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.