The Star in the West

266 THE STAR IN THE WEST BUDDHISM As regards the beginning of all things the Buddh ist is discreetly silent , he ( as Crowley says ) neither prevaricates like the Hindu , nor openly lies like the Christian . In the Is'a Upanishad we read : Into dense darkness he enters Who has conceived becoming to be naught , Into yet denser he Who has conceived becoming to be aught . In the second discourse of the Bhagavad - Gītā we also read : Uncleavable He , incombustible He , and indeed neither to be wetted nor dried away ; perpetual , all - pervasive , stable , immovable , ancient , unmanifest , unthinkable , im mutable He is called . This is very much like the Athanasian Creed , after having defined God in every possible way , to end up by describing him as “ incomprehensible .” Not so the Buddhist who went back to the older vedic con ception : In the beginning there is existence blind and without knowledge ; and in this sea of ignorance there are appet ences formative and organizing . – The Questions of King Milinda . We must , however , pass by the question of begin ning , and see how the Buddhistic ideals have affected the poetry and philosophy of Aleister Crowley . According to Buddhism , existence is sorrow , the cause of sorrow is desire , the cessation of sorrow is