The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

THE EQUINOX one stupendous magical exercise to enter that Silence which is beyond all thought. IV. Right Acts or Right Conduct. Having become obedient to his Holy Guardian Angel (the aspirant’s Spiritual Guru) or to the Universal Law as the Buddhist prefers to call it, man naturally enters the stage of Right Conduct, which brings with it supernormal or magical powers. Self is now put aside from action as well as from speech, and the striver only progresses by a stupendous courage and endurance. The canonical Buddhists however strenuously deny the value of these magical powers, Iddhis or Siddhis, and attribute the purification of the striver, the attainment of the state of “stainless deeds,” to the great love wherein he must now enshrine all things. In detail the differ- ences between Buddhism and the Yoga are verbal; in essence, man, at this stage, becomes the lover of the World, and love is the wand of the Magician, that wand which conquers and subdues, vivifies, fructifies and replenishes the worlds, and like the Caduceus of Hermes it is formed of two twining snakes. V. Right Livelihood. Up to this stage man has been but a disciple to his Holy Guardian Angel, but now he grows to be his equal, and in the flesh becomes a flame-shod Adept whose white feet are not soiled by the dust and mud of earth. He has gained perfect control over his body and his mind; and not only are his speech and actions right, but his very life is right, in fact his actions have become a Temple wherein he can at will 146