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[ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] thatÜ in itself still means nothing, in the same way as length means nothing when there are only two points there. But the introduction of the third point has given a meaning to our idea of length. We can say that the line AB is longer than the line BC, and we can also introduce the idea of an angle. 10. A fourth point, provided that it is not in the original plane, gives us the idea of a solid body. But, as before, it tells us nothing about the solid body as such, because there is no other solid body with which to compare it. We find also that it is not really a solid body at all as it stands, because it is merely an instantaneous kind of illusion. We cannot observe, or even imagine, anything, unless we have time for the purpose. 11. What, then is time? It is a phantasm, exactly as tenuous as space, but the possibilities of differentiation between one thing and another can only occur in one way instead of in three different ways. We compare two phenomena in time by the idea of sequence. 12. Now¯ it will be perfectly clear to all of you that this is all nonsense. In order to conceive the simplest possible object, we have to keep on inventing ideas, which even in the proud moment of invention are seen to be unreal. How are we to get away from the world of phantasmagoria to the common universe of sense? We shall require quite a lot more acts of imagination. We have got to endow our mathematical conceptions with three ideas which Hindu philoso- phers call Sat, Chit and Ananda, which are usually translated Being, Knowledge and Bliss. This really means: Sat, the tendency to conceive of an object as real; Chit, the tendency to pretend that it is an object of knowledge; and Ananda, the tendency to imagine that we are affected by it. 13. It is only after we have endowed the object with these dozen imaginary properties, each of which, besides being a complete illusion, is an absurd, irrational, and self-contradictory notion, that we arrive at even the simplest object of experience. And this obØject must, of course, be constantly multiplied. Otherwise our experience would be confined to a single object incapable of description. 14. We have also got to attribute to ourselves a sort of divine power over our nightmare creation, so that we can compare the differ- ent objects of our experience in all sorts of different manners. Incidentally, this last operation of multiplying the objects stands evidently invalid, because (after all) what we began with was absol- utely Nothingness. Out of this we have somehow managed to obtain, not merely one, but many; but, for all that, our process has followed the necessary operation of our intellectual machine. Since that machine is the only machine that we possess, our arguments must be valid in some sense or other conformable with the nature of this machine. What machine? That is a perfectly real object. It con- tains innumerable parts, powers and faculties. And they are as much a nightmare as the external universe which it has created. Gad, sir, Pa tanjali is right! 15. Now how do we get over this difficulty of something coming from Nothing? Only by enquiring what we mean by Nothing. We shall find that this idea is totally inconceivable to the normal mind. For if Nothing is to be Nothing, it must be Nothing in every possible way. (Of course, each of these ways is itself an imaginary some- thing, and there are Aleph-Zero -- a transfinite number -- of them.) If, for example, we say that Nothing is a square triangle, we have had to invent a square triangle in order to say it. But take a more homely instance. We know what we mean by saying 'There are cats in the room.' We know what we mean when we say 'No cats are in the room.' But if we say '*No* cats are *not* in the room,' we evidently mean that *some* cats *are* in the room. This remark is not intended to be a reflection upon this distinguished audience. 16. So then, if Nothing is to be really the absolute Nothing, we mean that Nothing does not enter into the category of exisËtence. To say that absolute Nothing exists is equivalent to saying that everything exists which exists, and the great Hebrew sages of old time noted this fact by giving it the title of the supreme idea of reality (behind their tribal God, Jehovah, who, as we have previously shown, is merely the Yoga of the 4 Elements, even at his highest, -- the Demiourgos) Eheieh-Asher-Eheieh, -- I am that I am. 17. If there is any sense in any of this at all, we may expect to find an almost identical system of thought all over the world. There is nothing exclusively Hebrew about this theogony. We find, for example, in the teachings of Zoroaster and the neo-Platonists very similar ideas. We have a Pleroma, the void, a background of all possibilities, and this is filled by a supreme Light-God, from whom drive in turn the seven Archons, who correspond closely to the seven planetary deities, Aratron, Bethor, Phaleg and the rest. These in their turn constitute a Demiurge in order to crate matter; an·d this Demiurge is Jehovah. Not far different are the ideas both of the classical Greeks and the neo-Platonists. The differences in the terminology, when examined, appear as not much more than the differ- ences of local convenience in thinking. But all these go back to the still older cosmogony of the ancient Egyptians, where we have Nuit, Space, Hadit, the point of view; these experience congress, and so produce Heru-Ra-Ha, who combines the ideas of Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Hoor- paar-Kraat. These are the same twin Vau and He' final which we know. Here is evidently the origin of the system of the Tree of Life. 18. We have arrived at this system by purely intellectual examination, and it is open to criticism; but the point I wish to bring to your notice tonight is that it corresponds closely to one of the great states of mind which reflect the experience of Samadhi. There is a vision of peculiar character which has been of cardinal importance in my interior life, and to which conflstant reference is made in my Magical Diaries. So far as I know, there is no extant description of this vision anywhere, and I was surprised on looking through my records to find that I had given no clear account of it myself. The reason apparently is that it is so necessary a part of myself that I unconsciously assume it to be a matter of common knowledge, just as one assumes that everyone knows that one possesses a pair of lungs, and therefore abstains from mentioning the fact directly, although perhaps alluding to the matter often enough. It appears very essential to describe this vision as well as possible, considering the difficulty of langauge, and the fact that the phenomena involved logical contradictions, the conditions of consciousness being other than those obtaining normally. The vision developed gradually. It was repeated on so many occasions that I am unable to say at what period it may be called complete. The beginning, however, is clear enough in my memory.Û 19. I was on a Great Magical Retirement in a cottage overlook- ing Lake Pasquaney in New Hampshire. I lost consciousness of every- thing but an universal space in which were innumerable bright points, and I realised that this was a physical representation of the uni- verse, in what I may call its essential structure. I exclaimed: [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] |