(22) For not in Matter did the Fire which is in the first beyond enclose His active Power, but in Mind; for the framer of the Fiery World is the Mind of Mind.

(18) When then the mind doth free itself from the earth-body, it straightway putteth on its proper robe of fire, with which it could not dwell in an earth-body. For earth doth not bear fire; for it is all set in a blaze even by a small spark. And for this cause is water poured around earth, to be a guard and wall, to keep the blazing of the fire away. But mind, the swiftest thing of all divine outthinkings, and swifter than all elements, hath for its body fire. For mind being builder doth use the fire as tool for the construction of all things - the Mind of all [for the construction] of all things, but that of man only for things on earth. Stript of its fire the mind on earth cannot make things divine, for it is human in its dispensation.

(2) The greatest indication, however, of the truth of this is the following. Many, through divine inspiration, are not burned when fire is introduced to them, the inspiring influence preventing the fire from touching them. Many, also, though burned, do not apprehend that they are so, because they do not then live an animal life. And some, indeed, though transfixed with spits, do not perceive it; but others that are struck on the shoulders with axes, and others that have their arms cut with knives, are by no means conscious of what is done to them. Their energies, likewise, are not at all human. For inaccessible places become accessible to those that are divinely inspired; they are thrown into fire, and pass through fire, and over rivers, like the priest in Castabalis, without being injured. But from these things it is demonstrated, that those who energize enthusiastically are not conscious of the state they are in, and that they neither live a human nor an animal life, according to sense or impulse, but that they exchange this for a certain more divine life, by which they are inspired and perfectly possessed.

(176) If thou extendeth the Fiery Mind to the work of piety, thou wilt preserve the fluxible body.

(44) Thou dear Soul, thus saith the high Spirit to thee; yield Infusion. up thy Mind here, and I will show it thee. Behold, what does comprehend thy Will, or wherein consists thy Life? If thou sayest, in Water and Flesh: No, it consists in the Fire, in the Warmth. If the Warmth was not, then thy Body would be stiff [with Cold,] and the Water would dry away; therefore the Mind and the Life consists in the Fire.

(24) 'But he who has not first turned away from his wickedness, who is not tranquil, and subdued, or whose mind is not at rest, he can never obtain the Self (even) by knowledge!

(17) 'The Person not larger than a thumb, the inner Self, is always settled in the heart of men. Let a man draw that Self forth from his body with steadiness, as one draws the pith from a reed. Let him know that Self as the Bright, as the Immortal; yes, as the Bright, as the Immortal.'

(12) Such is the Mind which is energized before energy, while yet it had not gone forth, but abode in the Paternal Depth, and in the Adytum of God nourished silence.

(2) But seeing it is his eternal Will and Purpose to do us good, and to open his Secrets to us according to his Counsel, therefore we ought not to withstand, nor to bury the bestowed Talent in the Earth, for we must give Account of it in the Appearing of his Coming. Therefore we will thus labour in our Vineyard, and commend the Fruit to him, and will set down in Writing a Memorial for ourselves, and leave it to him. For we can search or conceive no further, than only what we apprehend in the Light of Nature; where our Gate stands open; not according to the Measure of our Purpose, when and how we will, but according to his Gift, when and how he wills. We are not able to comprehend the least Sparkle of him, unless the Gates of the Deep be opened to us in our Mind; where then the zealous [earnest] and highly desirous kindled Spirit is as a Fire, to which the earthly Body ought to be subject, and will grudge no Pains to serve the desirous fiery Mind. And although it has nothing to expect for its Labour but Scorn and Contempt from the World, yet it must be obedient to its Lord, for its Lord is mighty, and itself is feeble, and its Lord leads, [drives,] and preserves it, and yet in its [Ignorance, or Want of] Understanding, it knows nothing of what it does, but it lives like all the Beasts. And yet its Will is [not] to live thus, but it must follow the worthy Mind, which searches after the Wisdom of God; and the Mind must follow the Light of Nature; for God manifests [or reveals] himself in that Light, or else we should know nothing of him.

(5) In the lower part of active life a man is without himself and beneath himself. In the higher part of active life and the lower part of contemplative life, a man is within himself and even with himself. But in the higher part of contemplative life, a man is above himself and under his God. Above himself he is: for why, he purposeth him to win thither by grace, whither he may not come by nature. That is to say, to be knit to God in spirit, and in onehead of love and accordance of will. And right as it is impossible, to man’s understanding, for a man to come to the higher part of active life, but if he cease for a time of the lower part; so it is that a man shall not come to the higher part of contemplative life, but if he cease for a time of the lower part. And as unlawful a thing as it is, and as much as it would let a man that sat in his meditations, to have regard then to his outward bodily works, the which he had done, or else should do, although they were never so holy works in themselves: surely as unlikely a thing it is, and as much would it let a man that should work in this darkness and in this cloud of unknowing with an affectuous stirring of love to God for Himself, for to let any thought or any meditation of God’s wonderful gifts, kindness, and works in any of His creatures bodily or ghostly, rise upon him to press betwixt him and his God; although they be never so holy thoughts, nor so profound, nor so comfortable.

