Someone said, “Try reading Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy.”

Soh replied, “Thanks for the recommendation. I will look into it. However, I have to say that while I understand perennial philosophy, I do not agree with it."

(The perennial philosophy, also referred to as perennialism and perennial wisdom, is a perspective in philosophy and spirituality that views all of the world's religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine has grown.)

There are similarities but also differences in views and realizations.

As Christian mystic Bernadette Roberts said:

"That everyone has different experiences and perspectives is not a problem; rather, the problem is that when we interpret an experience outside its own paradigm, context, and stated definitions, that experience becomes lost altogether. It becomes lost because we have redefined the terms according to a totally different paradigm or perspective and thereby made it over into an experience it never was in the first place. When we force an experience into an alien paradigm, that experience becomes subsumed, interpreted away, unrecognizable, confused, or made totally indistinguishable. Thus when we impose alien definitions on the original terms of an experience, that experience becomes lost to the journey, and eventually it becomes lost to the literature as well. To keep this from happening, it is necessary to draw clear lines and to make sharp, exacting distinctions. The purpose of doing so is not to criticize other paradigms, but to allow a different paradigm or perspective to stand in its own right, to have its own space in order to contribute what it can to our knowledge of man and his journey to the divine.

Distinguishing what is true or false, essential or superficial in our experience is not a matter to be taken lightly. We cannot simply define our terms and then sit back and expect perfect agreement across the board. Our spiritual-psychological journey does not work this way. We are not uniform robots with the same experiences, same definitions, same perspectives, or same anything."

Acharya Mahayogi Shridhar Rana Rinpoche went through the realization of Atman-Brahman and was confirmed by his Vedantic masters as having deep and profound realizations. However, he later felt unsatisfied. By delving into Buddhism, he attained the Buddhist realizations, continued to spend decades in retreat, and was asked to teach by his Buddhist teachers.

As I wrote in an online article:

“As one of the few great Buddhist teachers in Nepal, where the majority of the population belongs to the Hindu faith and where myths and misconceptions about Buddhism abound, he is in a great position to correct all of these misconceptions and to do an accurate and unbiased comparison between the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism due to his deep knowledge and experience of the Buddhist teachings as well as his previous experience with the Hindu tradition. He emphasizes that the comparison was done not to demean one system of teaching over another but to provide greater clarity on the essential doctrines of each system so that they could each be understood correctly. As he says, 'I must reiterate that this difference between the two systems is very important to fully understand both systems properly and is not meant to demean either system.'”

Also, my mentor Thusness wrote years ago:

“Yes, sahaja samadhi, but that remains an 'experience'. Just like in Taoism, it is all about naturalness (自然) and non-action (action without an agent). Although there are overlaps, they are essentially different in praxis and view. There is no need to forcefully integrate the various religions into one; that just creates more attachment.

Although there is no monopoly on truth, as all are ultimately talking about one's primordial nature, some are much clearer and more precise in their system of practice. If the views and philosophies are 90% inherent and dualistic, the result from such a system will, at best, be a stage to be achieved, albeit with an emphasis on the 'natural state'.

As I said before, if someone were to say, 'Soh is a Malay, wears glasses, used to be a C# programmer, is 1.9m tall, and has a sister,' obviously some information is correct and some is misleading. Even if you were to stand right in front of him, you would not be able to recognize him. Therefore, although all are talking about the natural condition of pristine consciousness, some are exceptionally clearer than others.”