FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
53 matching pages
Page 1 of 31904 · PDF PAGE 48
…or any ! Thus and only thus Will I admit a difference ’Twixt spirit and the things of sense. What is the quarrel between us ? Why do our thoughts so idly clatter ? I do not care one jot for matter, One jot for spirit, while you say One is pure ether, one pure clay. I’ve talked too long : you’re very good— I only hope you’ve understood ! Remember that “conversion” lurks Nowhere behind my words and works. Go home and think ! my talk refined To the sheer needs of your own mind. You cannot bring God in the compass Of human thought ? Up stick and th…
1904 · PDF PAGE 35
THE SWORD OF SONG 28 You know for me the soul is nought36 Save a mere phantom in the thought, That thought itself impermanent, Save as a casual element With such another may combine To form now water and now wine ; The element itself may be Changeless to all eternity, But compounds ever fluctuate With time or space or various state. (Ask chemists else !) So I must claim Spirit and matter are the same37 Or else the prey of putrefaction. This matters to the present action Little or nothing. Here’s your theories ! Think if you like : I find it wea…
1904 · PDF PAGE 42
… is, have conquered and made still Mind’s lower powers by utter Will. It may be that pure Nought will fail Quite to assuage the needs of thought ; But—who can tell me whether Nought Untried, will or will not avail ? Aum ! Let us meditate aright50 On that adorable One Light, Divine Savitri ! So may She Illume our minds ! So mote it be ! I find some folks think me (for one) So great a fool that I disclaim Indeed Jehovah’s hate for shame That man to-day should not be weaned Of worshipping so foul a fiend In presence of the living Sun, And yet repl…
1904 · PDF PAGE 36
…urther !” ?39 Nibbana is the state above you Christians and them Hindus—Lord love you !— Where Nothing is perceived as such. This clever thought doth please me much. But if das Essen ist das Nichts— Ha ! Hegel’s window ! Ancient Lichts ! And two is one and one is two— “Bother this nonsense ! Go on, do !” My wandering thoughts you well recall ! I focus logic’s perfect prism : Lo ! the informing syllogism ! The premiss major. Life at best Is but a sorry sort of jest ; At worst, a play of fiends uncouth, Mocking the soul foredoomed to pain. In any…
1904 · PDF PAGE 107
…irected to attain this end, and form s a magnificent gymnasium for those who are not already finished mental athletes. By act, word, and thought, both in quantity and quality, the one object of the cerem ony is being constantly indicated. Every fumiga- tion, purification, banishing, invocation, evocation, is chiefly a reminder of the s ingle purpose, until the suprem e moment arrives, and every fibre of the body , every force- channel of the mind, is strained out in one overwhelming rush of the W ill in the direc- tion desired. Such is the real…
1904 · PDF PAGE 25
…at the very crystals feel !— For them no harp-reasounding court, No palm, no crown, but none the less A cross, be sure ! The worst man’s thought In hell itself, bereft of bliss, Were less unmerciful than this ! No ! for material things, I hear, Will burn away, and cease to be— (Nibbanna ! Ah ! Thou shoreless Sea !) Man, man alone, is doomed to fear, To suffer the eternal woe, Or else, to meet man’s subtle foe, God—and oh ! infamy of terror ! Be like him—like him ! And for ever ! At least I make not such an error : My soul must utterly dissever …
1904 · PDF PAGE 118
…ng of the breath.” “There is an expiration,” &c. Or, walking, “There is a raising of the right foot,” and so on, just as it happens. The thought is of course not quick enough to note all the movements or their subtle causes. For example, we cannot describe the c ompli- cated muscular contractions, &c. ; but this is not necessary. Concentrate on some series of simple movements. When this through habit becomes i ntuitive so that the thought is really “T here i s a raising,” as opposed to “I raise” (the latter being in reality a complex and adult …
1904 · PDF PAGE 116
…co—as who should hang the Taj Mahal with fairy lamps and chintz. It is sim ple. The m ind is com pelled to fix its attention on a single thought; while the controlling power is exercised and a profound watchfulness kept up lest the thought should for a moment stray .1 The latter portion is, to m y m ind, the essential one. The work is comparable to that of an electrician who should sit for hours with h is finger on a delicately adjusted resistance-box and his eye on the spot of light of a galvanometer, charged with the duty of keeping the spot …
1904 · PDF PAGE 77
…against that bitter day , and he took fair maidens, and was their servant. And he builded a fine house and dwelt therein. And he took no thought. But he said : Here is a change indeed ! 1 T he com mon for mula for beginning a “Jataka,” or story of a previous incarnation of the Buddha. Brahmadatta reigned 120,000 years. 2 The Sun. 3 The Moon. 4 Perdurabo. Crowley’s motto. “Now it came to pass that after many years he looked upon his love, the bride of his heart, the rose of his garden, the jewel of his rosary; and behold, the olive loveliness of…
1904 · PDF PAGE 33
… perhaps, yet does its best To show its strong appreciation Of the humour of the situation— In short, dismiss me, jeered and hooted, Who thought I sported Roland’s crest,30 With wisdom saddled, spurred, and booted, (As I my Jesus) with a jest.31 So here is my tribute—a jolly good strong ’un— To the eunuch, the faddist, the fool, and the wrong ’un ! It’s fun when you say “A mysterious way32 God moves in to fix up his Maskelyne tricks. He trots on the tides, on the tempest he rides (Like Cosmo); and as for his pace, we bethought us Achilles could…
