the Equinox - The Hermetic Library

56
THE EQUINOX
Thus we find that “duality” in the East is synonymous
with “a mere matter of words,”*16 and further, that, when
anything is (or can be) describe by a word or a name, the
knowledge concerning it is Avidyâ, “ignorance.”
No sooner are the eyes of a man opened† than he sees
“good and evil,” and becomes a prey to the illusions he has set
out to conquer. He gets something apart from himself, and
whether it be Religion, Science, or Philosophy it matters not;
for in the vacuum which he thereby creates, between him and
it, burns the fever that he will never subdue until he has
annihilated both.‡ God, Immortality, Freedom, are
appearances and not realities, they are Mâyâ and not Âtman;
Space, Time and Causality§ are appearances and not realities,
they also are Mâyâ and not Âtman. All that is not Âtman is
Mâyâ, and Mâyâ is ignorance, and ignorance is sin.
Now the philosophical fall of the Âtman produces the
Macrocosm and the Microcosm, God and not-God—the
Universe, or the power which asserts a separateness, an indi-
by different names: Liber, Hercules, Mercury, are but different names of the
same divine being.” (Seneca, iv, 7. 8).
* “Chândogya Upanishad,” 6. 1. 3. Also of “form.”
† That is, when he gains knowledge.
‡ That is the meaning of “Nequaquam Vacuum.” [a Rosicrucian motto]
§ Modern Materialism receives many a rude blow at the hands of Gustave
le Bon. This great Frenchman writes: “These fundamental dogmas, the bases
of modern science, the researches detailed in this work tend to destroy. If the
principle of the conservation of energy—which, by the way, is simply a bold
generalization of experiments made in very simple cases—likewise succumbs to
the blows which are already attacking it, the conclusion must be arrived at that
nothing in the world is eternal.” (“The Evolution of Matter,” p. 18) In other
words, all is full of birth, growth, and decay, that is Mâyâ. Form to the
Materialist, Name to the Idealist, and Nothing to him who has risen above both.