FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
19 matching pages
Page 1 of 11912 · PDF PAGE 90
…' he ascribes them (rightly) to a disordered mind. The philosopher looks upon waking life with similar contempt ; and the person who has experienced Dhyana takes the same View, but not by mere pale intellectual conviction. Reasons, hoWever cogent, never convince utterly; but this man in Dhyana has the same commonplace certainty that a man has on waking from a nightmare. “ I wasn’t falling down a thousand flights of stairs, it was only a bad dream.” Similarly comes the reflection of the man who has had experience of Dhyana: “ I am not that wretche…
1912 · PDF PAGE 108
…, consists of three parts, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi, grouped under the single term Samyama. . How can I obtain further knowledge and experience of this? . The A3. A:. is an organization whose heads have obtained by personal experience to the summit of this science. They have
1912 · PDF PAGE 8
…r pen, or an efficient sword, with rack and stake, pro- duced this “belief,” which is contrary to, and destructive of, all real religious experience. The whole life of Frater Perdurabo is now devoted to seeing that you obtain this living experience of Truth for, by, and in yourselves! SOROR VIRAKAM (Mary d’Este Sturges).
1912 · PDF PAGE 86
…what explanations we can find. The first suggestion which would enter a well-balanced mind, versed in the study of nature, is that we have experienced a mental cata- strophe. Just as a blow on the head will make a man “see stars,” so one might suppose that the terrific mental strain of Dharana has some— how over-excited the brain, and caused a spasm, or possibly even the breaking of a small vessel. There seems no reason to reject this ex- planation altogether, though it would be quite absurd to suppose that to accept it would be to condemn the pra…
1912 · PDF PAGE 84
…eeper portion of the mind, yet a portion not so deep but that most men, probably all successful men, will understand these words, having experience of their own with which they can compare it. The most important factor in Dhyana is, however, the annihilation of the Ego. Our conception of the universe must be completely overturned if we are to admit this as valid; and it is time that we considered what is really happening. It will be conceded that we have given a very rational explanation of the greatness of great men. They had an experience so …
1912 · PDF PAGE 89
73 say in this place, that Dhyana has to be classed as the most vivid and catastrophic of all experiences. This will be con- firmed by any one who has been there. It is, then, difficult to overrate the value that such an experience has for the individual, especially as it is his entire conception of things, including his most deep—seated conception, the standard to which he has always referred everything, his own self, that is overthrown; and when we try to explain it away as hallucination, temporary suspension of the faculties or something simil…
1912 · PDF PAGE 92
…s. We may, however, provisionally accept the View that Dhyana is real; more real and thus of more importance to ourselves than all other experience. This state has been described not only by the Hindus and Buddhists, but by Mohammedans and Christians. In Christian writings, however, the deeply-seated dogmatic bias has rendered their documents worthless to the average man. They ignore the essential conditions of Dhyana, and insist on the inessential, to a much greater extent than the best lndian writers. But to any one with experienceand some kn…
1912 · PDF PAGE 110
…g Liber LXI and the secret holy book, Liber LXV. The principal point of this grade is that the Probationer has a master appointed, whose experience can guide him in his work. He may select any practices that he prefers, but in any case must keep an exact record, so that he may discover the relation of cause and effect in his working, and so that the As. A.'. may judge of his progress, and direct his further studies. After a year of probation he may be admitted a Neophyte of the A:. A.'., and receive the secret holy book Liber VII. These are the…
1912 · PDF PAGE 63
…ving been mastered, all immediate exciting causes have been removed, and we are free to think what we are thinking about. A very similar experience to that of Asana is in store for us. At first we shall very likely flatter ourselves that our minds are pretty calm; this is a defect of observation. Just as the European standing for the first time on the edge of the desert will see nothing there, while his 47
1912 · PDF PAGE 66
…ts (see “The Psychology of Hashish,” Section V, in Equinox II). Others take the View that supcess in this practice is something like the experience which Sir Humphrey Davy had as a result of taking nitrous oxide, in which he exclaimed: “The universe is composed exclusively of ideas.” , Others say that it gives Hamlet’s feeling: “ There ’8 nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so,” interpreted as literally as was done by Mrs. Eddy.
