Imagine a large island surrounded by the ocean. On this island live a tribe of primitve people, who all live in the center of the island and have never been out to the coast. They do however have some legends of a great and wonderful thing called the ocean in a far off place, but none of them know what it is. One day two explorers set out from the village in the center of the island, and they each travel in opposite directions to each other. They both make it to the ocean after a long and difficult journey, and when they see the ocean they are amazed. They both scoop up a container full of the water and head back inland. because they have been away for so long two search parties are sent out to follow the same route that the explorers took to try and find them. Each search party meets the explorer they have followed halfway, and the explorers both give the other villagers the containers they have filled saying, quite rightly, "this is the ocean", before turning back towards the beaches, palm trees and streams of the coast. The two search parties go home and meet in the village. A spokesperson from one group steps forwards and holds up his container saying "this is the ocean", causing great scorn from the other group who all shout "No! It can't be - this is the ocean!" holding up their container.

It's not the most accurate or insightful metaphor there has ever been, but I like it...

The term 'perennial philosophy' actually has scholatic christian origins, but as stated on Wikipedia:

"The idea was later taken up by the German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, who used it to designate the common, eternal philosophy that underlies all religions, and in particular the mystical streams within them. The term was popularized in more recent times by Aldous Huxley in his 1945 book: The Perennial Philosophy."

As someone who has always had a keen interest in spirituality, metaphysics and philosophy I am fascinated and drawn to this idea of an "eternal philosophy that underlies all religions". Basically the idea is that the worlds major religions are imperfect reflections of the same underlying truth which, being essentially mystical and transcendental, cannot really be expressed in its pure form. My attitude to religions that I have looked into has always been that I feel inclined to believe them to have some basis on a deeper truth, but I have also always felt repulsed by the absolutism and what I see as the willful ignorance of seeing everything in an over simplistic black and white vision of the world based on simply believing a single book (in many religions) to contain the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I guess the perennial philosophy is as close to being my religion as I will probably ever get.

From a sociological point of view the perennial philosophy may also be the answer to the problem that arises for some people of living in a multicultural and hence multi faith society in which all religions must be considered equal in the eyes of the government and law, and having a personal belief in one religion which is generally held to have the ultimate truth and be above all others.

In any case, I definitely think it is an interesting idea worthy of more attention than it gets.