The article attempts to compare the foundations of religious and philosophical views of Russian and English writers. Attention is paid to the ideas of Leo Tolstoy and O. Huxley about religion and religious truth, the unity of God, the world and man, about time and eternity, and the peculiarities of the perception of the divine first principle. For the analysis of the worldview of the classics, works from the late period of Tolstoy's work are used, including collections of the writer's thoughts ("reading Circle", "For every day", "the Way of life"), his diaries and letters, as well as works by Huxley in the 1940s and 1960s. (novels "Time must stop", "Island", collection "Eternal philosophy", journalistic works "doors of perception", "Heaven and Hell"). The author was able to identify similarities in the approaches of the two classics of world literature, which was expressed in a kind of religious and philosophical synthesis based on the understanding of the traditions of Eastern and Western thought. We can talk about a kind of non-confessional approach of Tolstoy and Huxley, who turned to the Hindu Scriptures, Taoist literature, Sufism, Christian mystics of the middle Ages and Modern times, Quakers, etc. Understanding the unity of the world and man played an important role in shaping the foundations of Tolstoy and Huxley's worldview. This was one of the key ideas of Tolstoy's religious and philosophical work. The perception of the identity of the life principle in people, in all living things, a kind of feeling of the Hindu "tat tvam asi" (identity of the Atman to the Brahman) Tolstoy expressed it both in his diaries and in his works. The same idea formed the basis of the concept of the "Eternal philosophy" of the English writer. Thinkers who followed a rational approach to sources proceeded from the idea of the existence of a single religious truth and the possibility of its comprehension by each person. Tolstoy and Huxley attached a decisive importance to personal spiritual experience, the movement of the individual along the path of understanding the truth, while religious, theological nuances, belonging to a certain cultural or religious tradition were considered less significant in comparison with the approach of the believer to the religious ideal.