The saying: "Knowledge Protects" is wholly applicable to the inner revolution that takes place within the seeker. For all of our lives we are slaves to the programs that are set in motion by our negative emotions. Our intellectual centers steal this energy and produce all kinds of rationalizations, suppressions, fantasies of power or illusions that we have "mastered" the emotion simply because we are able to suppress it, or tell ourselves egotistical things like: "I'm better than that because see! I can suppress my reactions. I can say nice things when I am really boiling mad. That is what makes me superior." With knowledge of the true nature of reality and the programs that run in us, we are enabled to completely halt any such usurpation, to allow the concentration of the emotions - whether negative or positive - which then set our entire being on a higher vibration.
When we cultivate the inner "peace that passes understanding," which is the result of the transmutation of negative emotions, our opportunities for exploiting negative emotions become rather scarce, as noted. It is then, as also noted, that it is realized that the only other source of negative emotions is outside us - what Don Juan referred to as "Petty Tyrants." We must obtain the necessary shocks from the "world at large," so to say.
This kind of shock is never lacking for those who work in the world, which is why remaining "in the world" is so valuable to esoteric work. To the Matrix, anyone who "moves against" the General Law is a fugitive and The Matrix takes immediate steps - a whole series of appropriate measures - to make the rebel fall back into line.
This is the great struggle of the Grail Quest - the Invisible Combat on whose outcome the fate of the Knight depends. The uninterrupted combat lasts the whole length of the Staircase and the Seeker does not obtain his final victory until after the last trials, when he finds himself in front of the Second Threshold.
The struggle is painful, especially because one does not recognize the enemy until after one has been hit; his approach is always masked in infinitely varied ways: considerations, seduction, a desire to be useful or agreeable, condescensions, noble attitudes, and so on.
But whoever commits himself on this field of battle can still find help. This help comes to him from the depths of his being and from outside him. In the first case, it is his absolute sincerity towards himself, and the purity of the flames of desire for Truth with which his soul is ablaze. This is his "faith." It is a certainty of the invisible realms. But, since the invisible is unknown by definition, the most ardent faith can be sincerely mistaken and the knight may serve evil with all his heart, with a sincere mistake. He can be thus defeated by false teachings.
The example of St. Paul describes this condition. But, this same example shows that the heart aflame with desire for TRUTH - by its existence and sincerity - can call forth a response from the Universe that can act as "vision on the road to Damascus."
In this sense, the law: tendencies accentuate, applies. This is expressed in common parlance as "only the first step counts" and applies algebraically, that is, in a positive or negative sense. An example: in terms of moral effort, it is no less difficult to steal for the first time than to practice an unaccustomed virtue. Repeated actions of either path creates a habit, a force of inertia. Persons whose foundation is begun on lies, who then cover those lies with more lies with the pretense of "explaining" the initial lies, are simply cementing their habit of lying, and accelerating their descent into the STS mode of existence which only results in disintegration. Conversely, each partial victory over negative emotions while faced with simultaneous and reiterated attacks, augments the reserve of fine energies and so strengthens the Knight's strength in the battle.
In the course of this Invisible Combat, a particular passion, the same mirage, loses its power over the victor once he has overcome it once, twice or more times. So, while the Knight advances on the Staircase his inner peace becomes more and more complete and unalterable. He will see his assailants waver and retreat, one by one. He has established a steady and permanent peace within himself and has thus become unmovable by inner or outer shocks. This inner peace is achieved by fusion.
