“What a very great blessing is mine to have had Kunâla’s company for so many days even as we went to——. Very rarely however he said a few words of encouragement and good advice as to how I should go on. He seems to leave me as to that to pick my own way. This is right, I think, because otherwise one would never get any individual strength or power of discrimination. Happy were those moments, when alone at midnight, we then had conversation. How true I then found the words of the Agroushada Parakshai to be:
“‘Listen while the Sudra sleeps like the dog under his hut, while the Vaysa dreams of the treasures that he is hoarding up, while the Rajah sleeps among his women. This is the moment when just men, who are not under the dominion of their flesh, commence the study of the sciences.’[90]
“The midnight hour must have powers of a peculiar nature. And I learned yesterday from glancing into an Englishman’s book, that even those semi barbarians speak of that time as ‘the witching hour,’ and it is told me that among them ‘witching’ means to have magic power. * * * *
“We stopped at the Rest House in B—— yesterday evening, but found it occupied and so we remained in the porch for the night. But once more I was to be blessed by another visit with Kunâla to some of his friends whom I revere and who will I hope bless me too.
“When every one had quieted down he told me to go with him to the sea which was not far away. We walked for about three quarters of an hour by the seashore, and then entered as if into the sea. At first a slight fear came into me, but I saw that a path seemed to be there, although water was all around us. He in front and I following, we went for about seven minutes, when we came to a small island; on it was a building and on top of that a triangular light. From the sea shore, the island would seem like an isolated spot covered all over by green bushes. There is only one entrance to go inside. And no one can find it out unless the occupant wishes the seeker to find the way. On the island we had to go round about for some space before we came in front of the actual building. There is a little garden in front and there was sitting another friend of Kunâla with the same expression of the eyes as he has. I also recognized him as one of those who was in the room underground. Kunâla seated himself and I stood before them. We stayed an hour and saw a portion of the place. How very pleasant it is! And inside he has a small room where he leaves his body when he himself moves about in other places. What a charming spot, and what a delightful smell of roses and various sorts of flowers! How I should wish to visit that place often. But I cannot indulge in such idle dreams, nor in that sort of covetousness. The master of the place put his blessing hand upon my head, and we went away back to the Rest House and to the morrow full of struggles and of encounters with men who do not see the light, nor hear the great voice of the future; who are bound up in sorrow because they are firmly attached to objects of sense. But all are my brothers and I must go on trying to do the master’s work which is only in fact the work of the Real Self which is All and in All.”
Notes on the Cabbalah of the Old Testament.
By Permission of Bro. J. RALSTON SKINNER (McMillan Lodge, No. 141).
II.
Ginsburg and others tell us that Raymond Lully and John Picus de Mirandola had acquired knowledge of the Hebrew and the Caballah. Mirandola studied Hebrew and Cabbalistic theology under Jochanan Aleman, who came to Italy from Constantinople, and—“found that there is more Christianity in the Cabbalah than Judaism; he discovered in it proof for the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Divinity of Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem, the fall of the angels, the order of the angels,” and so on, and so on. “In 1486, when only 24 years old, he published 900 theses, which were placarded in Rome, and which he undertook to defend in the presence of all European scholars, whom he invited to the Eternal City, promising to defray their traveling expenses. Among the theses was the following: ‘No science yields greater proof of the Divinity of Christ than magic and the Cabbalah.’”