"Milarepa was tremendously involved with the process of transmutation of energies and emotions. In fact, when we read the Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, the whole first part of the book is dealing with Milarepa's experience of this process . . . .
 
In "The Tale of Red Rock Jewel Valley," when Milarepa went back into his cave after having a comforting vision of Marpa, he was confronted with a gang of demons. He tried every way he could think of to get rid of them, he even preached the Dharma to them. But they would not leave until he ceased regarding them as "bad" and opened to them, saw them as they were. This was the beginning of Milarepa's period of learning how to subjugate the demons, which is the same thing as transmuting the emotions. It is with our emotions that we create demons and gods: those things which we don't want in our lives and world are the demons; those things which we would draw to us are the gods and goddesses. The rest is just scenery."
 
Chogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism.