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Page 1 of 11939 · PDF PAGE 71
… use the one to help out the other in an emergency. 23. Of course, nobody understands better than I do that, although nobody can do your work for you, it is possible to make useto a certain very limited extentof other people's experience, and the Great Order which I have the honour to serve has appointed what I think you will agree is a very satisfactory and practical curriculum. 24. You are expected to spend three months at least on the study of some of the classics on the subject. The chief object of this is not to instruct you, but to fami…
1939 · PDF PAGE 23
…reative, genial element of the cosmos. He has Ganymede and Hebe to his cupbearers. There is an immense and inaccessible joy in the Great Work; and it is the attainment of the trance, of even the intellectual foreshadowing of that trance, of joy, which reassures the Yogi that his work is worth while. Jupiter digests experiences; Jupiter is the Lord of the Forces of Life; Jupiter takes common matter and transmutes it into celestial nourishment. 10. The next planet is Mars. Mars represents the muscular system; it is the lowest form of energy, and …
1939 · PDF PAGE 57
…nvey our experience to others familiar with that experience to a less degree by the aesthetic method. And this explains why all the good work on Yoga- alchemy, magick and the restnot doctrinal but symbolicthe word of God to man, is given in Poetry and Art. In my next lecture I shall endeavour to go a little deeper into the technique of obtaining these results, and also give a more detailed account of the sort of thing that is likely to occur in the course of the preliminary practices. Love is the law, love under will. 4Tannhäuser, written in…
1939 · PDF PAGE 42
…tices recommended in The Equinox. There should bethere must bea definite routine of acts calculated to remind the student of the Great Work. 9. The classic of the subject is Liber Astarte vel Berylli, the Book of Devotion to a Particular Deity. This book is admirable beyond praise, reviewing the whole subject in every detail with flawless brilliancy of phrase. Its practice is enough in itself to bring the devotee to high attainment. This is only for the few. But every student should make a point of saluting the Sun (in the manner recommended …
1939 · PDF PAGE 26
…eive his whole consciousness through the senses alone. And they hit us hardest because they interfere directly with the technique of our work; we are constantly gaining new powers, despite ourselves, and every time this happens we have to invent a new method for bringing their malice to naught. But, as before, the remedy is of the same stuff as the disease; it is the unswerving purity of aspiration that enables us to surmount all these difficulties. The Moon is the sheet- anchor of our work. It is the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guar…
1939 · PDF PAGE 65
… way that the attention is constantly recalled to the chosen object. 6. Suppose I want to evoke the 'Intelligence' of Jupiter. I base my work upon the correspondences of Jupiter. I base my mathematics on the number 4 and its subservient numbers 16, 34, 136. I employ the square or rhombus. For my sacred animal I choose the eagle, or some other sacred to Jupiter. For my perfume, saffronfor my libation some preparation of opium or a generous yet sweet and powerful wine such as port. For my magical weapon I take the sceptre; in fact, I continue ch…
1939 · PDF PAGE 24
…t you are managing your breath so that your cycle, breathing in, holding, and breathing out, lasts exactly a minute. That is pretty good work for most people, but it may be or may not be good enough to get you going. No one can tell you until you have tried long enough (and no one can tell you how long 'long enough' may be) whether that is going to ring the bell. It may be that if you increase your sixty seconds to sixty-four the phenomena would begin immediately. That sounds all right but as you have nearly burst your lungs doing the sixty, yo…
1939 · PDF PAGE 34
…, and there aren't. Only the human mind is so lazy and worthless that it is a positive instinct to try to find some dodge to escape hard work. These tricks may help or they may hinder; it is up to you to find out which are good and which are bad, the why and the what and all the other questions. It all comes to the same thing in the end. There is only one way to still the body in the long run, and that is to keep it still. It's doggèd as does it. 18. The irritations develop into extreme agony. Any attempt to alleviate this simply destroys the v…
1939 · PDF PAGE 29
