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.
75 matching pages
Page 1 of 41904 · PDF PAGE 22
…ef or unbelief ; And an involuntary act Make difference infinite in fact Between the right and left-hand thief ? Belief is not an act of will !” I think, Sir, that I have you still, Even allowing (much indeed !) That any will at all is freed, And is not merely the result Of sex, environment, and cult, Habit and climate, health and mind, And twenty thousand other things ! So many a metaphysic sings. (I wish they did indeed : I find Their prose the hardest of hard reading.) “But if,” you cry, “the world’s designed As a mere mirage in the mind, Up…
1904 · PDF PAGE 42
…o—what abyss’s dizzy brink ? And fall ! And I have ceased to think ! That 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 O…
1904 · PDF PAGE 126
SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 119 and it will go hard with us if we do not !) regard all progress in any direction as morbid. So (as with Lombroso) “disease” will become a m ere word, like its prede- cessor “infidelity,” and cease to carry any obloquy. If Science is never to go bey ond its present lim its; if the barriers which m eta- physical speculation shows to exist are never to be trans cended, then indeed we are thrown back on faith, and all the rest of the nauseous mess of medieval superstition, and we may just as well have vital principle and cr…
1904 · PDF PAGE 84
… would seek in the fourth the Way , the Noble Eightfold Path. “I know, O Arahats, that y ou do not need this instruction : but m y words will not stay here : they will go forth and illum inate the whole system of ten thousand worlds, w here Arahats do not grow on every tree. Little brothers, the night is fallen : it were well to sleep.”
1904 · PDF PAGE 122
…eir sequential three Characteristics. He who has attained Sammaditthi has at least entered upon the Holy W ay, and, if he but try, there will come to him the power to overcome the other fetters that restri ct his progress. But first of all he must abandon all those false hopes and beliefs; and one who has done this is called a Buddhist. And this holding of Right Views, in Pali Sam maditthi, is the first step upon the Noble Eightfold Path. “The second stage is Right Aspiration— Sammasankappo. Having realised the woe and transitoriness and soulle…
1904 · PDF PAGE 119
SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 112 this term. And I am convinced in my own mind that the Ananda (bliss) of Dhyana will surely arise long before one has passed even up to Sankhara. And for the reality, ’twill be a brave jest, my masters, to fling back on the materialists that terrible gibe of Voltaire’s at the m ystery- mongers of his day : “Ils nient ce qui est, et expliquent ce qui n’est pas.” NOTE TO SECTION VIII. Transfigured Realism. I will not waste my own time and that of my readers by any lengthy discussion of Mr. Herbert S pencer’s “ Transfigured…
1904 · PDF PAGE 120
…hrow our most fun- damental hypotheses ! Give me a reasonable proof of some (intelligent) existence which is not liable to sorrow, and I will throw the First Noble Truth to the dogs without a pang. And, knowing this, how splendid is it to read the grand words uttered m ore than two thousand y ears ago: “Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge to yourselves. Betake y ourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a lam p. Hold fas t as a refugee to the truth. Look not for refuge to any one be- sides y ourselv…
1904 · PDF PAGE 76
…e Threshold of Initiation : and physiological, containing allusions to a whole group of phenomena, which those who have begun meditaiton will recognise. Similarly, a single word may be a mnemonic key to an entire line of philosophical argument. If the reader chooses, in short, he will find the entire mass of Initiated Wisdom betw een the covers of this unpretending volume.
