The Equinox (Volume I, Number III)

THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING viduality, a self-consciousness—I am! This is explained in Brihadaranyaka, 1. 4. 1. as follows: “In the beginning the Atman alone in the form ofa man * was this universe. He gazed around; he saw nothing there but himself. Thereupon he cried out at the beginning: ‘It is I? Thence originated the name I. Therefore to-day, when anyone is summoned, he answers first ‘It is 1’; and then only he names the other name which he bears.”+ This Consciousness of “I” is the second veil which man meets on his upward journey, and, unless he avoid it and escape from its hidden meshes, which are a thousandfold more dangerous than the entanglements of the veil of words, he will never arrive at that higher consciousness, that super- consciousness (Samadhi), which will consume him back into the Atman from which he came. As the fall of the Atman arises from the cry “It is I,” so does the fall of the Self-consciousness of the universe-man arise through that Self-consciousness crying ‘I am it,” thereby identifying the shadow with the substance; from this fall arises the first veil we had occasion to mention, the veil of duality, of words, of belief. This duality we find even in the texts of the oldest Upani- shads, such as in Brihadaranyaka, 3. 4. 1. “It is thy soul, * “There are two persons of the Deity, one in heaven, and one which descended upon earth in the form of man (ze, the Adam Qadmon), and the Holy One, praised be It! unites them (in the union of Samadhi, that is, of Sam (Greek ody, together with), and Adhi, Hebrew Adonai, the Lord). There are three Lights in the Upper Holy Divine united in One, and this is the foundation of the doctrine of Every-Thing, this is the beginning of the Faith, and Every- Thing is concentrated therein” (“Zohar III,” beginning of paragraph. She’- meneeh, fol. 36a, + It is fully realized that outside the vastness of the symbol this “Fall of God” is as impertinent as it is unthinkable. 57