Crowley on Compassion and the Work of the Bodhisattva

In Commentaries on the Holy Books (commentary on Liber 71) Crowley writes that:

    The real reason of the compassion (so-called) of the Master is a perfectly practical and sensible one.  It has nothing to do with the beautiful verses, "It is only the sorrows of others Cast their shadows over me." The Master has learnt the first noble truth: "Everything is sorrow," and he has learnt that there is no such thing as separate existence.   Existence is one.  He knows these things as facts, just as he knows that two and two make four.  Consequently, although he has found the way of escape for that fraction of consciousness which he once called "I," and although he knows that not only that consciousness, but all other consciousness, are but part of an illusion, yet he feels that his own task is not accomplished while there remains any fragment of consciousness thus un-emancipated from illusion.  Here we get into very deep metaphysical difficulties, but that cannot be helped, for the Master of the Temple knows that any statement, however simple, involves metaphysical difficulties which are not only difficult, but insoluble.  On the plane of which Reason is Lord, all antinomies are irreconcilable.  It is impossible for any one below the grade of Magister Templi even to begin to comprehend the resolution of them.

   A pratyeka-buddha is one who attains emancipation for himself alone.  A pratyeka-buddha is a "private" Buddha, one of those rare individuals who attain enlightenment without the teaching of Buddha, and with no concern for the enlightenment of others.  This path is called pretyeka-yana.  The sum of misery is diminished only in minute degree by the attainment of a pratyeka-buddha.  The tremendous energy acquired is used to accomplish the miracle of destruction.  If the keystone of an arch is taken away the other stones are not promoted to a higher place.  They fall.

Bibliography

Crowley, Aleister. Commentaries on the Holy Books. York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1996.

�2004 Ian Axir.  All Rights Reseved.