96 lines
6.3 KiB
Plaintext
96 lines
6.3 KiB
Plaintext
TRUTH.
|
||
What is Truth? It is absurd to attempt to define it, for when we say
|
||
that S is P, rather than S is Q or S is R, we assume that we already know
|
||
the meaning of Truth. This is really why all the discussions as to whether
|
||
Truth depends on external correspondence, internal coherence, or what not,
|
||
neither produce conviction, nor withstand analysis. Briefly, Truth is an
|
||
idea of a supra-rational order, pertaining to Neschamah, not to Ruach. That
|
||
all rational conceptions imply that we know Truth, and that Truth is in
|
||
their propositions, only shows that these so-called rational ideas are not
|
||
really rational at all. Truth is by no means the only idea that resists
|
||
rational analysis. There are very many ideas that remain indefinable: all
|
||
simple ideas do so. At the back of all our efforts is the dead wall that we
|
||
must already know what we are pretending to find our. Consider the
|
||
statement of the Angel in the 5th Aethyr in "The Vision and the Voice":
|
||
"...all the symbols are interchangeable, for each one containeth in
|
||
itself its own opposite. And this is the great Mystery of the Supernals
|
||
that are beyond the Abyss. For below the Abyss, contradiction is division;
|
||
but above the Abyss, contradiction is Unity. And there could be nothing
|
||
true except by virtue of the contradiction that is contained in itself."
|
||
When that was given to the Master Therion, how obscure a saying and hard
|
||
that seemed to him! Yet in the light of the above paragraphs, how simply
|
||
obvious the proposition has become, and how far short of -- Truth!
|
||
What then can be meant by the title of this compilation: "Little Essays
|
||
toward Truth"? Do we not all assume a perfectly illogical conception of
|
||
Truth as an entity of "the supra-mundane order, whence a whirling flame and
|
||
flying Light subsist?" Do we not instinctively assimilate these ideas of
|
||
Truth and Light, though there is no rational nexus? Is it not clear, then,
|
||
that we do understand each other perfectly, so far as we can understand
|
||
each other at all, in a sphere such as Zoroaster calls "Intelligible,"
|
||
which "subsisteth beyond Mind' but which we should "seek to grasp with the
|
||
Flower of Mind"? Must we not then assent to that other Oracle, in which
|
||
that Magus most sublime asserts:
|
||
"For the King of all previously placed before the polymorphous World a
|
||
Type, intellectual, incorruptible, the imprint of whose form is sent forth
|
||
through the World, by which the Universe shone forth decked with Ideas
|
||
all-various, of which the foundation is One, One and alone. From this the
|
||
others rush forth, distributed and separated through the various bodies of
|
||
the Universe, and are borne in swarms through its vast abysses, ever
|
||
whirling forth in illimitable radiation.
|
||
"They are intellectual conceptions from the Paternal Fountain
|
||
partaking abundantly of the brilliance of Fire in the culmination of
|
||
unresting Time.
|
||
"But the primary self-perfect Fountain of the Father poured forth
|
||
these primogenial Ideas."
|
||
(It is to be remembered that the Oracles of Zoroaster continually proclaim
|
||
in words of boundless brilliance the doctrine here set forth: these Essays
|
||
are indeed a species of Commentary thereupon, and I may say that I only
|
||
came to understand them as perfectly as I now do in the course of this
|
||
writing.)
|
||
Now the same Truth, which is Light, which is implicit in each spark of
|
||
the Intelligible; what is it but the Self of Everyman? It is this that
|
||
informs his every motion, this that lies closest to his heart and soul,
|
||
being indeed their mainspring and their dial, the principle of section and
|
||
of measure.
|
||
Now Initiation is, by etymology, the <20>MDUL<55>journeying inwards;<3B>MDNM<4E> it
|
||
is the Voyage of Discovery (oh Wonder-~World!) of one's own Soul. And this
|
||
is Truth that stands upon the prow, eternally alert; this is Truth that
|
||
sits with one strong hand gripping the helm!
|
||
Truth is our Path, and Truth is our Goal; ay! there shall came to all a
|
||
moment of great Light when the Path is seen to be itself the Goal; and in
|
||
that hour every one of us shall exclaim:
|
||
<20>MDRV<52>"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life!"<22>MDNM<4E>
|
||
Yea, the Life also, Life eternal in Time and boundless in Space; for what
|
||
is Life but the continual resolution of the antimony of the diverse by the
|
||
spasm of Love under Will, that is, by the constantly explosive, the
|
||
orgiastic, perception of Truth, the dissolution of dividuality in one
|
||
radiant star of Truth that ever revolveth, and goeth, and filleth the
|
||
Heavens with Light?
|
||
I beseech you earnestly, dear Brethren, to grapple manfully as mighty
|
||
wrestlers with the ideas in these Little Essays: to understand them --
|
||
"...with the extended flame of far-reaching Mind, measuring all things
|
||
except that Intelligible. but it is requisite to understand this; for if
|
||
thou inclinest thy Mind thou wilt understand it, not earnestly; but it is
|
||
becoming to bring with thee a pure and inquiring sense, to extend the void
|
||
mind of thy soul to that Intelligible, because it subsisteth beyond Mind."
|
||
For thus not only will you develop the spiritual intuition, the very
|
||
Neschamah of your divine Being, but (in the degree of your Concentration of
|
||
your power to slow down and finally to stop the irritable movements of your
|
||
ratiocinative machinery) to transmute these Essays -- the <20>MDUL<55>Prima
|
||
Materia<EFBFBD>MDNM<EFBFBD> of your Great Work; passing through the stage of the Black
|
||
Dragon, in which your rational ideas are wholly destroyed and putrefied,
|
||
you will succeed in enflaming them in the fierce Furnace of your Creative
|
||
Wills, until all things burn up together into one blazing mass of living,
|
||
of relentless Light.
|
||
And thus come ye to Sammasamadhi -- thus are ye free for ever of all the
|
||
bonds that bound your Godhead!
|
||
~"A similar Fire flashingly extending through the rushings of Air, or
|
||
a Fire formless whence cometh the Image of a Voice, or even a flashing
|
||
Light abounding, revolving, whirling forth, crying aloud. Also there is the
|
||
Vision of the fire-flashing Courser of Light, or else a Child, borne aloft
|
||
on the shoulders of the Celestial Steed, fiery, or clothed with gold, or
|
||
naked, or shooting with the bow shafts of Light, and standing on the
|
||
shoulders of the horse; then if thy meditation prolongeth itself, thou
|
||
shalt unite all these Symbols into the Form of a Lion."
|
||
Then shall ye understand what is Truth, for ye shall understand your
|
||
Selves, and <20>MDRV<52>YE ARE TRUTH!<21>MDNM<4E> |