The Perennial Philosophy is expressed most succinctly in the Sanskrit formula, tat tvam asi ('That art thou'); the Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman, the Absolute Principle of all existence; and the last end of every human being, is to discover the fact for himself, to find out who he really is.

The legs, for example, of that chair--how miraculous their tubularity, how supernatural their polished smoothness! I spent several minutes--or was it several centuries?--not merely gazing at those bamboo legs, but actually being them---or rather being myself in them; or, to be still more accurate (for "I" was not involved in the case, nor in a certain sense were "they") being my Not-self in the Not-self which was the chair.

Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.

There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol.

A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it.

That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.

From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.