(21) And we are even as greedy and foolish birds; Every moment our feet are caught in a fresh snare ; Yea, each one of us, though he be a falcon or Simurgh! Thou dost release us every moment, and straightway We again fly into the snare, O Almighty One! Sleep of the body the soul's awakening. Every night Thou freest our spirits from the body And its snare, making them pure as rased tablets. Every night spirits are released from this cage, And set free, neither lording it nor lorded over.

(28) But because the Enemy is not yet in Substance, but only in the Will of the Spirit, therefore it goes away very slowly downwards, and seeks for the Port, where it will make an Out-let and Gate, that it may cast away the Stink and Filth, from whence the Guts are so very long and crooked.

(8) Let there be no food for the worms all of them. Let them not come to me when they are born, I shall not be handed over to the destroyer in his cover, who destroys the limbs, the hidden one who causes corruption, who cuts to pieces many dead bodies, who lives from destroying

(19) O thou who turnest backwards, mighty of heart, who fishes and entangles him who enters the earth; O you fishers, sons of their fathers, and ye fowlers who are in Nefer-sent; you will not catch me in your nets, and you will not entangle me in your meshes, wherein you catch the disabled, and where you catch those who are in the earth; for I know it (the net), its frame above, and its weights below. Behold, I come, my stake is in my hand; the point is in my hand, the blade is in my hand

(5) Nor must a man be led astray by the ten thousand ensnarements. This happens if, after the quiet state has begun, one after another all sorts of ties suddenly appear. One wants to break through them and cannot; one follows them, and feels relieved by this. This means the master has become a servant. If a man tarries in this state long he enters the world of illusory desires.

(12) "Yet this is an absurd notion—for man, the heir of all the ages: hag ridden by the flimsy creatures of his own brain. If a pebble in our boots torments us, we expel it. We take off the boot and shake it out. And once the matter is fairly understood it is just as easy to expel an intruding and obnoxious thought from the mind. About this there ought to be no mistake, no two opinions. The thing is obvious, clear and unmistakable. It should be as easy to expel an obnoxious thought from the mind as it is to shake a stone out of your shoe; and till a man can do that it is just nonsense to talk about his ascendancy over Nature, and all the rest of it. He is a mere slave, and prey to the bat-winged phantoms that flit through the corridors of his own brain. Yet the weary and careworn faces that we meet by thousands; even among the affluent classes of civilization, testify only too clearly how seldom this mastery is obtained. How rare indeed to meet a man . How common rather to discover a creature hounded on by tyrant thoughts (or cares or desires), cowering, wincing under the lash—or perchance priding himself to run merrily in obedience to a driver that rattles the reins and persuades him that he is free—whom we cannot converse with in a careless tete-a-tete because that alien presence is always there, on the watch.

(33) And then if he finds his Master so unjust, that he rises up against him, and takes away his unrighteous Bread, which he thinks to eat under a soft Yoke, and worries him to the uttermost, and leaves him no Time to escape, he sticks full of Impatience under that heavy Burden, and grumbles and murmurs, and seeks all evil Devices to ease his Yoke, that he might eat his Bread in Quietness; and yet it will not be, the Driver [Hunter, cruel Tyrant his Master] is behind him, and takes away his Bread, and feeds him with Sorrow under his Yoke.

(514) A ND now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:—Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets. I see. And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals

(39) And if we do not come to know [or have a Glimpse of] the Treader upon the Serpent in the Mark of the Partition, [or Limit of Separation,] in the Gate of the Deep, between the World and the Kingdom of Hell, then we see [indeed] nothing else but mere Misery and Death, which might well awaken us from Sleep.

(73) Then beware, lest somehow you fall into the hands of robbers. Do not allow sleep to your eyes nor drowsiness to your eyelids, that you may be saved like a gazelle from nets, and like a bird from a trap.

(5) A man dies when he has no life-air, just as the fishes are destroyed when deprived of water. Therefore the adepts have taught the people to hold fast to the primal and to guard the One; it is the

(21) When they are swept aside, the water is seen; But when God unlooses not the hands of reason, The weeds on our water grow thick through carnal lust; Yea, they cover up your water more and more, When fear of God binds the hands of lust, Then the powerful senses are subdued by you, When you submit to reason as your commander Then your sleepless sense is lulled into sleep, You behold visions when broad awake, And the gates of heaven are open before you."

