Book 4 (Part II)

I05 The perceptions are meaningless in themselves; but the emotions are worse, for they delude their victim into supposing them significant and true. Every emotion is an obsession; the most horrible of blas- phemies is to attribute any emotion to God in the macrocosm, or to the pure soul in the microcosm. How can that which is self-existent, complete, be moved} It is even written that "torsion about a point is iniquity." But if the point itself could be moved it would cease to be itself, for position is the only attribute of the point. The Magician must therefore make himself absolutely free in this respect. It is the constant practice of Demons to attempt to terrify, to shock, to disgust, to allure. Against all this he must oppose the Steel of the Sword. If he has got rid of the ego-idea this task will be comparatively easy; unless he has done so it will be almost impossible. So says the Dhammapada: Me he abused, and me he beat, he robbed me, he insuhed me: In whom such thoughts find harbourage, hatred will never cease to be. And this hatred is the thought which inhibits the love whose apothe- osis is Samadhi.