John St. John

3.40. 4.10. 118 THE EQUINOX One might justly object to any Results of this Ten days’ strain. But if abundant health and new capacity to do great work be the after—effect, who then will dare to cast a stone? Not that it matters a turnip—top to the Adept himself. But others may be deterred from entering the Path by the foolish talk of the ignorant, and thus may flowers be lost that should go to make the fadelesswreath of Adonai. Ah, Lord, pluck me up utterly by the root, and set that which Thou pluckest as a flower upon Thy brow! Walked back to the Dome to drink a citron presse through the lovely gardens, sad with their fallen leaves. Reflecting on what Dr. Henry Maudsley once wrote to him about mysticism “ Like other bad habits (he might have said ‘Like all living beings‘) it grows by what it feeds on.” Most important, then, to use the constant critical check on all one’s work. The devotion to Adonai might itself fall under suspicion, were it not for the definition of Adonai. Adonai is that thought which informs and strengthens and purifies, supreme sanity in supreme genius. Any- thing that is not that is not Adonai. Hence the refusal of all other Results, however glorious; for they are all relative, partial, impure. Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta: Change, Sorrow, Unsubstan- tiality; these are their characteristics, however much they may appear to be Atman, Sat, Chit, Ananda, Soul, Being, Knowledge, Bliss. But the main consideration was one of expediency.