Once a man has vanquished fear he then acquires clarity, a clarity of mind which erases fear. By then a man knows his desires; he knows how to satisfy those desires. He can anticipate the new steps of learning and a sharp clarity surrounds everything. The man feels that nothing is concealed from him…
And thus he has encountered his second enemy: Clarity! That clarity of spirit, which is so hard to obtain, dispels fear, but also blinds. It obliges the man never to doubt himself. It gives him the assurance he can do anything he pleases, for he sees clearly into everything. And he is courageous because he is clear, and he stops at nothing because he is clear! But all that is a mistake, it is like something incomplete. If the man yields to this make-believe power, he has succumbed to his second enemy. He will be patient when he should rush. And he will fumble with learning until he winds up incapable of learning anything else.
If a man is defeated this way, his second enemy will have stopped him cold from becoming a man of knowledge. Instead, the man may turn into a buoyant warrior or a clown. Yet the clarity, for which he has paid so dearly, will never change to darkness and fear again. He will be clear as long as he lives, but he will no longer learn, or yearn for, anything.
For him to not be defeated, he must do what he did with fear: he must defy his clarity and use it only to see, and wait patiently and measure carefully before taking new steps; he must think, above all, that his clarity is almost a mistake. And a moment will come when he will understand that his clarity was only a point before his eyes. And thus he will have overcome his second enemy, and will arrive at a position where nothing can jeopardize him anymore. This will not be a mistake. It will not only be a viewpoint. It will be true power.
He will know at this point that the power he has been pursuing for so long is finally his. He can do with it whatever he pleases. His ally is at his command. His wish is the rule. He sees all that is around him. But he has also come across his third enemy: Power!
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