Crowley_A Four_Meditations

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Our conception of the universe must be completely overturned if we are to admit
this as valid; and it is time that we considered what is really happening.
It will be conceded that we have given a very rational explanation of the
greatness of great men. They had an experience so overwhelming, so out of
proportion to the rest of things, that they were freed from all the petty
hindrances which prevent the normal man from carrying out his projects.
Worrying about clothes, food, money, what people may think, how and why, and
above all the fear of consequences, clog nearly every one. Nothing is easier,
theoretically, than for an anarchist to kill a king. He has only to buy a
rifle, make himself a first-class shot, and shoot the king from a quarter of a
mile away. And yet, although there are plenty of anarchists, outrages are very
few. At the same time, the police would {33} probably be the first to admit
that if any man were really tired of life, in his deepest being, a state very
different from that in which a man goes about saying he is tired of life, he
could manage somehow or other to kill someone first.
Now the man who has experienced any of the more intense forms of Dhyana is
thus liberated. The Universe is thus destroyed for him, and he for it. His
will can therefore go on its way unhampered. One may imagine that in the case
of Mohammed he had cherished for years a tremendous ambition, and never done
anything because those qualities which were subsequently manifested as
statesmanship warned him that he was impotent. His vision in the cave gave him
that confidence which was required, the faith that moves mountains. There are a
lot of solid-seeming things in this world which a child could push over; but not
one has the courage to push.
Let us accept provisionally this explanation of greatness, and pass it by.
Ambition has led us to this point; but we are now interested in the work for its
own sake.
A most astounding phenomenon has happened to us; we have had an experience
which makes Love, fame, rank, ambition, wealth, look like thirty cents; and we
begin to wonder passionately, "What is truth?" The Universe has tumbled about
our ears like a house of cards, and we have tumbled too. Yet this ruin is like
the opening of the Gates of Heaven! Here is a tremendous problem, and there is
something within us which ravins for its solution.
Let us see what what explanation we can find.
The first suggestion which would enter a well-balanced mind, versed in the
study of nature, is that we have experienced a mental catastrophe. Just as a
blow on the head will made a man "see stars," so one might suppose that the
terrific mental strain of Dharana has somehow over-excited the brain, and caused
a spasm, or possibly even the breaking of a small vessel. There seems no reason
to reject this explanation altogether, though it would be quite absurd to
suppose that to accept it would be to condemn the practice. Spasm is a normal
function of at least one of the organs of the body. That the brain is not
damaged by the practice is proved by the fact that many people who claim to have
had this experience repeatedly continue to exercise the ordinary avocations of
life without diminished activity.
We may dismiss, then the physiological question. It throws no light on the
main problem, which is the value of the testimony of the experience.
Now this is a very difficult question, and raises the much larger question as
to the value of any testimony. Every possible thought has been doubted at some
time or another, except the thought which can {34} only be expressed by a note
of interrogation, since to doubt that thought asserts it. (For a full
discussion see "The Soldier and the Hunchback," "Equinox," I.) But apart from
this deep-seated philosophic doubt there is the practical doubt of every day.
The popular phrase, "to doubt the evidence of one's senses," shows us that that
evidence is normally accepted; but a man of science does nothing of the sort.
He is so well aware that his senses constantly deceive him, that he invents
elaborate instruments to correct them. And he is further aware that the
Universe which he can directly perceive through sense, is the minutest fraction
of the Universe which he knows indirectly.
For example, four-fifths of the air is composed of nitrogen. If anyone were
to bring a bottle of nitrogen into this room it would be exceedingly difficult
to say what it was; nearly all the tests that one could apply to it would be
negative. His senses tell him little or nothing.
Argon was only discovered at all by comparing the weight of chemically pure
nitrogen with that of the nitrogen of the air. This had often been done, but no
one had sufficiently fine instruments even to perceive the discrepancy. To take
another example, a famous man of science asserted not so long ago that science
could never discover the chemical composition of the fixed stars. Yet this has
been done, and with certainty.
If you were to ask your man of science for his "theory of the real," he would
tell you that the "ether," which cannot be perceived in any way by any of the
senses, or detected by any instruments, and which possesses qualities which are,
to use ordinary language, impossible, is very much more real than the chair he
is sitting on. The chair is only one fact; and its existence is testified by
one very fallible person. The ether is the necessary deduction from millions of
facts, which have been verified again and again and checked by every possible [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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