Essential Reading

At least for an Interfaith Minister... Huxley's book reminds us of the essential truths at the heart of all spiritual teachings and asserts that we don't learn these from the 'professional men of letters' but that direct spiritual knowledge comes instead from those who have been able to make themselves "loving, pure in heart and poor in spirit". Writing in the 1940s, Huxley was interested in the different forms of knowledge about what we see and measure and what remains mysterious and unknown. in this context he quotes the Sufi poet Rumi who wrote, beautifully as always, that "the astrolabe of the mysteries of God is love." (An astrolabe is a scientific instrument used to make astronomical measurements.)