The Equinox (Volume I, Number III)

THE EQUINOX the second The Invocations of Adonai—the work of attain- ment. Then he took another step forward. “Do as thou wilt!” Not only is Animism absurd, but so also is Morality; not only is Reincarnation absurd, but so also is Transmigration; not only is the Ego absurd, but so also is the Non-Ego; not only is Karma absurd, but so also is Nibbana. For, all things and no-things are absurd save “I,” who am Soul and Body, Good and Evil, Sorrow and Joy, Change and Equilibrium; who in the temple of Adonai, am beyond all these, and by the fire side in my study—Mr. X, one with each and all. Thus it came about that the study of Buddhism caused Frater P. to abandon the tinsel of the Vedanta as well as its own cherished baubles, and induced him, more than ever, to rely on Work and Work alone and not on philosophizing, moralizing and rationalizing. The more rational he became, the less he reasoned outwardly; and the more he became endowed with the Spirit of the Buddha in place of the vapour- ings of Buddhism, the more he saw that personal endeavour was the key; not the Scriptures, which at best could but indi- cate the way. It (the Dharma) is to be attained to by the wise, each one for himself. Salvation rests on Work and not on Faith, not in reforming the so-called fallen, but in conquering one- self. “If one man conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand men: and another conquer but himself;—he is the greatest of conquerors.”* This is the whole of Buddhism, as it is of any and all systems of self-control. * Dhammapada, v, 103. 140