(2) While man is in this world, two things are necessary for him: first, the protection and nurture of his soul; secondly, the care and nurture of his body. The proper nourishment of the soul, as above shown, is the knowledge and love of God, and to be absorbed in the love of anything but God is the ruin of the soul. The body, so to speak, is simply the riding animal of the soul and perishes while the soul endures. The soul should take care of the body, just as a pilgrim on his way to Mecca takes care of his camel; but if the pilgrim spends his whole time in feeding and adorning his camel, the caravan will leave him behind; and he will perish in the desert.

(3) Man's bodily needs are simple, being comprised under three heads: food, clothing, and a dwelling place; but the bodily desires which were implanted in him with a view to procuring these are apt to rebel against reason, which is of later growth than they. Accordingly, as we saw above, they require to be curbed and restrained by the divine laws promulgated by the prophets.

(8) The desires beget harm in this world and beyond: here, by bondage, slaughter, and loss of limb; beyond, in hell. That for the sake of which thou hast bowed many a time before bawds, heeding not sin nor infamy, and cast thyself into peril and wasted thy substance, that which by its embrace has brought thee supreme delight — it is naught but bones, now free and unpossessed; wilt thou not take thy fill of embraces now, and delight thyself? This was the face that erstwhile turned downwards in modesty and was unwilling to look up, hidden behind a veil whether eyes gazed upon it or gazed not; and this face now the vultures unveil to thee, as though they could not bear thy impatience. Look on it — why dost thou flee now from it?...

(2) It is of this Soul especially that we read "All Soul has care for the Soulless"- though the several Souls thus care in their own degree and way. The passage continues- "Soul passes through the entire heavens in forms varying with the variety of place"- the sensitive form, the reasoning form, even the vegetative form- and this means that in each "place" the phase of the soul there dominant carries out its own ends while the rest, not present there, is idle.

Now, in humanity the lower is not supreme; it is an accompaniment; but neither does the better rule unfailingly; the lower element also has a footing, and Man, therefore, lives in part under sensation, for he has the organs of sensation, and in large part even by the merely vegetative principle, for the body grows and propagates: all the graded phases are in a collaboration, but the entire form, man, takes rank by the dominant, and when the life-principle leaves the body it is what it is, what it most intensely lived.

This is why we must break away towards the High: we dare not keep ourselves set towards the sensuous principle, following the images of sense, or towards the merely vegetative, intent upon the gratifications of eating and procreation; our life must be pointed towards the Intellective, towards the Intellectual-Principle, towards God.

Those that have maintained the human level are men once more. Those that have lived wholly to sense become animals- corresponding in species to the particular temper of the life- ferocious animals where the sensuality has been accompanied by a certain measure of spirit, gluttonous and lascivious animals where all has been appetite and satiation of appetite. Those who in their pleasures have not even lived by sensation, but have gone their way in a torpid grossness become mere growing things, for this lethargy is the entire act of the vegetative, and such men have been busy be-treeing themselves. Those, we read, that, otherwise untainted, have loved song become vocal animals; kings ruling unreasonably but with no other vice are eagles; futile and flighty visionaries ever soaring skyward, become highflying birds; observance of civic and secular virtue makes man again, or where the merit is less marked, one of the animals of communal tendency, a bee or the like.

(89) And there now was no earthly Meat or Drink; and the Soul of Christ understood now very well what Inn [or House] it was in, that it was in God, and that it could of Stones make Bread, seeing there was none there; but it must eat no earthly Bread, but heavenly [Bread] out of the holy Ternary, in its heavenly Body; and the earthly Body must be hungry, that the Soul might be rightly tempted. For the earthly Body was hungry, as the Text in the Gospel says very right.

(13) For the sacrifices of the Law express figura tively the piety which we practise, as the turtle-dove and the pigeon offered for sins point out that the cleansing of the irrational part of the soul is acceptable to God. But if any one of the righteous does not burden his soul by the eating of flesh, he has the advantage of a rational reason, not as Pythagoras and his followers dream of the transmigration of the soul.

(5) For the carrying on of this spiritual warfare by which the knowledge of oneself and of God is to be obtained, the body may be figured as a kingdom, the soul as its king, and the different senses and faculties as constituting an army. Reason may be called the vizier, or prime minister, passion the revenue collector, and anger the police officer. Under the guise of collecting revenue, passion is continually prone to plunder on its own account, while resentment is always inclined to harshness and extreme severity. Both of these the revenue collector and the police officer, have to be kept in due subordination to the king, but not killed or excelled, as they have their own proper functions to fulfill. But if passion and resentment master reason, the ruin of the soul infallibly ensues. A soul which allows its lower faculties to dominate the higher is as one who should hand over an angel to the power of a dog or a Mussalman to the tyranny of an unbeliever. The cultivation of demonic, animal or angelic qualities results in the production of corresponding characters, which in the Day of Judgement will be manifested in visible shapes, the sensual appearing as swine, the ferocious as dogs and wolves, and the pure as angels. The aim of moral discipline is to purify the heart from the rust of passion and resentment, till, like a clear mirror, it reflects the light of God.

(10) It will be objected, that if the Soul constitutes the We and We are subject to these states then the Soul must be subject to them, and similarly that what We do must be done by the Soul.

But it has been observed that the Couplement, too- especially before our emancipation- is a member of this total We, and in fact what the body experiences we say We experience. This then covers two distinct notions; sometimes it includes the brute-part, sometimes it transcends the brute. The body is brute touched to life; the true man is the other, going pure of the body, natively endowed with the virtues which belong to the Intellectual-Activity, virtues whose seat is the Separate Soul, the Soul which even in its dwelling here may be kept apart. for when it has wholly withdrawn, that other Soul which is a radiation from it withdraws also, drawn after it.

