(2) One evening, Abbasah said: 'Supposing that the unbelievers who fill the earth, and even the loquacious Turkomans, should sincerely accept the Faith - such a thing could be possible. But a hundred and twenty thousand prophets have been sent to the unbelieving soul so that it should accept the Musulman faith or perish, and they have not yet succeeded. Why so much zeal and so little result?'

We are all under the domination of the Nafs of this unfaithful disobedient body, which we maintain in ourselves.

E

Helped as it is from two sides, it were astonishing if this body perished. The Spirit, like a faithful knight, rides on, but always the dog is his companion; he may gallop but the dog follows. The love the heart receives is taken by the body. Yet he who makes himself master of this dog will take in his net the lion of the tvo worlds.

(2) In my village there was a young man beautiful as Joseph, who fell into a pit and the earth caved in on him. When they got him out he was in a sad state. This excellent young man was called Muhammad, and was liked by every"one. His father groaned when he saw him and said: ' O Muhammad, you are the light of my eyes and the soul of your father. O my son, say one word to your father!' The son said one word and gave up the ghost, and that is all.

O you who are a young pupil on the path of spiritual knowledge and who are able to observe and ponder, think about Muhammad and Adam; think about Adam and the atoms, the whole and the particles of the whole; speak of the earth and heavens, of the mountains and the ocean; speak of the fairies and the gods, of men and angels, of a hundred thousand pure souls; speak of the painful moment of the giving up of the soul; say that every individual, soul and body, are nothing. If you reduce the two worlds to dust and sift them a hundred times, what will it be for you? It will be

(" 2)

like a palace upside down, and you will find nothing on the surface of the siftings.

This Vallet is not so easy to cross as you in vour simplicity perhaps think. Even when the blood of your heart shall fill Ae ocean, you will only be able to make the first stage. Even if you were to journey over all the ways of the world you would still find yourself at the first step. No traveller has seen the limit of this journey neither has he found a remedy for love. If you halt you are petrified, or you may even die; if you continue on your way, always advancing, you will hear until eternity the cr'; Go still further.' You can neither go nor stay. It is no advantage either to live or to die.

What profit have you derived from all that has befallen you? What have you gained from the difficulties you have been able to endure? It matters little whether you beat your head or no. O you who hear me, remain silent, and work actively.

Give up your useless aims and pursue the essential things. Be occupied as little as possible with things of the outer world but much with things of the inner world; then right action will overcome inaction. But those who find no remedy in acting, had better do nothing since you must know when to act and when to refrain from action. But how to know what you cannot know? And yet it is possible to act as you should, even without knowing. Forget all that you have done up till now, and strive to be independent and sufficient in yourself, though sometimes you will weep and sometimes rejoice. In this Fourth Valley the lightning of power, which is the discovery of your own resources, of selfsufficiency, blazes up so that the heat consumes a hundred worlds. Since hundreds of worlds are reduced to powder is it strange that yours also will disappear?

the astrologer

Have you ever seen a wise man set out a tablet and cover it with sand? There he traces figures and designs, and places

(" 5)

the stars and planets, the heavens and the earth. Sometimes he makes a prediction from the heavens, sometimes from earth. He also draws the constellations and the signs of the Zodiac and indicates the rising and setting of the stars, and from this he deduces good or bad auguries. When he has cast a horoscope, of good or bad fortune, he takes the tablet by a corner and scatters the sand, and it is as if all those signs and figures had never existed.

The accidental surface of this world is like the tablet. If you have not the strength to resist the longing for the superficial things of this world turn away from it and sit in a corner. Men and women come into life without any idea of the inner and the outer worlds.

(21) But I say that God is the spiritual one. Man has taken shape from the substance of God. The divine soul shares partly in this one; furthermore, it shares partly in the flesh. The base soul is wont to turn from side to side, [...] which it images the truth.

