(365) 622 To say: Lift thyself up N., hurry, thou great of power; 622 sit at the head of the gods and do what Osiris did in the princely house, which is in Heliopolis, 622 after thou hast received thy dignity. 622 Thy foot (step) will not be hindered in heaven; thou shalt not be restrained on earth, 623 for thou art verily a spirit, born of Nut, nursed by Nephthys; 623 they unite with thee. 623 Thou shalt stand in thy place, that thou mayest do what thou . wast accustomed to do before. 624 Thou shalt be spirit more than all spirits. 624 Thou goest to Buto; thou findest him there whom thou hast to resist; 624 thou comest to Hierakonpolis; thou findest him there whom thou hast to resist. 625 Thou doest what Osiris does, for thou art he who is on his throne, 625 who stands there (as) this great and mighty spirit, N., bedecked as the great wild-bull. 625 Thou wilt not be resisted at any place where thou goest; 625 thy foot will not be hindered at any place where thou desirest (to be).

(31) In this tone riseth up the power of all the six spirits, and becometh a palpable body, to speak after an angelical manner, and subsisteth in the power of the other six spirits, and in the light; and this is the body of nature, wherein all heavenly creatures, ideas, figures and sprouts or vegetations are imaged or fashioned. The Holy Gates.

(697) 2169 To say: O N., the mouth of the earth opens for thee; Geb speaks to thee: 2169 "Thou art great like a king; thou art mighty like R`. 2170 Thou purifiest thyself in the lake of the jackal; thou cleansest thyself in the lake of the Dt." 2170 "Come in peace," say the Two Enneads to thee. 2170 The eastern door of heaven is open for thee by 'Imn-km. 2171a . Nut has given her arms to thee, N., she of the long hair, she of the hanging breasts; 2171 she lifts thee high to herself to heaven; she did not cast N. down to the earth. 2172 She gives thee birth, N., like S'h; 2172 she makes thee remain as chief of the two 'itr.t-palaces." 21 72 N. descends into the boat like R`, on the shores, of the Winding Watercourse. 2173 N. is transported by the indefatigables; 2173 N. commands the imperishable stars; 2173 N. is transported on the nti-ocean; 2173 N. takes the helm to the fields of . 2174 Thy messengers go; thy runners hasten. 2174 They say to R`: "Behold, N. is come; behold, N. is come in peace." 2175 Do not go by these water-courses of the west; 2175 those who go there, they do not come back. 2175 Go thou, N., by these water-courses of the east, 2175 among the Followers of [R`] 2175 ------ him who lifts up the arm in the east. 2175 -----------------------------------

(4) A Sufi woke one night and said to himself: 'It seems to me that the world is like a chest in which we are put and the lid shut down, and we give ourselves up to foolishness. When death lifts the lid, he who has acquired wings, soars away to eternity, but he who has not, stays in the chest a prey to a thousand tribulations. Make sure then that the bird of ambition acquires wings of aspiration, and give to your heart and reason the ecstasy of the soul. Before the lid of the chest is opened become a bird of the Spirit, ready to spread your wings.'

(121) Behold, thou understanding spirit: The spirit speaketh to thee, and not to the dead spirit of the flesh: Open wide the door of thy astral birth, and elevate that one part of the astral birth in the light, and let the other in the wrath stand still, and take heed also that thy animated or soulish spirit do wholly unite with the light.

(7) In like manner also the spirit went forth from the heart into all the qualifying or fountain veins of the body, and kindled all the seven spirits, and so the royal body was glorified instantaneously, and there he stood as a king of God, in an unsearchable clarity or brightness, transcendently excelling the whole heavenly host or army.

(1) Next came the golden Peacock, with feathers of a hundred - what shall I say? - a hundred thousand colours! He displayed himself, turning this way and that, like a bride. 'The painter of the world,' he said, 'to fashion me took in his hand the brush of the Jinn. But although I am Gabriel among birds my lot is not to be envied. I was friendly with the serpent in the earthly paradise, and for this was ignominiously driven out. They deprived me of a position of trust, they, who trusted me, and my feet were my prison. But I

am always hoping that some benevolent guide will lead me out of this dark abode and take me to the everlasting mansions. I do not expect to reach the king you speak of, it will suffice me to reach his gate. How can you expect me to strive to reach the Simurgh since I have lived in the earthly paradise? I have no wish except to dwell there again. Nothing else has any meaning for me.'

