The Vision and the Voice

THE VISION AND THE VOICE The flesh hangeth upon thee like his rags upon a beggar that is a pilgrim to the shrine of the Exalted One. Neverthe- less, bear them bravely, and rejoice in the beauty thereof, for the company of the pilgrims is a glad company, and they have no care, and with song and dance and wine and fair women do they make merry. And every hostel is their palace, and every maid their queen. Gather up thy garments about thee, I say, for the voice of the Aethyr, that is the voice of the Aeon, is ended, and thou art absorbed into the lesser night, and caught in the web of the light of thy mother in the word ARBADAHARBA. And now the five and the six are divorced, and I am come again within my body. Bou-SAapa. December 3, 1909. 9.15 to 11.10 a.m. THE CRY OF THE 14TH AETHYR, WHICH IS CALLED UTI There come into the stone a white goat, a green dragon, and a tawny bull. But they pass away immediately. There is a veil of such darkness before the Aethyr that it seems impossible to pierce it. But there is a voice saying: Behold, the Great One of the Night of Time stirreth, and with his tail he churneth up the slime, and of the foam thereof shall he make stars. And in the battle of the Python and the Sphinx shall the glory be to the Sphinx, but the victory to the Python. Now the veil of darkness is formed of a very great number of exceedingly fine black veils, and one tears them off one at a time. And the voice says, There is no light or knowledge or beauty or stability in the Kingdom of the Grave, whither 71