This Aldous Huxley Passage is as Eloquent AND Helpful as it Gets
It’s about the importance of being light.
Most people hear the name Aldous Huxley and think of his classic dystopian novel, Brave New World, for which he won international acclaim.
But toward the end of his life Huxley examined the opposite end of the spectrum with Island, his portrait of a utopian society.
The novel is an amalgam of the philosophies Huxley espoused in the latter decades of his life, namely Vedanta, the Perennial Philosophy and Yoga.
One passage in Island is particularly compelling and eloquent. The setting and characters aren’t particularly pertinent so let’s get right to the text:
“Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them…
Throw away your baggage and go forward.
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,
trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.
That’s why you must walk so lightly.
Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag,
completely unencumbered.”
Simply reading this calms me as I’m sure it does many of you. Why is that?