Perennial Questions

In "Perennial Questions" George Grimm presents us with a precious brief excerpt from his life-work. He takes us near to those sources that reveal the very path leading towards the solution to the fundamental religious problems. "The religions themselves divide", says Grimm, "into religions of belief and cognitive or philosophical religions. Among the latter are the religion of a Socrates, of a Plato and Plotinus, them that of the Occidental mystics who likewise have elaborated their religious attitude through own cognition. In particular the great Indian religions of the Vedas and of the Buddha count among the philosophical religions."

With unusual transcendental purity and impressive clearness the deepest problems of the human heart find their astonishing and yet self-evident solution. Grimm shows that for both the Vedas and the Buddha the primary longing, the primary impulse in all beings, is the very compass pointing to the direction that solution is to be found in. In "Perennial Questions" the great ideas of Theravada and Mahayana merge into one flower. The seeming non-sense of life crystallises into the beings' eternal destination, which here and now can be realised by everybody.

George Grimm (25th February, 1868 - 26th August, 1945) had first studied theology; then he devoted himself to jurisprudence and officiated as judge in bavaria. His profound knowledge of the works of the German philosopher A. Schopenhauer (1788-1860) attracted his attention to the ancient Indian thought. The translations from the Pali Canon by the Indologist K.E. Neumann (1865-1915) aroused his interest in the Buddha's Teaching. For years Grimm and Neumann were closely connected through a vast correspondence. From 1908 on Grimm devoted himself to an intense study of Sanskrit and Pali Paul Deussen (1845-1919), who paved the way for the knowledge of Indian philosophy in Germany, became his frient. To such an extent his Buddhist attitude influenced even on his official activities that he was called "Bavaria's most benevolent judge". From 1920 on he lived in concentrated seclusion, in the course of which he created his great work on behalf of the Dhamma. Together with the Indologist K. Seidenstucker (1876-1936) he founded the "Old Buddhist Community" in 1921. He was a man of complete integrity whose prominent traits of character were his great veracity and his friendliness towards all living beings. He encouraged his friends and inspired them with his own enthusiasm for the Buddha's Teaching. More and more came to the fore George Grimm's strong tendency to meditative introspection, an inner attitude that illuminated his writings and his practical realization of the Dhamma.

Whence have I come from and where shall I go to? What does the imperishable happiness I long for consist in, and where is it to be found? Do these questions not present themselves very likely to everybody at least once, in an hour of inner stillness, and do they tot change such an hour into an hour of deep thoughtfulness They actually are “perennial questions”; as such they arise ever anew with the vicissitudes of life, both in the East and in the West.

In German-speaking countries Perennial Questions has pointed out to its readers in how excelling a way the early Indian thought answered the religious questions in their profundity. The primary longing keeps alive within us the very longing for accomplishment and harmony. It is bodhicitta, the divine spark, the awakening-impulse latent in every being. Thus we experience the condition of permanent dissatisfaction and constant desiring as a state that is inadequate and contrary to our true Being. This primary longing within us demands detachment from what has become and is conditioned as well as turning ourselves towards the non-conditioned.

The answers the following expositions give to the reader’s questions come from intuitive knowledge, to which in the Occident both the great Plotinos and Meister Eckhart have also penetrated. Here the writer of this foreword thinks of S. Radhakrishnan, who stated that while the different religions, as concerns their historical manifestations, join us together into strictly delimited groups and oppose a loyal attitude towards world-wide solidarity, the true mystics have at all times stood up for human friendliness. They are beyond the competition of creeds and likewise beyond racial conflicts and national quarrels. As a spiritual religion true mysticism eludes both the extremes of dogmatic statements and of dogmatic negation. To all appearances it is called to he the very religion for the future.

To the contents of these expositions of S. Radhakrishnan, whose writings strongly impress many deeper minds in the Occident, 1 add the following expositions of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who largely paved the way for the Indian thought in the western world: “Nothing can be more astonishing than the harmony with each, other among the writers who expound those teachings, notwithstanding the immense difference as to their epoch, country and religion, together with the unshakable certainty and fervent trust with which they make known their inner experience as a whole, They actually do not constitute a sect that sticks to, defends and passes on a once adopted and theoretically convenient dogma; they rather do not, for the most part, know of each other; yea, the Indian, Christian and Mohammedan mystics, quietists and ascetics are heterogeneous in everything except in the intrinsic meaning and spirit of their teachings.”

In India the conclusion of the Vedas was brought by the Upanishads in the Vedanta, which implied the ultimate goal of Deliverance and stated that harmony and peace are to be found but in one’s own innermost, to which the psycho-technical way was shown by Yoga. This spiritual trend attained to its highest perfection in the Teaching of the Buddha, the wholly Awakened One. It is he who gives the clearest answer an answer again and again approached by the religious genius and which has been given expression to anew in more recent times by Sri Ramana Maharishi the Saint from Tiruvannamalai in South India. The birth of the I-though is the person’s birth and the former’s death is the death of the latter too. After the I-thought has arisen it comes to the false identification with the body. But once you have ceased to identify yourself with the body and the real self has become reality that delusion vanishes.

Therewith the true seeker is given an answer to perennial questions in that he more and more attains to the very certainty that all that which is transient and perishable about and around him and which brings him suffering ever a new in the measure of his attachment has but the nature of an attribute and ultimately cannot touch his true self. From this very certainty he draws a world overcoming force a force that is utterly necessary in particular in the present time’s everyday life to enable him to remain mindful despite the sense impressions showering down upon him. Here the gem within the Lotus show itself the very treasure within one’s own Innermost a treasure which the world cannot give but which it cannot take away either.

The editors are greatly indebted to Mrs. Ch. Ponisch Schoenwerth for having done the translation to which her inner relationship to the book’s contents particularly enabled her.