Equinox I (04).pdf

192
THE EQUINOX
He realised that there were in this world she-mules as well as
she-asses, and that though the former would never foal in
spite of all the stallions of Moultan, the latter seldom failed
to do so after having been for a few minutes in the presence
of a Margate jackass.
Discarding Chastity (Brahmachârya)—a good purgative for
the prurient—he wrote in its place the word “Health.” Do
not worry about this code and that law, about the jibber of
this crank or the jabber of that faddist. To hell with ethical
pigs and prigs alike. Do what you like; but in the name of
your own Higher Self wilfully do no injury to your own body or
mind by over indulgence or under indulgence. Discover your
normal appetite; satisfy it. Do not become a glutton, and do
not become a nut-cracking skindlewig.
Soon after his arrival in Ceylon, and at the time that he
was working with Frater I. A., the greatness of the Buddha,
as we have already seen, attracted him, and he turned his
attention to the dogmatic literature of Buddhism only to
find that behind its unsworded Cromwellian colossus,* with
all his rigid virtues, his stern reasoning, his uncharitableness,
judicialism and impertiality, slunk a pack of pig-headed
dolts, stubborn, asinine and mulish; slavish, menial and
to the top of the hill before Hebron and saying: “My good boy, if you ever
intend on becoming strong, the first thing you must do is to buy a pair of my four
pound dumb-bells and my sixpenny book on physical culture.
* The Buddha (it is true) did not encourage bloodshed, in spite of his having
died from an overfeed of pork, but as Mr. A. Crowley has said, many of his
present-day followers are quite capable of killing their own brothers for five
rupees. The Western theory that Buddhists are lambs and models of virtue is
due to the fact that certain Western vices are not so congenial to the Asiatic as
they are to the European; and not because Buddhists are incapable of enjoying
themselves.