So the strife raged about him and Lust and Love, and Power and Wealth thundered or pleaded at his ear and could not move him. And huge elemental Powers led on their armies, deep instincts from the abyss of the primeval life of man, conqueering, cunning, rock-rooted, hard to be fought, beckoning, alluring, threatening. And some, robed like heavenly spirits, showed, as it were, the Way, but it was no way, and very terrible were the confusions, sights and sounds of that night of dread. Nor is it possible or lawful that all should be uttered. But when the worst and utmost were done and endured and no more remained, the Wicked One and his hosts, outwearied, ceased their torment, and very slowly the angry roar of the billows subsided and the foam of their fury stilled, and the mind of the Blessed One relaxed into peace, and the great darkness thinned as at the cold breath of dawn. The moon and the stars reappearing shed dying light, the barriers of the dark being removed. And now—the marvel,—the marvel! Let the Three Worlds wait in silence. Thus have I heard. For the east became grey, and all being now hushed, our Lord passed into deep and subtle contemplation and entered thus upon the First Stage of Ecstasy, and this was the First Watch. And, consciousness withdrawn into the Infinite, passing through the bounds of human comprehension, seeing the world as it truly is, not as it appears, his mind moved swiftly onward and upward as the eagle soars effortless to the sun, or rather, as the swimmer daring the current, is caught up and carried strongly and without volition to his desired end. For, be it known, this world about us is far other than it appears, and with enlightenment we pass free from the fetters of illusion. And this is Perception in which time as it is known in this our world ceases to exist. And in this Perception he beheld his past lives and all his former births, with their gains and losses, their sins and purities, as they passed steadily onward and led him inevitably to the Tree; seeing all at once as a picture. And soaring higher, carried ever more swiftly onward, ever more profoundly withdrawn, in the second watch he beheld with diamond-clear perception all that lives, and the round of birth and death of all mankind, hollow all and false and transient, built upon nothingness—the piers and fabric of a dream; and saw before him erring creatures born and born again to die, the righteous and the evil heirs alike of pain self-inflicted, and stabbed with daggers their own hands have forged. And he saw the transient heavens gained through desire, won through righteousness that craves reward, and beheld these longer-lived than the joys of earth yet transient also, for he who desires the joys of an individual heaven and pays down righteousness as the coin of its price, he too is still held within the pitiless fetters of craving, though it be for heaven, and nothing rooted in desire is eternal, but must pass and be done.