(8) Both God and man have a twofold constitution, of which the superior part is invisible and the inferior visible. In both there is also an intermediary sphere, marking the point where these visible and invisible natures meet. As the spiritual nature of God controls His objective universal form-which is actually a crystallized idea--so the spiritual nature of man is the invisible cause and controlling power of his visible material personality. Thus it is evident that the spirit of man bears the same relationship to his material body that God bears to the objective universe. The Mysteries taught that spirit, or life, was anterior to form and that what is anterior includes all that is posterior to itself. Spirit being anterior to form, form is therefore included within the realm of spirit. It is also a popular statement or belief that man's spirit is within his body. According to the conclusions of philosophy and theology, however, this belief is erroneous, for spirit first circumscribes an area and then manifests within it. Philosophically speaking, form, being a part of spirit, is within spirit; but: spirit is more than the sum of form, As the material nature of man is therefore within the sum of spirit, so the Universal Nature, including the entire sidereal system, is within the all-pervading essence of God--the Universal Spirit.

(1) And I subjected all their powers. For as I came downward, no one saw me. For I was altering my shapes, changing from form to form. And so when I was at their gates I assumed their likeness. For I passed them by quietly, and I was viewing the places, and I was neither afraid nor ashamed, for I was undefiled. And I was speaking with them, mingling with them through those who are mine, and trampling on those who are harsh to them with zeal, and quenching the flame. And I was doing all these things because of my desire to accomplish what I desired by the will of the father above.

(3) A little further consideration will show how entirely distinct the human soul is from the body and its members. Limb after limb may be paralysed and cease working, but the individuality of the soul is unimpaired. Further, the body which you have now is no longer the body which you had as child, but entirely different, yet your personality now is identical with your personality then. It is therefore easy to conceive of it as persisting when the body is done with altogether, along with its essential attributes which were independent of the body, such as the knowledge and love of God. This is the meaning of that saying of the Koran, "The good things abide." But if, instead of carrying away with

(19) The soul in man, however - not every soul, but one that pious is - is a daimonic something and divine. And such a soul when from the body freed, if it have fought the fight of piety - the fight of piety is to know God and to do wrong to no man - such a soul becomes entirely mind. Whereas the impious soul remains in its own essence, chastised by its own self, and seeking for an earthly body where to enter, if only it be human. For that no other body can contain a human soul; nor is it right that any human soul should fall into the body of a thing that doth possess no reason. For that the law of God is this: to guard the human soul from such tremendous outrage.

(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.

(24) Now comes the question of the soul leaving the body; where does it go?

It cannot remain in this world where there is no natural recipient for it; and it cannot remain attached to anything not of a character to hold it: it can be held here when only it is less than wise, containing within itself something of that which lures it.

If it does contain any such alien element it gives itself, with increasing attachment, to the sphere to which that element naturally belongs and tends.

The space open to the soul's resort is vast and diverse; the difference will come by the double force of the individual condition and of the justice reigning in things. No one can ever escape the suffering entailed by ill deeds done: the divine law is ineluctable, carrying bound up, as one with it, the fore-ordained execution of its doom. The sufferer, all unaware, is swept onward towards his due, hurried always by the restless driving of his errors, until at last wearied out by that against which he struggled, he falls into his fit place and, by self-chosen movement, is brought to the lot he never chose. And the law decrees, also, the intensity and the duration of the suffering while it carries with it, too, the lifting of chastisement and the faculty of rising from those places of pain- all by power of the harmony that maintains the universal scheme.

Souls, body-bound, are apt to body-punishment; clean souls no longer drawing to themselves at any point any vestige of body are, by their very being, outside the bodily sphere; body-free, containing nothing of body- there where Essence is, and Being, and the Divine within the Divinity, among Those, within That, such a soul must be.

If you still ask Where, you must ask where those Beings are- and in your seeking, seek otherwise than with the sight, and not as one seeking for body.

