SELF-DE-HYPNOTISATION-II: Page 171

well as in the heart of the man of desire. Only the strong can kill it out. The weak must wait for its growth, its fruition and its death. It is a plant that lives and increases throughout the ages. It flowers when the man has accumulated unto himself innumerable existences. He who will enter upon the path of power must tear this thing out of his heart. Then the heart will bleed and the whole life of the man seem to be utterly dissolved. This ordeal must be endured. It may come at the first step of the perilous ladder, which leads to the path of life; it may come at the last. But, 0 Disciple, remember that it has to be endured; and fasten the energies of your soul upon the task. Live neither in the present, nor in the future, but in the Eternal. This giant weed cannot flower there; this blot upon existence is wiped out by the very atmosphere of Eternal thought." The first duty of the initiate is to guard against this "Source of evil"-which is really the sense of Self-righteousness and the exalting of our own personality above that of others. It is refined animalism. It is intellectual pride and Egoism. Its climax is Black Magic-the giant weed. It belongs to the lower part of ourselves-the passionate side of us, from which proceed hatred, jealousy, malice, desire for revenge, self-glorification-and these tend to the setting up of a dividing wall between man and man. "We contract ourselves by such practices. We are thereby building up a shell around the soul, which it cannot transpierce.