(4) The heavens your movements do initiate, I say not all; but granting that I say it, Light has been given you for good and evil, And free volition; which, if some fatigue In the first battles with the heavens it suffers, Afterwards conquers all, if well 'tis nurtured. To greater force and to a better nature, Though free, ye subject are, and that creates The mind in you the heavens have not in charge. Hence, if the present world doth go astray, In you the cause is, be it sought in you; And I therein will now be thy true spy. Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles it Before it is, like to a little girl Weeping and laughing in her childish sport, Issues the simple soul, that nothing knows, Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker, Gladly it turns to that which gives it pleasure. Of trivial good at first it tastes the savour; Is cheated by it, and runs after it, If guide or rein turn not aside its love. Hence it behoved laws for a rein to place, Behoved a king to have, who at the least Of the true city should discern the tower.

(10) Whatever state a man, whose nature is purified imagines, and whatever desires he desires (for himself or for others), that state he conquers and those desires he obtains. Therefore let every man who desires happiness worship the man who knows the Self.

(412) True. And a man will be most likely to care about that which he loves? To be sure. And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as having the same interests with himself, and that of which the good or evil fortune is supposed by him at any time most to affect his own? Very true, he replied. Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her interests. Those are the right men. And they will have to be watched at every age, in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the State. How cast off? he said. I will explain to you, I replied. A resolution may go out of a man’s mind either with his will or against his will; with his will when he gets rid of a falsehood and learns better, against his will whenever he is deprived of a truth. I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution; the meaning of the unwilling I have yet to learn. Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly deprived of good, and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the truth an evil, and to possess the truth a good? and you would agree that to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth? Yes, he replied; I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived of truth against their will.

(3) O'er whatsoever souls the Mind doth, then, preside, to these it showeth its own light, by acting counter to their prepossessions, just as a good physician doth upon the body prepossessed by sickness, pain inflict, burning or lancing it for sake of health. In just the selfsame way the Mind inflicteth pain on the soul, to rescue it from pleasure, whence comes its every ill. The great ill of the soul is godlessness; then followeth fancy for all evil things and nothing good. So, then, Mind counteracting it doth work good on the soul, as the physician health upon the body.

(9) "Finally, O Shem, consider yourself pleasing in the thought of the light. Do not let your thought have dealings with the fire and the body of darkness, which was an unclean work. These things that I teach you are right.

(22) Have not all men then Mind? Thou sayest well, O thou, thus speaking. I, Mind, myself am present with holy men and good, the pure and merciful, men who live piously. [To such] my presence doth become an aid, and straightway they gain gnosis of all things, and win the Father's love by their pure lives, and give Him thanks, invoking on Him blessings, and chanting hymns, intent on Him with ardent love. And ere they give up the body unto its proper death, they turn them with disgust from its sensations, from knowledge of what things they operate. Nay, it is I, the Mind, that will not let the operations which befall the body, work to their [natural] end. For being door-keeper I'll close up [all] the entrances, and cut the mental actions off which base and evil energies induce.

(6) This is, O Tat, the Gnosis of the Mind, Vision of things Divine; God-knowledge is it, for the Cup is God's. T: Father, I, too, would be baptized. H: Unless thou first shall hate thy Body, son, thou canst not love thy Self. But if thou lov'st thy Self thou shalt have Mind, and having Mind thou shalt share in the Gnosis. T: Father, what dost thou mean? H: It is not possible, my son, to give thyself to both - I mean to things that perish and to things divine. For seeing that existing things are twain, Body and Bodiless, in which the perishing and the divine are understood, the man who hath the will to choose is left the choice of one or the other; for it can never be the twain should meet. And in those souls to whom the choice is left, the waning of the one causes the other's growth to show itself.

(8) 'But he who has understanding, who is mindful and always pure, reaches indeed that place, from whence he is not born again.'

(43) For the Will in the Center climbs aloft till it generates the Fire, and in the Fire is the Substance and Essentiality generated. For it is the Spirit thereof, and the End of the Will in the dark Mind, and there can be nothing higher generated in the Anguish than the Fire, for it is the End of Nature, and it generates again the Anguish and the Source, as may be perceived. Now therefore the dark anguishing [aching, or anxious] Mind has not only one Substance, viz. one Being [or Essence] in itself, but many, or else no Quality could be generated; and yet it is truly but one [Being, Essence, or] Substance, and not many.

(9) Therefore let every one have a Care how he uses his Reason, that he may therewith stand in great Honour in the Wonders of God. We know that this World shall perish in the Fire; it shall be no Fire of Straw or Wood, that would turn no Stones to Ashes, and further to Nothing; neither will there any Fire gather together, into which this World shall be thrown; but the Fire of Nature kindles itself in all Things, and will melt or dissolve the Body of every Thing, or whatsoever is palpable, and turn it to Nothing.