To be in a certain kind of flow of mind is to be in some respects outside the position of the seeker. And in this it takes courage to lay claim to knowledge in a mode that is no longer the polemical, playful and hypothetical one of the agnostic fraternity, but that sets itself squarely just where the bad conscience of these refuses to point. There is a danger in overplaying a weak illumination, but there is also a danger in failing to play it, in the refusal to step out of the crowd, in the illusion that one is less alone there than anywhere else. In the inner work one is more alone but less individual. The distinctive and idiosyncratic character of the individual is the common feature that holds the crowd together, that generates the motifs that weave through the many stories of its towered cities and twisting roads. Inside this picture the complexity is manifold, but as you move away from it the complexity dissolves, you see the simplicity of the hungers underneath it, which secretly drive it, and as it is the same simplicity that you are consciously moving towards it draws you closer to all these others at the same time, but from a different angle, you come at their desires in a different phase. It is love but it is also power; and because power frightens you you'd prefer to fail sooner rather than later.