The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE EQUINOX 37. But once thou hast passed the gate of Kshanti, step the third is taken. Thy body is thy slave. Now, for the fourth prepare, the Portal of temptations which do ensnare the inner man, We are now on a higher plane altogether. The Higher and Lower Selves are made One. It is that One whose further progress from Tiphareth to Binah is now to be described. 38. Ere thou canst near that goal, before thine hand is lifted to upraise the fourth gate’s latch, thou must have mastered all the mental changes in thy Self and slain the army of the thought sensations that, subtle and insidious, creep unasked within the Soul’s bright shrine. It is the mental changes and the invading thoughts which distress us. These are to be understood in a rather ad- vanced sense, for of course thought must have been con- quered earlier than this, that is to say, the self must have been separated from its thoughts, so that they no longer disturb that self. Now, however, the fortress walls must bethrown down, and the mind slain in the open field. 39. If thou would’st not be slain by them, then must thou harmless make thy own creations, the children of thy thoughts unseen, impalpable, that swarm round humankind, the progeny and heirs to man and his terrestrial spoils. Thou hast to study the voidness of the seeming full, the ful- ness of the seeming void. O fearless Aspirant, look deep within the well of thine own heart, and answer. Knowest thou of Self the powers, O thou perceiver of external shad- ows? If thou dost not—then art thou lost. 102