1904 · PDF PAGE 100
…t for the most essential and continuous acts of life? Why should an infinite Ego fill a non-e xistent body with imaginary food cooked in thought only over an illusionary fire by a cook who is not there ? Why should infinite power use such finite means, and very often fail even then?” What is the sum total of the Vedantist position ? “ ‘I’ am an illusion, externally. In reality , the true ‘I’ am the Infinite, and if the illusionary ‘I’ could only realise Who ‘I’ really am, how very happy we should all be !” And here we have Karma, rebirth, all t…
1904 · PDF PAGE 106
…inction final and com plete, utter and absolute ex- tinction. For by these words only can we indicate Nirvana: a s tate which transcends thought cannot be described in thought’s language. But from the point of view of thought extinction is complete: we have no data for discussing that which is unthinkable, and must decline to do so. This is the answer to those who accuse the Buddha of hurling his Arahats (and himself) from Samma Samadhi to annihilation. Pray obs erve in the firs t place that my solution of the Great Problem perm its the co-exis…
1904 · PDF PAGE 79
…, said the wicked Jehjaour, may live 500 years and never feel it. “So a grey wonder of wings flitted into the jungle. So joy ous a bird, thought the God, could not but be influenced by the ordinary passions and y ield to such majesty as his own. “But one day there came into the jungle a strange wild figure. He was a man dressed in the weird Tibetan fashion. He had red robes and hat, and thought dark things. He whirled a pray er-wheel in his hands; and ever as he went he muttered the mystic words ‘Aum Mani Padme Hum.’ 1 The parrot, who had never…
1904 · PDF PAGE 38
PENTECOST 31 Of thought ! How ends the brave B.D., Summarising Ontology ? “This talk of ‘Real’ is a wraith. Our minds are lost in war of word ; The whole affair is quite absurd— Behold ! the righteous claims of Faith !” (He does not rhyme you quite so neatly ; But that’s the sense of it, completely.) I do not feel myself inclined In spit of my irrevent mind, So lightly to pass by the schemes Of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel (one, Small though the apparent unison), As if they were mere drunken dreams ; For the first word in India here From Koromandl …
1904 · PDF PAGE 82
…tless, futureless PRESENT. “ ‘To the uttermost bounds of space rushes the voice of Ages unheard of save in the concentrated unity of the thought-formulated Abstract; and eternally that voice form u- lates a word which is gly phed in the vast ocean of lim itless life.2 Do I make myself clear ?’ ‘Perfectly . Who would have thought it was all so simple ? ’ The God cleared his throat, and rather diffidently, even shamefacedly, went on : “ ‘But what I really wished to know was about my incarnation. How is it I have so suddenly risen from change and …
1904 · PDF PAGE 121
SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 114 pendent thought, of keen ecstasy of love of knowledge, of practical training, that the Buddhasanana Samagama 1 appeals; it is time that Buddhism reformed itself from within; though its truths be held untarnished (and even this is not every where the cas e), its methods, its organisation, are sadly in need of repair; research must be done, men must be perfected, error must be fought. And if in the West a great Buddhist society is built up of m en of intellect, of the men in whose hands the future lie s, there is then an …
1904 · PDF PAGE 45
THE SWORD OF SONG 38 Destroying passion, feeling, thought, The very practice you have sought Unconscious, when you work the best, I carry on one step firm-pressed Further than you the path, and you For all my trouble, comment : “True ! “Auto-hypnosis. Very quaint !”53 No one supposes me a Saint—54 Some Saints to wrath would be inclined With such a provocation pecked ! But I remember and reflect That anger makes a person blind, And my own “Chittam” I’d neglect. Besides, it’s you, and you, I find, Are but a mode of my own mind. But then you argue…
1904 · PDF PAGE 34
…e By which divide they and define Being a shadowy sort of test ; A verbal lusus at the best, At worst a wicked lie devised To bind men’s thoughts ; but we must work With our own instruments, nor shirk Discarding what we erstwhile prized ; Should we perceive it disagree With the first-born necessity. I come to tell you why I shun The sight of men, the life and fun You know I can enjoy so well, The Nature that I love as none (I think) before me ever loved. You know I scorn the fear of Hell, By worship and all else unmoved 190 195 200 205 210 215 …
1904 · PDF PAGE 41
…ning understand ?” A sage, I say, although he mentions Perhaps the best of his inventions, God. For at first this practice tends To holy thoughts (the holy deeds Precede success) and reverent gaze Upon the Ancient One of Days, Beyond which fancy lies the Truth. To find which I have left my youth, All I held dear, and sit alone Still meditating, on my throne Of Kusha-grass,48 and count my beads, Murmer my mantra,49 till recedes The world of sense and thought—I sink 475 480 485 490 495 500 505 510 Fact replacing folklore, the Christian snig- gers…
1904 · PDF PAGE 43
…ngs to expound the real. But never think I shall appeal To Gods. What folly can compare With such stupidity as prayer ? Some years ago I thought to try Prayer51—tests its efficacity. I fished by a Norwegian lake. “O God,” I prayed, “for Jesus’ sake Grant thy poor servant all his wish ! For every prayer produce a fish !” Nine times the prayer went up the spout, And eight times—what a thumping trout ! (This is the only true fish-story I ever heard—give God the glory !) The things seems cruel now, of course. Still, it’s a grand case of God’s force…