation, contemplation)
Common Sources
- Ancient Greek philosophers (e.g., Plato)
- Eastern spiritual traditions (e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism)
- Western mysticism (e.g., Christian, Islamic)
Reasons for Limited Acceptance
Challenges
- Cultural and religious biases
- Difficulty reconciling differing interpretations
- Western emphasis on rationalism and empiricism
- Perceived threat to established religious doctrines
Criticisms
- Oversimplification of complex spiritual concepts
- Lack of empirical evidence
- Perceived syncretism or relativism
Contemporary Revival
- Interfaith dialogue and ecumenism
- Growing interest in spirituality and wellness
- Influential thinkers (e.g., Aldous Huxley, Ken Wilber)
Notable Proponents
- Aldous Huxley (The Perennial Philosophy)
- Ken Wilber (Integral Theory)
- Huston Smith (The World’s Religions)
- Eckhart Tolle (Spiritual teachings)
Conclusion
Perennial Wisdom offers insights into universal spiritual truths, encouraging unity and understanding. Despite challenges and criticisms, its principles continue to inspire seekers of wisdom.”
Analysis of the Traditional Concept
The concepts don’t work.
Every single person who experiences spiritual and existential truths, whether through gnosis (direct realization) or through other experiences such as Near-Death Experiences (NDE) or through cultural spiritual study comes up with something different, often radically different, and there is seldom much peace between the different cultural expressions.
If indeed we are ‘one’, then why don’t we act like that?
Platonic Surrealism does innately explain that conundrum, but here’s the short answer as to what the ‘perennial philosophy is:
The human body.
There you go, we can all go home now. Just kidding.
Everyone wants their ‘movie’ to be the ‘answer to life, the universe and everything’. But ultimately, it’s the movie projector that is the underlying reality, and we all share a nearly identical movie projector (the human body).
The human body ITSELF is ‘the perennial wisdom’, and we all play a different movie with that same common wisdom.
When we all come to understand and master the human body, then the perennial wisdom stands revealed.
What Platonic Surrealism Says
Platonic Surrealism teaches that ultimately, only POTENTIALITY (the limitless potential for all properties and the interaction of all properties) and AWARENESS (the beginnings of time, the causally linked ability to perceive reflexively properties and their interactions exists.
Through the medium of AWARENESS ‘stirring up’ POTENTIALITY, beings come to form; at the most basic level, these are called Monads, or ‘1 bit different from no bits of difference from POTENTIALITY) and each Monad has nearly limitless ability to perceive ‘itself’ in different scenarios, all of them simultaneously, then at deeper levels of introspection/play, AWARENESS becomes ‘engulfed by their own play/creations and willingly forgets many things, or else there would be no possibility of convincing play (the movies). This is often called ‘divine forgetfulness’, only there is nothing divine, as there is nothing that is not divine (not the same one thing, the same one mechanism at play).
All these movies, all this play happens concurrently, so there is no ‘reincarnation’, primitive’ or ‘advanced’; everything is ontologically ‘flat’.
Now Kev, you are saying, these words are just another ‘movie’, just another answer to ‘life the universe and everything’ and yes, there is an element of truth to that.
However, what matters is that it’s the BODY that is the perennial wisdom. How it came to be, what it does, and all that is nice to know, but not the point.
It’s the BODY, which is the perennial wisdom, as in a sense, it’s the ‘projector’, at this region of surrealist dream-like complexity we live in ‘here’.
Now ultimately, yes, it’s just ‘us’ here, and everywhere, the ‘children’ of POTENTIALITY and AWARENESS (though that is ‘us’ as well), who are the ‘ultimate ‘projectors’, not the proximate projectors ‘the body’, but rather than fight and die for the ‘ultimate’ which everyone wishes to nail into place for the sake of their unnecessarily isolated egos, just say that it’s the BODY which is the perennial wisdom (The ‘little red wagon’ of Platonic Surrealism. The ‘wagon’ can carry anything, and everyone fights over the contents, but in fact it’s the ‘almost invisible’ ‘wagon’ which is the real ‘perennial wisdom’).
Remember, there is no ‘far off spiritual world’ in Platonic Surrealism; we are all existing in the “POTENTIALITY ‘cloud’’ just as we see ourselves this very instant.
That we don’t always understand all the properties and their interactions, is just a necessity of evolution (time’ does appear to exist in our universe due to entropy).
So, let’s just stop jabbering about ‘philosophy’ and demonstrate this ‘real, physical body’ ‘perennial wisdom’, ok? Ok, done.
Have you noticed?
Some folks are developmentally disabled or autistic, and different folks are deeply affected by being on the autistic spectrum.
Have you noticed the joyous look that is often on the face of such a lovely person?
Have you noticed that Catholic saints have the same sort of expression on their face during ‘religious extasy’?
Have you noticed that ‘the enlightened’ from other traditions, ‘saints’ of their different cultural expressions, such as in Hinduism can have the same sort of expression on their face while in ecstasy, as both Catholic saints and the developmentally disabled or autistics can have?
Have you ever meditated very deeply and felt unconditional love and the ‘highest ecstasy’? I have.
Many of us have.
Now why is this?
The Perennial Ecstasy
Per Donald Hoffman’s and others ‘filter hypothesis, it’s our cultural conditioning, our ‘isolated egos’ that block access to the totality of our being.
These blocks can be removed by:
- Being born developmentally disabled or delayed (the blocking interface never forms, or not fully forms)
- Religious hypervigilance: If you study the saints, such as detailed in the book, They Flew by They Flew: A History of the Impossible by Carlos M.N. Eire, Harvard University Press, 2023, you will note that due to their self-imposed self-flagellation and mortification of the body, they functionally shut down most awareness of their body even belonging to them, to being important, to being part of human society, except for the worship of ‘god’, and this functionally converts these individuals into a state very similar to the developmentally disabled or delayed. Not to mention that many of them were already on the autistic spectrum from birth.
- Yoga practices can lead you to a similar place, without any of the self-flagellation or mortification, though historically many ‘Hindu saints’ have also done self-harm.
- Come to find out, that when I ‘died’ for those five or ten minutes, what I experienced (the heat leaving my body from the feet up in a wave to the top of the head, the heart seemingly stopping beating, etc.) was exactly what recognized Catholic saints experienced, except they sometimes could fly, bilocate or perform other ‘miracles’ (movie productions). There were times when similar occurrences to ‘religious ecstasies’ struck me, and then caused ‘anomalous effects’, so I have first-hand experience.
- Religious hypervigilance: If you study the saints, such as detailed in the book, They Flew by They Flew: A History of the Impossible by Carlos M.N. Eire, Harvard University Press, 2023, you will note that due to their self-imposed self-flagellation and mortification of the body, they functionally shut down most awareness of their body even belonging to them, to being important, to being part of human society, except for the worship of ‘god’, and this functionally converts these individuals into a state very similar to the developmentally disabled or delayed. Not to mention that many of them were already on the autistic spectrum from birth.
Summary
To sum this up, whether one be developmentally disabled or delayed, a recognized Catholic saint, a Hindu saint, or just a regular Minnesota farm boy on the autistic spectrum (me), our common heritage, or common ‘perennial wisdom’ has always been with us. It is the common, shared potential we all have, our species ‘perennial wisdom’, the HUMAN BODY.
Kevin Cann
11/3/2024