the Equinox - The Hermetic Library

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THE EQUINOX
Expressible and inexpressible,
Founded and foundationless,
Consciousness and unconsciousness,
Reality and unreality.*
All these are vain attempts to obscure the devotee's mind
into believing in that Origin he could in no way understand,
by piling up symbols of extravagant vastness. all, as with the
Qabalists, was based on Zero, all, same one thing, and this one
thing saved the mind of man from the fearful palsy of doubt
which had shaken to ruin his brave certainties, his audacious
hopes and his invincible resolutions. Man, slowly through all
his doubts, began to realize that if indeed all were Mâyâ, a
matter of words, he at least existed. “I am,” he cried, no
longer, “I am it.”†
And with the Îsâ Upanishad he whispered:
Into dense darkness he enters
Who has conceived becoming to be naught,
Into yet denser he
Who has conceived becoming to be aught.
Abandoning this limbo of Causality, just as the Buddhist
did at a later date, he tackled the practical problem “What am
I? To hell with God!”
The self is the basis for the validity of proof, and therefore is constituted also
before the validity of proof. And because it is thus formed it is impossible to call
it in question. For we many call a thing in question which comes up to us from
without, but not our own essential being. For if a man calls it in question yet is it
his own essential being.
An integral part is here revealed in each of us which is a
reality, perhaps the only reality it is given us to know, and
* Taittirîya Brâhmana, 2. 7. † I.e. “Existence is” hyha rca hyha.