| The Perennial Philosophy (the philosophy of mysticism) had its seminal beginnings in the ancient Hindu Vedic texts that are the first enunciations/elucidations of mysticism as an integral, continuous, contiguous, atomized essence within and without all existence physically and psychically. Atoms move but we can't see them; yet, they exist. Consciousness evolves but we can't see it; yet mystical philosophers believe it---beginning with the ancient texts. The Vedas made their way from India to inform the East, then the West through the evolving disciplines of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Platonism, Zen, Christian Mystics, German Transcendentalism, British Romanticism, American Transcendentalism, Theosophy, and on the eve of the Twentieth Century in the revitalization of the Vedas through the worldwide Vedanta Society. This study examines the relationship of mysticism (a desire for transcendence), to literary artists past and present that intuitively chose to articulate with words what the rest of the humanity passively or unconsciously knows subliminally: that there are associations intimating an Ultimate Reality to be found between the words that connote ineffable meanings beyond the language of common speech. The first poet created fables and became a focal point of the tribe's collective identity as an historical entity. The poet has an integral purpose greater than the individual tribe members and the individual tales and legends, indeed, even greater than the tribe itself. This first poet is a reporter, gossip, philosopher, and historian. He selects the words he will use to explain, exhort, and dramatize the past and present. With his power to embellish the stories creatively the poet gratuitously adds to the telling from which he discovers that he has some power over the ineffability between and behind the words that has a life and spirit of its own. This study will systemize the Perennial Philosophy as a literary theory, and apply it to modern literature. |
