The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE SEVEN PORTALS The way to make thoughts harmless is by the equilibrium of contradictions—this is the meaning of the phrase, “Thou hast to study the voidness of the seeming full, the fulness of the seeming void.” This subject has been dealt with at some length in the “Soldier and the Hunchback” in Egurnox I. 1., and many other references are to be found in the works of Mr. Aleister Crowley. A real identification of the Self with the Not-Self is neces- sary. 40. For, on Path fourth, the lightest breeze of passion or desire will stir the steady light upon the pure white walls of Soul. The smallest wave of longing or regret for Maya's gifts illusive, along Antakarana—the path that lies be- tween thy Spirit and thy Self, the highway of sensations, the rude arousers of AhankGra (the faculty that makes the illu- sion called the Ego)—a thought as fleeting as the lightning flash will make thee thy three prizes forfeit—the prizes thou hast won. The meaning is again very much confused by the would- be poetic diction, but it is quite clear that desire of any kind must not interfere with this intensely intellectual medita- tion; and of course the whole object of it is to refrain from preferring any one thing to any other thing. When it says that “A thought as fleeting as the lightning flash will make thee thy three prizes forfeit—the prizes thou hast won,” this does not mean that if you happen to make a mistake in meditation you have to begin all over again as an absolute beginner, and yet, of course, in any meditation the occur- rence of a single break destroys, for the moment, the effect of what has gone immediately before. Whenever one is 103