(28) Yet it could not be (how vigorously soever it was sought after) that Man (in his own Power) could enter into Paradise. And therefore poor captive Man must sit in this World in the Devil's murdering Den; where now the Devil has built his Chapel close by the Christian Church, and has quite destroyed the Love of Paradise, and has in the Stead of it set up mere covetous, proud, self-willed, [or self-conceited,] faithless, sturdy, malicious Blasphemers, Thieves and Murderers, which lift themselves up against Heaven and Paradise, and have built themselves a Kingdom according to the Dominion of the fierce sour [Stars or] Constellations, wherein they domineer (with Silver and Gold) and consume the Sweat one of another; whosoever is but able, oppresses the other to the Ground. And though he flies before him, yet then he only puts forth his Dragon's Tongue, and spits Fire upon him; he terrifies him with his harsh Voice, and plagues him Day and Night.

(104) We hoped to be the head and have become the tail: We have toiled laboriously and had no satisfaction in our toil; And we have become the food of the sinners and the unrighteous, And they have laid their yoke heavily upon us.

(18) O thou dear Soul, that swimmest in a dark iLake, incline thy Mind to the Gate of Heaven, and behold what the Fall of Adam has been, which God did so greatly loath, that [because of it] Adam could not continue in Paradise: Behold and consider the Sleep, and so you shall find it all. Sleep is nothing else but an overcoming; for the Sun and the Stars are still in a mighty Strife, and the Element of Water, [viz.] the Matrix, is too weak for the Fire and the Stars, for that [Element] is the [being] overcome in the Center of Nature, as you find before in many Places.

(45) While thou livest in this struggling or striving birth or geniture thou must buckle to, and suffer the devil to ride upon thee; but so hard as he striketh thee, so hard thou must strike him again, if thou wilt defend thyself. For when thou tightest against him, thou stirrest up his wrath-fire, and destroyest his nest, and this is then as a great combustion, and as a great strong battle maintained against him.

(7) And here it may be seen very perfectly, that Man in this World is not at Home, but he is come into it as a Guest, and has not brought the Clothes of this World with him, as all other Creatures that are at Home therein do, but must borrow Clothing from the Children of the Stars and Elements, and must cover himself with strange Cloathing, which he brought not along with him when he entered into the Spirit of this World, with which he struts like a proud Bride, and shows himself, supposing that he is very fine and brave in it; and yet it is but borrowed from the Spirit of this World, which in its due Time takes it away again, and lends it him but for a While, and then consumes it again.

(2) My son, throw every robber out of your gates. Guard all your gates with torches, which are the words, and you will acquire through all these things a quiet life. But he who will not guard these things will become like a city which is desolate, since it has been captured. All kinds of wild beasts have trampled upon it, for thoughts which are not good are evil wild beasts. And your city will be filled with robbers, and you will not be able to acquire peace, but only all kinds of savage wild beasts. The Wicked One, who is a tyrant, is lord over these. While directing this, he (the Wicked One) is beneath the great mire. The whole city, which is your soul, will perish.

(2) Seeing we poor Adamical Men are, with our Father Adam and Mother Eve, gone forth out of the incorruptible, and unchangeable Inheritance, out from our true native Country, into a strange Inn, where we are not at Home, but are merely Guests and where we must in so great Misery continually expect, when our strange Host will thrust us out, and bereave us of all our Ability, and take away from us all we have, so that we are truly swimming in a Deep Sea of Misery, and swelter in a strange Bath of Thorns and Thistles; and we know for certain, and see it also daily before our Eyes, that we are no other than Pilgrims in this Inn, which must continually expect when the Breaker [or Destroyer] will come, and take our Heart, Senses, and Mind, also our Flesh and Blood, and Goods; therefore it is indeed most necessary for us, to learn to know and find the Way to our true native Country, that we may avoid the great Misery and Calamity, and enter into an eternal Inn, which is our own, whence none may drive us out.

(61) And in the sour [or harsh] Essence of the Tincture of the Worm of the Soul, he infects the sour harsh Essence, whereby it becomes sharply attractive, and gets a Will to draw all to itself, and yet is not able to do it; for the conceived Will is not easily filled, but is a dry hellish thirsty Hunger to have all; and if it did get all, yet the Hunger would not be the less, but it is the eternal Hunger and Thirst of the Abyss, the Will of Hell-fire, and of all Devils, who continually hunger and thirst, and yet eat nothing; but it is their satiating, that they [suck or], draw into themselves, the strong Source of the Essences of the harsh, bitter Might of the Fire, wherein consists their Life and Satiating; and the Abyss of the Wrath and of Hell is also such [a Thing.]