The Equinox (Volume I, Number VIII)

THE EQUINOX Oct. 9. Tested new ritual and behold it was very good! Thanked gods and sacrificed for—— In the “thanksgivingand sacrifice for. . I did get rid of everything but the Holy Exalted One, and must have held Him for a minute or two. I did. I am sure I did. Such is the fragmentary account of what was then the greatest event in Fra. P.’s career. Yet this is an account of the highest of the trances—of Shivadarshana itself, as we know from other sources. The “vision,” to use still the name become totally inadequate, appears to have had three main points in its Atmadarshana stage— I. The Universal Peacock. 2, The Universe as Ego. “I who am all and made it all abide its separate Lord," i.e. the Universe becomes a single and simple being, without quantity, quality, or conditions. In this the "I " is immanent, yet the “ I " made it, and the “ I ᾽᾽ is entirely apart from it, (This is the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, or something very like it.) 3. This Trinity is transcended by an impersonal Unity. This is then annihilated by the Opening of the Eye of Shiva. It is absolutely futile to discuss this: it has been tried and failed again and again. Even those with experience of the earlier part of the “vision ᾽᾽in its fullness must find it totally impossible to imagine anything so subversive of the whole base, not only of the Ego, but of the Absolute behind the Ego. There are, however, many suggestive poetical descriptions which we advise our readers to study. Notable are “Aha !" (passage quoted below) and many portions of Liber LXV, 38