The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING Dawn with Pranava. This, as I foresaw, retained the Dhyanic Consciousness. The Disk grew golden: rose clear of all its clouds, flinging great fleecy cumuli of rose and gold, fiery with light, into the aethyr of space. Hollow it seemed and rayless as the Sun in Sagittarius, yet incomparably brighter: but rising clear of cloud, it began to revolve, to coruscate, to throw off streamers of jetted fire! [This from a hill-top I beheld, dark as of a dying world. Covered with black decayed wet peaty wood, a few pines stood stricken, unutterably alone.*] But behind the glory of its coruscations seemed to shape, an idea less solid than a shadow! an Idea of some Human-seeming Form! Now grew doubt and thought in P.’s miserable mind; and the One Wave grew many waves and all was lost! Alas! Alas! for P.!| And Glory Eternal unto Her, She the twin-Breasted that hath encroached even upon the other half of the Destroyer! “OM Namo Bhavaniya OM.” Filled with the glory of the great light that had arisen in him, for many days P. communed in silence with the Vision that days upon days of labour had revealed to him, and then leaving his place of retirement near Kandy he journeyed to Anhuradhapura, and thence to many sacred shrines and temples throughout the island of Ceylon, gathering as he travelled spiritual knowledge, and learning the ancient customs of the people and the manner of their lives. Towards the end of November his work in Ceylon being accomplished he arrived at Madura, and from there he journeyed to Calcutta. At this city he remained for about a month, during almost the whole of which time he suffered from sickness and fever. He however records one interesting incident, which took place during an early morning walk whilst he was in deep meditation: “Whilst in this meditation, a kind of inverted Manichaeism seemed to develop and take possession of it, Nature appearing as a great evil and fatal force, unwittingly developing within * This is a mere thought-form induced by misunderstanding the instruction of Maitrananda Swami as to observing the phenomenon. 167