1912 · PDF PAGE 82
… higher level. Also the conditions of thought, time, and space are abolished. It is impossible to explain what this really means :i only experience can furnish you with apprehension. (This, too, has its analogies in ordinary life; the conceptions of higher mathematics cannot be grasped by the beginner, cannot be explained to the layman.) Α further development is the appearance of the Form which has been universallydescribed as human; although the persons describing it proceed to add a great number of details which are not human at all. This par…
1912 · PDF PAGE 81
… continuous process, and exactly when the climax comes does not matter. It is of this climax that we must speak, for this is a matter of experience, and a very striking one. In the course of our concentration we noticed that the contents of the mind at any moment consisted of two things, and no more: the Object, variable, and the Subject, invariable, or apparently so. By success in Dharana the object has been made as invariable as the subject. Now the result of this is that the two become one. This phenomenon usually comes as a tremendous shock…
1912 · PDF PAGE 22
8 Diverse as these statements are at first sight, all agree in announcing an experience of the class which fifty years ago would have been called supernatural, to-day may be called spiritual, and fifty years hence will have a proper name based on an understanding of the phenomenon which occurred. Theorists have not been at a loss to explain; but they differ. The Mohammedan insists that God is, and did really send Gabriel with messages for Mohammed: but all others contradict him. And from the nature of the case proof is impossible. The lack of proo…
1912 · PDF PAGE 85
… that in which a man goes about saying he is tired of life, he could manage somehow or other to kill someone first. “ Νονν the man whohas experienced any of the more intense forms of Dhyana is thus liberated. The Universe is thus destroyed for him, and he for it. His will can therefore go on its way unhampered. One may imagine that in the case of Mohammed he had cherished for years a tremendous ambition, and never done anything because those qualities which were subsequently manifested as statesmanship warned him that he was impotent. His vision…
1912 · PDF PAGE 30
…gain and again in the attempt to describe it. It is an absolute knock-out blow to the mind. It is so vivid and tremendous that those Who experience it are in the gravest danger of losing all sense of proportion. By its light all other events of life are as darkness. Owing to this, people have utterly failed to analyse it or to estimate it. They are accurate enough in saying that, compared with this, all human life is absolutely dross; but they go further, and go wrong. They argue that “since this is that which transcends the terrestrial, it mus…
1912 · PDF PAGE 102
…of which all actual smells are modifications. It is “the smell which is no! a smell.” This is the only reasonable descrip— tion ; for the experience being contrary to reason, it is only reasonable that the words describing it should be contrary to reason too.2 Similarly, concentration on the tip of the tongue gives the “ideal taste ”; on the dorsum of the tongue, “ideal contact.” “ Every atom of 1 These are the complements of the three methods of Enthusiasm (A. '. A. '. instruc- tion not yet issued up to March 1912). 2 Hence the Athanasian Creed…
1912 · PDF PAGE 98
…one seems able to reconcile the two meanings of the word which we debated in the last section. From below Dhyana seems like a trance, an experience so tremendous that one cannot think of anything bigger, while from above it seems merely a state of mind as natural as any other. Frater P., before he had Samadhi, wrote of Dhyana: “ Perhaps as a result of the intense control a nervous storm breaks: this we call Dhyana. Samadhi is but an expansion of this, so far as I can see.” Five years later he would not take this view. He would say perhaps that …
1912 · PDF PAGE 23
…two Chinese systems. But Hinduism has no single founder. Lao Tze is one of our best examples of a man who went away and had a mysterious experience; perhaps the best of all examples, as his system is the best of all systems. We have full details of his method of training in the [)'/13118 Kang King, and elsewhere. But it is so little known that we shall omit considera- tion of it in this popular account.
1912 · PDF PAGE 72
… which it is incapable. Not to mention its total disap pearance, and replacement by something altogether different! Any one to whom this experience does not occur need not imagine that he is meditating. It shows merely that he is incapable of concen— trating his mind in the very smallest degree. Perhaps a student may go for several days before discovering that he is not meditating. When he does, the obstinacy‘of the object will infuriate him; and it is only now that his real troubles will begin, only now that Will comes really into play, only n…