Those virtues, on the other hand, which spring not from contemplative wisdom but from custom or practical discipline belong to the Couplement: to the Couplement, too, belong the vices; they are its repugnances, desires, sympathies.

And Friendship?

This emotion belongs sometimes to the lower part, sometimes to the interior man.

(23) This may be illustrated by the following anecdote: A certain scavenger went into the perfume sellers' bazaar, and, smelling the sweet scents, fell down unconscious. People came round him and sprinkled rose-water upon him and held musk to his nose, but he only became worse. At last one came who had been a scavenger himself; he held a little filth under the man's nose and he revived instantly, exclaiming, with a sigh of satisfaction, "Ah! this is perfume indeed!" Thus in the next life a worlding will no longer find the filthy lucre and the filthy pleasures of the world; the spiritual joys of that world will be altogether alien to him and but increase his wretchedness. For the next world is a world of Spirit and of the manifestation of the Beauty of God; happy is that man who has aimed at and acquired affinity with it. All austerities, devotions, studies have the acquirement of that affinity for their aim, and that affinity is love. This is the meaning of that saying of the Koran, "He who has purified his soul is happy." Sins and lusts directly oppose the attainment of this affinity; therefore the Koran goes on to say, "and he who has corrupted his soul is miserable." Those who are gifted with spiritual insight have really grasped this truth as a fact of experience, and not a merely traditional maxim. Their clear perception of it leads them to the conviction that he by whom it was spoken was a prophet indeed, just as a man who has studied medicine knows when he is listening to a physician. This is a kind of certainty which requires no support from miracles such as the conversion of a rod into a snake, the credit of which may be shaken by apparently equally extraordinary miracles performed by magicians.

(2) And as He will answer for us thus in spirit, so will He stir other men in spirit to give us our needful things that belong to this life, as meat and clothes with all these other; if He see that we will not leave the work of His love for business about them. And this I say in confusion of their error, that say that it is not lawful for men to set them to serve God in contemplative life, but if they be secure before of their bodily necessaries. For they say, that God sendeth the cow, but not by the horn. And truly they say wrong of God, as they well know. For trust steadfastly, thou whatsoever that thou be, that truly turnest thee from the world unto God, that one of these two God shall send thee, without business of thyself: and that is either abundance of necessaries, or strength in body and patience in spirit to bear need. What then recketh it, which man have? for all come to one in very contemplatives. And whoso is in doubt of this, either the devil is in his breast and reeveth him of belief, or else he is not yet truly turned to God as he should be; make he it never so quaint, nor never so holy reasons shew there again, whatnot ever that he be.

(32) Therefore, O Man! consider what thou hast received with thy bestial Body, to eat and to drink of Evil and Good, which God did forbid. Look here into the Ground of the Essences, and say not with Reason; It was merely for Disobedience, which God was so very angry at, that his Anger could not be quenched. Thou art deceived, for if the clear Deity was angry, it would not have become Man for thy Sake to help thee; look but upon the

(116) And secondly, that it receives all thy Purposes and Deeds, and sets them in the Tincture of thy Soul, and makes of it another Dwelling-house for thy Soul, that it may not send thee so naked away from it. 1 17. And then, thirdly, that it has brought thy Soul out of Heaven into the Pleasures of this World, and now leaves it in its Misery, wholly naked and bare, sitting in its Filthiness, and goes away and regards no more where the Soul is, or how it is with it, if it was in the Abyss of Hell [it were all one to the Spirit of this World;] this thou hast to expect for thy Recompense from the Spirit of this World, because thou hast so truly served it.

(1) AND hereby mayest thou see that we should direct all our beholding unto this meek stirring of love in our will. And in all other sweetness and comforts, bodily or ghostly, be they never so liking nor so holy, if it be courteous and seemly to say, we should have a manner of recklessness. If they come, welcome them: but lean not too much on them for fear of feebleness, for it will take full much of thy powers to bide any long time in such sweet feelings and weepings. And peradventure thou mayest be stirred for to love God for them, and that shalt thou feel by this: if thou grumble overmuch when they be away. And if it be thus, thy love is not yet neither chaste nor perfect. For a love that is chaste and perfect, though it suffer that the body be fed and comforted in the presence of such sweet feelings and weepings, nevertheless yet it is not grumbling, but full well pleased for to lack them at God’s will. And yet it is not commonly without such comforts in some creatures, and in some other creatures such sweetness and comforts be but seldom.

(5) Thus the occupations and businesses of the world have become more and more complicated and troublesome, chiefly owing to the fact that men have forgotten that their real necessities are only three -- clothing, food, and shelter -- and that these exist only with the object of making the body a fit vehicle for the soul in its journey towards the next world. They have fallen into the same mistake as the pilgrim to Mecca, mentioned above, who, forgetting the object of his pilgrimage and himself, should spend his whole time in feeding and adorning his camel. Unless a man maintains the strictest watch he is certain to be fascinated and entangled by the world, which, as the Prophet said, is "a more potent sorcerer than Harut and Marut."

(31) Of which I have a great Longing to eat, but I cannot reach to it, for Heaven is the Closure or Firmament between the old and new Body. And therefore I must let it alone till I come into the other Life, and must give my bestial Body Mother Eve's Wrath-Apples to eat. Concerning the Kindling of the Heart, or Life of this World.