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Page 1 of 11912 · PDF PAGE 106
Q. A. Q. A. pus SUMMARY What is genius, and how is it produced? Let us take several specimens of the species, and try to find some one thing common to all which is not found in other species. Is there any such thing? Yes: all geniuses have the habit of concentration of thought, and usually needlongperiodsofsolitude to acquirethis habit. Inparticular, the greatest religious geniuses have all retired from the world at one time or another in their lives, and begun to preach immediately on their return. . Of what advantage is such a retirement? One …
1912 · PDF PAGE 30
… will, and thus enabled to act freely of its own accord. This is the same phenomenon referred to above as being a good sign. Finally something happens Whose nature may form the subject of a further discussion later on. For the moment let it suffice to say that this consciousness of the Ego and the non-Ego, the seer and the thing seen, the knovver and the thing known, is blotted out. There is usually an intense light, an intense sound, and a feeling of such overwhelming bliss that the resources of language have been ex- hausted again and again in…
1912 · PDF PAGE 29
… or disease. In analysing the nature of this work of controlling the mind, the student will appreciate without trouble the fact that two things are involved—the person seeing and the thing seen—the person knowing and the thing known; and he will come to regard this as the necessary condition of all consciousness. We are too accustomed to assume to be facts things about which we have no real right even to guess. We assume, for example, that the unconscious is the torpid; and yet nothing is more certain than that bodily organs which are functioni…
1912 · PDF PAGE 100
… Cakkras, etc. Also his Dhyana became so com- mon that he gave up recording it. But if he wishedto do it this minute he would choose something to excite his “ godly fear,” or “ holy awe,” or “ wonderment.” 1 There is no apparent reason why Dhyana should not occur when thinking of any common object of the sea-shore, such as a blue pig ; but Frater P.,s constant reference to this as the usual object of his meditation need not be taken cm pied de-Za [612%. His records of meditation contain no reference to this remarkable animal. - It will be a goo…
1912 · PDF PAGE 17
… condemned criminal, only he does not know the date of his execution. This is unpleasant for every man. Consequently every man does everything possible to postpone the date, and would sacrifice anything that he has if he could reverse the sentence. Practicallyall religions and all philosophies have started thus crudely, by promising their adherents some such reward as immortality. No religion has failed hitherto by not promising enough; the present breaking up of all religions is due to the fact that people have asked to see the securities. Men …
1912 · PDF PAGE 71
…y educated mind to think without much distraction on a subject in which it is much interested. We have the popular phrase, “ revolving a thing in the mind ”; and as long as the subject is sufficiently complex, as long as thoughts pass freely, there is no great difficulty. So long as a gyroscope is in motion, it remains motionless relatively to its support, and even resists attempts to distract it; when it stops it falls from that position. If the earth ceased to spin round the sun, it would at once fall into the sun. The moment then that the stud…
1912 · PDF PAGE 19
…rince. Christ remained obscure until many years after his death. Elaborate lives of each have been written by devotees, and there is one thing common to all three——an omission. We hear nothing of Christ between the ages of twelve and thirty. Mohammed disappeared into a cave. Buddha left his palace, and went for a long while into the desert. Each of them, perfectly silent up to the time of the dis- appearance, came back and immediately began to preach a new law. This is so curious that it leaves us to inquire whether the histories of other great…
1912 · PDF PAGE 80
…ex- tremely careful to make no statement at all that cannot be verified in the usual manner; or where this is not easy, at least avoid anything like a dogmatic statement. In Their second book of practical instruction, Liber 0, occur these words: “By doing certain things certain results will follow. Students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philo- sophical validity to any of them.” Those golden words! In discussing Dhyana, then, let it be clearly understood that some- thing unexpected is about to be described. We…
1912 · PDF PAGE 82
…e cannot behold the sun, one is compelled to make the statement that this “ Sun” is far more brilliant than the sun of nature. The whole thing takes place on a higher level. Also the conditions of thought, time, and space are abolished. It is impossible to explain what this really means :i only experience can furnish you with apprehension. (This, too, has its analogies in ordinary life; the conceptions of higher mathematics cannot be grasped by the beginner, cannot be explained to the layman.) Α further development is the appearance of the Form…
1912 · PDF PAGE 18
…itive; and each demands faith. This we refuse in the absence of positive proof. But we may usefully inquire whether there is not any one thing upon which all religions have agreed: for, if so, it seems possible that it may be worthy of really thorough consideration. It is certainly not to be found in dogma. Even so simple an idea as that of a supreme and eternal being is denied by a third of the human race. Legends of miracle are perhaps universal, but these, in the absence of demonstrative proof, are repugnant to common sense. But what of the …
1912 · PDF PAGE 20
6 flees into the land of Midian, and we hear nothing of what he did there, yet immediately on his return he turns the whole place upside down. Later on, too, he absents himself on Mount Sinai for a few days, and comes back with the Tables of the Law in his hand. St. Paul (again), after his adventure on the road to Damascus, goes into the desert of Arabia for many years, and on his return overturns the Roman Empire. Even in the legends of savages we find the same thing universal; somebody who is nobody in particular goes away for a longer or short…
1912 · PDF PAGE 84
…rkmen,and stole the picture under the very eye of the guardian; very likely got him to help them. It is only necessary to believe that a thing must be to bring it about. This belief must not be an emotional or an intellectual one. It resides in a deeper portion of the mind, yet a portion not so deep but that most men, probably all successful men, will understand these words, having experience of their own with which they can compare it. The most important factor in Dhyana is, however, the annihilation of the Ego. Our conception of the universe …
1912 · PDF PAGE 91
…e should, however, avoid these terms for the present, on account of their implications. Let us rather speak of this sun as “some unknown thing whose presence has been masked by all things known, and by the knower.” It is probable, too, that our memory of Dhyana is not of the pheno- menon itself, but of the image left thereby on the mind. But this is duration of Dhyana. One can only say that, since it certainly occurred between such and such hours, it must have lasted less than that time. Thus we see, from Frater P. ’5 record, that it can certai…