The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE 32. This light shines from the jewel of the Great En- snarer (Mara). The senses it bewitches, blinds the mind, and leaves the unwary an abandoned wreck. Iam inclined to believe that most of Blavatsky’s notes are intended as blinds. “Light” such as is described has a tech- nical meaning. It would be too petty to regard Mara as a Christian would regard a man who offered him a cigarette. The supreme and blinding light of this jewel is the great vision of Light. It is the light which streams from the threshold of Nirvana, and Mara is the’ ‘dweller on the threshold.’ It is absurd to call this light ‘evil’ in any com- monplace sense. It is the two-edged sword, flaming every way, that keeps the gate of the Tree of Life. And there is a further Arcanum connected with this which it would be im- proper here to divulge. 33. The moth attracted to the dazzling flame of thy night lamp is doomed to perish in the viscid oil. The unwary Soul that fails to grapple with the mocking demon of illusion, will return to earth the slave of Méra. The result of failing to reject rewards is the return to earth. The temptation is to regard oneself as having at- tained, and so do no more work. 34. Behold the Hosts of Souls. Watch how they hover o’er the stormy sea of human life, and how, exhausted, bleeding, broken-winged, they drop one after another on the swelling waves. Tossed by the fierce winds, chased by the gale, they drift into the eddies and disappear within the first great vortex. In this metaphor is contained a warning against identify- 2