The Star in the West

THE CUP 185 jowl with such squalor , such poverty , such want . Is there a God ? Could there be a God ? A power of Light compatible with such dismal darkness . Is there a life eternal ? The grim horror of such a possibility grips us by the throat . Is there an eternal Death ? Ah ! Saviour, deliver us from the misery of our lot ; lead us to the realms of eternal Rest , where rich and poor , good and bad , are made one , lost in the depths of the Lethean sea. And what can all this lead us to , this progress through misery ? To the great archetype the Arahat ship of Buddha . It was by gazing on the sunken eyes of a corpse , so the legend runs , that Gautama forsook pleasure for a life of pity . Life is feodal to Death , and our ultimate sleep is greater than our first awakening . The womb was dark ; from out it sprang the thought less ; the tomb is darker still ; into it creeps the thoughtful . The dead are our gods , soon we shall strike our tent for the last time and join the great caravanserai of the departed : Wend now thy way with brow serene , fear not thy humble tale to tell : The whispers of the Desert - wind ; the tinkling of the camel's bell . This beauty of Death as the releaser from the temptations of life , is finely drawn by the subtle pen of Aleister Crowley . Death is no longer the grub slimed skull , about whose sticky lips buzz the blue blow - flies of decay ; but rather a divine goddess , whose arms are ever about us , and whose kiss is the kiss of a mother closing the eyes of her child in gentle sleep : | The Kasidah . R. Burton .