The Hoopoe replied: 'You are straying from the true Way. The palace of this King is far better than your paradise. You cannot do better than to strive to reach it. It is the habitation of the soul, it is eternity, it is the object of our real desires, the dwelling of the heart, the seat of truth. The Most High is a vast ocean; the paradise of earthly bliss is only a little drop; all that is not this ocean is distraction. When you can have the ocean why will you seek a drop of evening dew? Shall he who shares the secrets of the sun idle with a speck of dust? Is he who has all, concerned with the part? Is the soul concerned with members of the body? If you would be perfect seek the whole, choose the whole, be whole.'

(128) And instantly, in the same moment, the light was generated and rose up out of the seven spirits in the centre of the heart, as a newborn son of the king, which also instantly, in a moment, transfigured the body of all the seven qualifying or fountain spirits from the centre of the heart; and externally from without the light of the Son of God transfigured it.

(4) 'I know well my King, but alone I cannot set out to find him. Abandon your timidity, your self-conceit and your unbelief, for he who makes light of his own life is delivered from himself; he is delivered from good and evil in the way of his beloved. Be generous with your life. Set your feet upon the earth and step out joyfully for the court of the king. We have a true king, he lives behind the mountains called Kaf. His name is Simurgh and he is the king of birds. He is close to us, but we are far from him. The place where he dwells is inaccessible, and no tongue is able to utter his name. Before him hang a hundred thousand veils of light and darkness, and in the two worlds no one has power to dispute his kingdom. He is the sovran lord and is bathed in the perfection of his majesty. He does not manifest himself completely even in the place of his dwelling, and to this no knowledge or intelligence can attain. The way is unknown, and no one has the steadfastness to seek it, though thousands of creatures spend their lives in longing. Even the purest soul cannot describe him, neither can the reason comprehend: these two eyes are blind. The wise cannot discover his perfection nor can the man of understanding perceive his beauty. All creatures have wished to attain to this perfection and beauty by imagination. But how can you tread that path with thought? How measure the moon from the fish? So, thousands of heads go here and there, like the ball in polo, and only lamentations and sighs of longing are heard. Many lands and seas are on the way. Do not imagine that the journey is short; and one must have the heart of a lion to follow this unusual road, for it is very long and the sea is deep. One plods along in a state of amazement, sometimes smiling sometimes weeping. As for me, I shall be happy to discover even a trace of him. That would indeed be something, but to live without him would be a reproach. A man must not keep his soul from the beloved but must be in a fitting state to lead his soul to the court of the King. Wash your hands of this life if you would be called a man of action. For your beloved, renounce this dear life of yours, as worthy men. If you submit with grace, the beloved will give his life for you.'

(7) Let the path be thrown open to thy Genius [91] and to thy Soul, Glorified one, who art provided with those who conduct thee; sit thou at the head of the Great ones in thy place; thou shalt not be imprisoned by those who are attached to the person of Osiris and who have the custody of Souls and Spirits and who shut up the Shades of the Dead. It is Heaven that shall hold thee

(1) Let us gather an assembly together. Let us visit that creation of his. Let us send someone forth in it, so that he may visit the thoughts in the regions below. And I said these things to the whole multitude of the great assembly of the rejoicing majesty. The whole house of the father of truth rejoiced that I am the one who is from them. I reflected upon the thoughts that came out of the undefiled spirit about the descent upon the water, that is, the regions below. And they all had a single mind, since it is from one source. They ordered me, and because I was willing, I came forth to reveal the glory to my kindred and my fellow spirits.

