The Equinox (Volume I, Number III)

THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING This argument would appear at first sight to be self- contradictory and therefore fallacious; for, if to obtain Ojas is so important, how then can it be right to destroy a healthy passion which is the chief means of supplying it with the renewed energy necessary to maintain it? The Yogi’s answer is simple enough: Seeing that the extinction of the first would mean the ultimate death of the second the various Mudra exercises were introduced so that this healthy passion might not only be preserved, but cultivated in the most rapid manner possible, without loss of vitality resulting from the practices adopted. Equilibrium is above all things necessary, and even in these early stages, the mind of the aspirant should be entirely free from the obsession of either ungratified or over- gratified appetites. Neither Lust nor Chastity should solely occupy him; for as Krishna says: Verily Yoga is not for him who eateth too much, nor who abstaineth to excess, nor who is too much addicted to sleep, nor even to wakefulness, O Arjuna. Yoga killeth out all pain for him who is regulated in eating and amusement, regulated in performing actions, regulated in sleeping and waking.* This balancing of what is vulgarly known as Virtue and Vice, and which the Yogi Philosophy does not always appre- ciate, is illustrated still more forcibly in that illuminating work “ Konx om Pax,” in which Mr. Crowley writes: As above so beneath! said Hermes the thrice greatest. The laws of the physical world are precisely paralleled by those of the moral and intellectual sphere. To the prostitute I prescribe a course of training by which she shall * The Bhagavad-Gita, vi, 16, 17. + Or more correctly as the Buddhist puts its—skilfulness and unskil- fulness. Iv F 81