(19) But, when all is said, the knowledge of the soul plays a more important part in leading to the knowledge of God than the knowledge of our body and the functions. The body may be compared to a steed and the soul to its rider; the body was created for the soul, the soul

(48) When the soul was joined to the body it was part of the all: never has there been so marvellous a talisman. The soul had a share of that which is high, and the body a share of that which is low; it was formed of a mixture of heavy clay and pure spirit. By this mixing, man became the most astonishing of mysteries. We do not know nor do we understand so much as a little of our spirit. If you wish to say something about this, it would be better to keep silent. Many know the surface of this ocean, but they understand nothing of the depths; and the visible world is the talisman which protects it. But this talisman of bodily obstacles will be broken at last. You will find the treasure when the talisman disappears; the soul will manifest itself when the body is laid aside. But your soul is another talisman; it is, for this mystery, another substance. Walk then in the way I shall indicate, but do not ask for an explanation.

(27) This is also wholly hidden as to my body, but not as to my animated or soulish spirit, for so long as my animated or soulish spirit qualifieth or works with and in God it comprehendeth the same; but when it falls into sin, then the door is shut against it, which the devil bolteth up fast, and which must, with great labour and industry of the spirit, be set open again.

(4) If a person knew the Soul (Atman), With the thought "I am he!" With what desire, for love of what Would he cling unto the body?

(6) For neither can he who perceiveth It, perceive aught else; nor he who gazeth on It, gaze on aught else; nor hear aught else, nor stir his body any way. Staying his body's every sense and every motion he stayeth still. And shining then all round his mond, It shines through his whole soul, and draws it out of body, transforming all of him to essence. For it is possible, my son, that a man's soul should be made like to God, e'en while it still is in a body, if it doth contemplate the Beauty of the Good.

(3) 'Learn from me, my son, what are hunger and thirst. When a man is thus said to be hungry, water is carrying away (digests) what has been eaten by him. Therefore as they speak of a cow-leader (go-nâya), a horse-leader (asva-nâya), a man-leader (purusha-nâya), so they call water (which digests food and causes hunger) food-leader (asa-nâya). Thus (by food digested &c.), my son, know this offshoot (the body) to be brought forth, for this (body) could not be without a root (cause).

(1) IF we consider now (in the Light of Nature) of Man, the Image of God, of his Beginning, and of his eternal Enduring, Being, [or Substance,] and then of the Breaking of his Body, how Body and Soul part asunder, and whither the Souls go, when the Spirit of their Breath does break [or dissolve] in them, and the Springing or Moving in the Tincture of this World does cease, then we find the Ground of the Unquietness of the Soul, when it is separated from the Body, [being] unregenerated; from whence Lamentation and Desiring arise; from whence then the Babel of Confusion has risen, so that very many Things have therefore been invented to ransom Souls [out of Distress.]

(3) Some idea of the reality of the heart. or spirit, may be obtained by a man closing his eyes and forgetting everything around except his individuality. He will thus also obtain a glimpse of the unending nature of that individuality. Too close inquiry, however, into the essence of spirit is forbidden by the Law. In the Koran it is written: "They will question thee concerning the spirit. Say: 'The Spirit comes by the command of my Lord'." Thus much is known of it that it is an indivisible essence belonging to the world of decrees, and that it is not from everlasting, but created. An exact philosophical knowledge of the spirit is not a necessary preliminary to walking in the path of religion, but comes rather as

(5) The reason of the human spirit seeking to return to that upper world is that its origin was from thence, and that it is of angelic nature. It was sent down into this lower sphere against its will to acquire knowledge and experience, as God said in the Koran: "Go down from hence, all of you; there will come to you instruction from Me, and they who obey the instruction need not fear, neither shall they be grieved." The verse, "I breathed into man of My spirit," also points to the celestial origin of the human soul. Just as the health of the animal soul consists in the equilibrium of its component parts, and this equilibrium is restored, when impaired, by appropriate medicine, so the health of the human soul consists in a moral equilibrium which is maintained and repaired, when needful, by ethical instruction and moral precepts.

(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.

(25) For him who discerns between the Mind and the Spiritual Man, there comes perfect fruition of the longing after the real being of the Self.