1904 · PDF PAGE 50
43 NOTES TO ASCENSION DAY AND PENTECOST “Blind Chesterton is sure to err, And scan my work in vain; I am my own interpreter, And I will make it plain.” NOTE TO INTRODUCTION 1 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AN APPRECIATION BY ALEISTER CROWLEY.* IT is a lamentable circumstance that so many colossal brains (W. H . Mallock, &c. ) have been hitherto thrown away in attacking what is after all a problem of mere academic interest, the authorship of the plays our fathers accepted as those of Shakespeare. To me it seems of immediate and vital importance to do for S…
1904 · PDF PAGE 70
…aculous. Our Ceremonial Magic fines down, then, to a series of minute, t hough of course empirical, physiological experiments, and whoso will carry them through intelligently need not fear the result. I have all the health, and treasure, and logic I need ; I have no time to w aste. “There is a lion in the way.” For me these practices are useless ; but for the benefit of others less fortunate I give them to the world, together with this explanation of, and apology for, them. I trust that this explanation will enable many students who have hither…
1904 · PDF PAGE 16
…dant and half hermit, Begins: “The Ding an sich*—as Germans term it—” We stop him short ; he readjusts his glasses, Turns to his folio—’twill eclipse all precedent, Reveal God’s nature, every dent a blessed dent ! The Donkey : written by an ass, for asses. So, with permission, let us be Orthodox to our finger-ends; What the bulk hold, High Church or Friends, Or Hard-shall Baptists—and we’ll see. I will not now invite attack By proving white a shade of black, Or Christ (as some47 have lately tried) An epileptic mania, Citing some case, “where a …
1904 · PDF PAGE 25
…s, 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 Its very silliest thought, belief, From such a God as possible, Its vilest from his worship. Never ! Avaunt,…
1904 · PDF PAGE 105
…st recluse is roughly as follows. He must plunge every particle of his being into one idea : right views, aspirations, word, deed, life, will-power, medi- tation, rapture, s uch are the s tages of his liberation, which resolves itself into a struggle against the laws of causality . He cannot prevent past causes taking effect, but he can prevent pres ent caus es from having any future results. The exoteric Christian and Hindu rather rely on another person to do this for them, and are further blinded by the thirst for life and individual existenc…
1904 · PDF PAGE 21
…ist. Bara is Hindustani for great. † John iii. 18, “He that believeth not is condemned already.” Mysticism does not need Christ. Krishna will serve, or the Carpenter. The Sacred Walrus. God, some Vestments, and Lady Wim- borne. Fearful aspect of John iii. 16. Universalism. Will God get the bara* slam ? Eternal life. Divergent views of its desirability. Buddhist idea. Dogma of Belief. 460 465 470 475 480 485 490 495
1904 · PDF PAGE 7
…nglish thought I have named is unintentional though perhaps unavoidable ; and though the presumption is, of course, absurd, y et a straw will show which way the wind blows as well as the m ost beautiful and elaborate vane : and in this sense it is m y most eager hope that I may not unjustly draw a com- parison between my self and the great re- formers of eighty years ago. * So it is usually supposed. Maybe I shall one day find wor ds to com bat, perhaps to over throw, this position. P.S. As, f or exam ple, the Note to this I ntroduction. As a p…
1904 · PDF PAGE 117
…tatements are accepted—and I can only 1 On the advisibility of so doing I am open to conviction. T he scientific m ind, I m ight ar gue, will not readily fall into that error ; and for the others, they will be useless as a research phalanx, and may as well see blue pigs and be happy as not. I n the past, no doubt, r esearch has been choked by the m ultitude of pseudo-blue-pig- people, from the “T.S.” to the “G.D.” We must distinguish by methods, not by results.—A. C. most seriously assure y ou that honest labo- rious experim ent will be found t…
1904 · PDF PAGE 116
…r work is identical in design, though worked with subtler—if less com plex—means. For the finger on the resistance-box we substitute the Will ; and its control extends but to the Mind ; for the ey e we substitute the Introspective Faculty with its keen observa- tion of the most minute disturbance, while the spot of light is the Consciousness itself, the central point of the galvanometer scale the predetermined object, and the other figures on the scale, other objects, c onnected with the primary by order and degree, sometimes obviously, sometim…
1904 · PDF PAGE 32
… back-pews-hi gh-priced Church. I’ve seen them at twenty thousand feet On the ice, in a snow-storm, at night fall, repeat Their prayer23—will your Grace do as much for your Three As they do for their One ? I have seen—may you see ! They sleep and know not what a mat is ; Seem to enjoy their cold chapaties ;* Are healthy, strong—and some are old. They do not care a damn24 for cold, Behave like children, trust in Allah ; (Flies in Mohammed’s spider-parlour !) They may not think : at least they dare Live out their lives, and little care Worries th…
1904 · PDF PAGE 49
THE SWORD OF SONG 42 Now who dares Call me no Christian ? And, who cares ? Read ; you will find the Master of Balliol, Discarding Berkeley, Locke, and Paley’ll Resume such thoughts and label clear “My Christianity lies here !” With such religion who finds fault ? Star, it seems foolish to exalt Religion to such heights as these, Refine the mystic agonies To nothing, lest the mystic jeer “So logic bends its line severe Back to my involuted curve !” These are my thoughts. I shall not swerve. Take them, and see what dooms deserve Their rugged gran…
1904 · PDF PAGE 68
…he Baptist chapel the only chapel worth of worship (sic). But Mr. Crowley is a strong and genuine poet, and we have little doubt that he will work up from his appreciation of the Temple of Osiris to that loftier and wider work of the hum an im agination, the appreciation of the Brixton chapel. G. K. CHESTERTON. 778, 779. The rest of life, for self-control, For liberation of the soul.81 Who said Rats ? Thanks for your advice, Tony Veller, but it came in vain. As the ex-monk* (that shook the bookstall) wrote in confidence to the publisher : “…