(6) My Leader, who could see me bear myself Like to a man that rouses him from sleep, Exclaimed: "What ails thee, that thou canst not stand? But hast been coming more than half a league Veiling thine eyes, and with thy legs entangled, In guise of one whom wine or sleep subdues?" "O my sweet Father, if thou listen to me, I'll tell thee," said I, "what appeared to me, When thus from me my legs were ta'en away." And he: "If thou shouldst have a hundred masks Upon thy face, from me would not be shut Thy cogitations, howsoever small. What thou hast seen was that thou mayst not fail To ope thy heart unto the waters of peace, Which from the eternal fountain are diffused.

(4) More of the mount by us was now encompassed, And far more spent the circuit of the sun, Than had the mind preoccupied imagined, When he, who ever watchful in advance Was going on, began: "Lift up thy head, 'Tis no more time to go thus meditating. Lo there an Angel who is making haste To come towards us; lo, returning is From service of the day the sixth handmaiden. With reverence thine acts and looks adorn, So that he may delight to speed us upward; Think that this day will never dawn again." I was familiar with his admonition Ever to lose no time; so on this theme He could not unto me speak covertly. Towards us came the being beautiful Vested in white, and in his countenance Such as appears the tremulous morning star. His arms he opened, and opened then his wings; "Come," said he, "near at hand here are the steps, And easy from henceforth is the ascent." At this announcement few are they who come! O human creatures, born to soar aloft, Why fall ye thus before a little wind?

(95) Hearken, Friend, there belongeth more than so to this; thy animated or soulish spirit must first qualify, operate or unite with the innermost birth or geniture in God, and stand in the light, that it may rightly know and understand the astral birth or geniture, and that it may have a free and open gate into all the births or genitures; otherwise thou wilt not be able to write a holy and true philosophy, but a philosophy full of lice and fleas, as it were, and so thou wilt be found a mocker against God.

(7) Their numberless faces then, and many feet, manifest, as I think, their property of viewing the most Divine illuminations from many sides, and their conception of the good things of God as ever active and abundantly receptive; and the sixfold arrangement of the wings, of which the Scripture speaks, does not, I think, denote, as seems to some, a sacred number, but that of the highest Essence and Order around God; the first and middle and last of its contemplative and Godlike powers are altogether elevating, free, and supermundane. Hence the most holy wisdom of the Oracles, when reverently describing the formation of the wings, places the wings around their heads, and middle, and feet; suggesting their complete covering with wings, and their manifold faculty of leading to the Really Being.

(28) Come forth into Heaven, sail across the firmament and enter into brotherhood with the Stars, let salutation be made to thee in the Bark, let invocation be made to thee in the Morning Bark. Contemplate Râ within his Ark and do thou propitiate his Orb daily. See the Ant fish in its birth from the emerald stream, and see the Abtu fish and its rotations

(4) So it is with the individual souls; the appetite for the divine Intellect urges them to return to their source, but they have, too, a power apt to administration in this lower sphere; they may be compared to the light attached upwards to the sun, but not grudging its presidency to what lies beneath it. In the Intellectual, then, they remain with soul-entire, and are immune from care and trouble; in the heavenly sphere, absorbed in the soul-entire, they are administrators with it just as kings, associated with the supreme ruler and governing with him, do not descend from their kingly stations: the souls indeed are thus far in the one place with their overlord; but there comes a stage at which they descend from the universal to become partial and self-centred; in a weary desire of standing apart they find their way, each to a place of its very own. This state long maintained, the soul is a deserter from the All; its differentiation has severed it; its vision is no longer set in the Intellectual; it is a partial thing, isolated, weakened, full of care, intent upon the fragment; severed from the whole, it nestles in one form of being; for this, it abandons all else, entering into and caring for only the one, for a thing buffeted about by a worldful of things: thus it has drifted away from the universal and, by an actual presence, it administers the particular; it is caught into contact now, and tends to the outer to which it has become present and into whose inner depths it henceforth sinks far.

With this comes what is known as the casting of the wings, the enchaining in body: the soul has lost that innocency of conducting the higher which it knew when it stood with the All-Soul, that earlier state to which all its interest would bid it hasten back.

It has fallen: it is at the chain: debarred from expressing itself now through its intellectual phase, it operates through sense, it is a captive; this is the burial, the encavernment, of the Soul.

