The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

THE EQUINOX descended a God-illumined Adept. He fully realized that to admit into his argument the comment of God was to erase all hope of deliverance from the text, and therefore, though he had become The Buddha, nevertheless, in his selflessness he stooped down to the level of the lowest of mankind, and abandoning as dross the stupendous powers he had acquired, helped his fellows to realize the right path by the most universal of all symbols—the woe of the world, the sorrow of mankind. Like the Vedantist, he saw that the crux of the whole trouble was Ignorance (Avijja). Dispel this ignorance, and illumination would take its place, that insight into the real nature of things, which, little by little, leads the Aspirant out of the world of birth and death, the world of Samsara, into that inscrutable Nibbana where things in themselves cease to exist and with them the thoughts which go to build them up. Ignorance is the greatest of all Fetters, and, “he who sins inadvertently,” as Nagasena said, “has the greater demerit.” Enquiring into the particular nature of Ignorance Buddha discovered that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil had three main branches, namely: Lobha, Dosa and Moha; Craving, Passion and the Delusion of Self, and that these three forms of Ignorance alone could be conquered by right understanding the Three Great Signs or Characteristics of all Existence, namely: Change, Sorrow and Absence of an Ego— Anikka, Dukkha, and Anatta, which were attained by medi- tating on the inmost meaning of the Four Noble Truths: “The Truth about Suffering; the Truth about the Cause of Suffering; the Truth about the Cessation of Suffering; and the Truth about the Path which leads to the Cessation of 126