… ways, bad wives, and bad weather. We are comfortably installed in the sunshine, with no one to bother us. We have nothing to do but our work. Such being our fortunate state, we may usefully put in an hour considering our next step. Let us recall, in the first place, what we decided to be the quintessence of our task. It was to annihilate dividuality. 'Make room for me,' cries the Persian poet whose name I have forgotten, the fellow Fitzgerald translated, not Omar Khayyam, 'Make room for me on that divan which has no room for twain'a remarkabl…
1939 · PDF PAGE 46
…icle of pain, so is the normal itself insane; by its own standards it is insane. You have only got to read a quite simple and elementary work like Professor Joad's Guide to Philosophy to find that any argument carried far enough
1939 · PDF PAGE 37
…nt it is just possible for a man of extraordinary will power, with plenty of leisure and no encumbrances, to do a good deal of the spade-work of Yoga even in England. But I should advise him to stick very strictly to the purely physical preparation, and on no account to attempt the practices of concentration proper, until he is able to acquire suitable surroundings. But do not let him imagine that in making this very exceptional indulgence I am going to advocate any slipshod ways. If he decides to do, let us say, a quarter of an hour's Asana tw…
1939 · PDF PAGE 40
…eble when I say that the best translation of the letter Hé final would be 'ecstasy rising into Silence.' Moral: meditate yourselves, and work it out! Finally, there is no other way. 4. I think it is very important, since we are studying Yoga from a strictly scientific point of view, to emphasise the exactness of the analogy that exists between the Yogic and the sexual process. If you look at the Tree of Life, you see that the Number One at the top divides itself into Numbers Two and Three, the equal and opposite Father and Mother, and their uni…
1939 · PDF PAGE 18
…errors and weaknesses, and the man who wins through is the man who manages to carry on with a defective engine. The actual strain of the work develops the defects; and it is a matter of great nicety of judgment to be able to deal with the changing conditions of life. It will be seen that the formula'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law' has nothing to do with 'Do as you please.' It is much more difficult to comply with the Law of Thelema than to follow out slavishly a set of dead regulations. Almost the only point of emancipation, i…
1939 · PDF PAGE 31
…cur in our practice. We must break away from our sorites, turn to the empiricism of experiment, and trust that one day we may be able to work back from observed fact to a coherent metaphysic. The point is that by sitting still, in the plain literal sense of the words, the body does ultimately respond to the adjuration of that great Mahatma, Harry Lauder, 'Stop your ticklin', Jock!' 8. When we approach the details of Asana, we are immediately confronted with the refuse-heap of Hindu pedantry. We constantly approach the traditional spiritual atti…
1939 · PDF PAGE 69
…e and inspiring Trance of Sorrow they have nothing but the miserable, cowardly, and selfish sense of guilt to urge them to undertake the Work. 15. I think we may dismiss altogether from our minds every claim to experience made by any Christian of whatever breed of spiritual virus as a mere morbid reflection, the apish imitation of the true ecstasies and trances. All expressions of the real thing must partake of the character of that thing, and therefore only that language is permissible which is itself released from the canon of ordinary speech…
1939 · PDF PAGE 66
…began Yoga seriously, I had almost invented a Yogic method of practising Magick in the stress of circumstances. I had been accustomed to work with full magical apparatus in an admirably devised temple of my own. Now I found myself on shipboard, or in some obscure bedroom of Mexico City, or camped beside my horse among the sugar canes in lonely tropical valleys, or couched with my rucksack for all pillow on bare volcanic heights. I had to
1939 · PDF PAGE 22
…e from all the grosser causes of trouble. The practical problem of Yama is therefore, to a great extent, 'How shall I settle down to the work?' Then, having complied with the theoretically best conditions, you have to tackle each fresh problem as it arises in the best way you can. 6. We are now in a better position to consider the meaning of Niyama, or virtue. To most men the qualities which constitute Niyama are not apprehended at all by their self-consciousness. These are positive powers, but they are latent; their development is not merely m…