The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

DE LEGE LIBELLVM I OF LIBERTY Ir is of Liberty that I would first write unto you, for ex- cept ye be free to act, ye cannot act. Yet all four gifts of the Law must in some degree be exercised, seeing that these four areone. But for the Aspirant that cometh unto the Master, the first need is freedom. The great bond of all bonds is ignorance. How shall a man be free to act if he know not his own purpose? You must therefore first of all discover which star of all the stars you are, your relation to the other stars about you, and your relation to, and identity with, the Whole. In our Holy Books are given sundry means of making this discovery, and each must make it for himself, attaining absolute conviction by direct experience, not merely reason- ing and calculating what is probable. And to each will come the knowledge of his finite will, whereby one is poet, one prophet, one worker in steel, another in jade. But also to each be the knowledge of his infinite Will, his destiny to per- form the Great Work, the realization of his True Self. Of this Will let me therefore speak clearly unto all, since it per- taineth unto all. Understand now that in yourselves is a certain discon- tent. Analyse well its nature: at the end is in every case one conclusion. The ill springs from the belief in two things, the Self and the Not-Self, and the conflict between them. This also is a restriction of the Will. He who is sick is in conflict with his own body: he who is poor is at odds with 103