But in spite of all it has, for ever, something transcendent: by a conversion towards the intellective act, it is loosed from the shackles and soars- when only it makes its memories the starting point of a new vision of essential being. Souls that take this way have place in both spheres, living of necessity the life there and the life here by turns, the upper life reigning in those able to consort more continuously with the divine Intellect, the lower dominant where character or circumstances are less favourable.

All this is indicated by Plato, without emphasis, where he distinguishes those of the second mixing-bowl, describes them as "parts," and goes on to say that, having in this way become partial, they must of necessity experience birth.

Of course, where he speaks of God sowing them, he is to be understood as when he tells of God speaking and delivering orations; what is rooted in the nature of the All is figuratively treated as coming into being by generation and creation: stage and sequence are transferred, for clarity of exposition, to things whose being and definite form are eternal.

(1) "I had pity on the light of the spirit that the mind had received. I returned to my position to pray to the exalted, infinite light that the power of the spirit might increase there and might be filled without dark defilement. And reverently I said, You are the root of the light. Your hidden form has appeared, O exalted, infinite one. May the whole power of the spirit spread and may it be filled with its light, O infinite light. Then he will not be able to join with the unconceived spirit, and the power of the astonishment will not be able to mix with nature. According to the will of the majesty, my prayer was accepted.

(24) I come daily through the house of the god in Lion form, and I pass forth from it to the house of Isis the Mighty, that I may see glorious, mysterious and hidden matters, even as she hath caused me to see the divine offspring of the Great One

(422) 752 To say: O N., 752 thou art departed that thou mayest become a spirit, that thou mayest become mighty as a god, an enthroned one like Osiris, 753 since thou hast thy soul in thy body, since thou hast thy might behind thee, 753 since thou hast thy wrr.t-crown on thy head, since thou hast thy misw.t-crown before thee (at hand). 753 Thy face is before thee, thy homage is before thee; 754 the followers of a god are behind thee, the nobles of a god are before thee; 754 they recite: "A god comes, a god comes, N. comes (who shall be) on the throne of Osiris, 754 that spirit comes who is in Ndi.t, that power which is in the Thinite nome." 755 Isis speaks to thee; Nephthys laments for thee. 755 The spirits come to thee, bowing down; they kiss the earth at thy feet, 755 because the terror of thee, N., is in the cities of i. 756 Thou ascendest to thy mother Nut; she lays hold of thine arm; 756 she shows thee the way to the horizon, to the place where R` is. 756 The double doors of heaven are opened for thee, the double doors of b.w are opened for thee. 757 Thou findest R` standing, while he waits for thee. 757 He lays hold of thy hand, he leads thee into the double 'itr.tpalace of heaven, 757 he places thee on the throne of Osiris. 758 O N., the eye of Horus comes to thee, it addresses thee: 758 "Thy soul which is among the gods comes to thee; thy might which is among the spirits comes to thee. 758 A son has avenged his father; Horus has avenged Osiris." 758 Horus has avenged N. on his enemies. 759 Thou standest, N., avenged, equipped as a god, 759 endued with the form of Osiris; on the throne of him who is First of the Westerners, 759 and doest what he was accustomed to do among the spirits, the imperishable stars. 760 Thy son stands on thy throne endued with thy form; 760 he does what thou wast accustomed to do formerly at the head of the living 760 by the command of R`, the Great God. 761. He tills barley, he tills spelt, that he may present thee therewith. 762 O N., all life and health are given to thee, eternity is thine, saith R` to thee, 762 that thou thyself mayest speak after thou hast taken the form of a god, 762 wherewith thou shalt be great among the gods who are over the lake (nti.w-s). 763 O N., thy soul. stands among the gods, among the spirits, 763 it is thus that thy fear is in their hearts. 763 O N., N. stands upon thy throne at the head of the living, 763 it is thus that thy terror is in their hearts. 764 Thy name which is upon the earth lives; thy name which is upon the earth endures; 764 thou wilt not perish; thou wilt not pass, away for ever and ever.