I'm well acquainted with Gurdjieff and "the Work". Though I've never managed to make my way all the way through Beelzebub's Tales (and, yes, I realize there are those who will tell you this means I've missed the essential), I have read and reread the books of Nicoll,...

You ask what the dividing line is in Orthodoxy between acceptable and unacceptable "beliefs and perspectives". It's certainly true that a certain diversity of viewpoints is inevitable among the members of a given religious tradition, and within certain limits the...

Your message began with a quotation from Sri Ramana Maharshi: "The guru helps you in the eradication of ignorance. The ego is a very powerful elephant and cannot be brought under control by anyone less than a lion, who is none other than the guru, whose very look...

I'm the first to sympathize with anyone who is skeptical of academics, but you couldn't be more mistaken if you think perennialism is an "academic phenomenon". Let's be clear: when you refer to the "ideological lenses" of modern academicians, what you're talking...

I wasn't exaggerating when I expressed things as I did in class. The tradition, at least the monastic tradition, is uncompromisingly clear on this point: obedience is crucial, even in situations where it might seem as though one's spiritual father is wrong, and indeed...

How to "maintain balance" and "acquire peace"? I could simply quote myself quoting Schuon: "Metaphysical truth, a life of prayer, moral conformity, interiorizing beauty: this is the essential, and this is our message" (Advice to the Serious Seeker, p. 7). In other...

I'm not nearly as familiar as you seem to be with the writings of Aurobindo. But did he not say that human beings constitute a "transitional species"? This, if so, is at least one good reason his teachings have been so strongly repudiated by those who accept the...

I agree that "not even the addict is equally attached to all things", but our attachments to the odd numbers can't help but color our perception of the even numbers. I would certainly beware of supposing myself "safely able to contemplate" anything, without risk of...

Precision is clearly called for. It's quite unfair of you to oversimplify things and say that we Christians "encourage self-doubt" while you Buddhists don't. Your childhood experiences with the total depravity crowd, while certainly unfortunate, do not entitle you to...

"How," you ask, "can we make modern people skeptical of their enormously successful science?" I very much doubt we can, not at least taking "modern people" en masse. I've certainly never supposed my own teaching or writing would have much of an effect on the masses....