(20) Now if any one should in drunkenness or fulness fall upon them, and plunge himself into perdition, let him bear his own blame; he has need of a light in his heart, that his understanding and mind may be well governed.

(5) That one then will fall into drinking much wine in debauchery. For wine is the debaucher. Therefore she does not remember her brothers and her father, for pleasure and sweet profits deceive her.

A certain noble, who lived under the Christian dispensation when wine was allowed, sent his servant to a monastery to fetch some wine. The servant went and bought the wine, and was returning with it, when he passed the house of a very austere and testy devotee. This devotee called out to him, "What have you got there?" The servant said, "Wine, belonging to such a noble." The devotee said, "What! does a follower of God indulge in wine? Followers of God should have naught to do with pleasure and drinking; for wine is a very Satan, and steals men's wits. Your wits are not too bright already, so you have no need to render them still duller by drink." In illustration of this, he told the story of one Ziayi Dalaq, a very tall man, who had a dwarfish brother. This brother one day received him very ungraciously, only half rising from his seat in answer to his salutation, and Ziayi Dalaq said to him, "You seem to think yourself so tall that it is necessary to clip off somewhat of your height." Finally the devotee broke the wine-jar with a stone, and the servant went and told his master. The noble was very wrathful at the presumption of the devotee in taking upon himself to prohibit wine, as condemned by the law of nature, when it had not been prohibited by the Gospel, and he took a thick stick and went to the devotee's house to chastise him. The devotee heard of his approach and hid himself under some wool, which belonged to the ropemakers of the village, He said to himself, "To tell an angry man of his faults one needs to have a face as hard as a mirror, which reflects his ugliness without fear or favor." Just so the Prince of Tirmid was once playing chess with a courtier, and being checkmated, got into a rage and threw the chessboard at his courtier's head. So before playing the next game the courtier protected his head by wrappings of felt. Then the neighbors of the devotee, hearing the noise, came out and interceded for him with the noble, telling him that the devotee was half-witted, and could not be held responsible for his actions; and moreover, that as he was a favorite of God, it was useless to attempt to slay him before his time, for the Prophet and other saints had been miraculously preserved in circumstances fatal to ordinary persons. The noble refused to be pacified; but the neighbors redoubled their entreaties, urging that he had so much pleasure in his sovereignty that he could well dispense with the pleasure of wine. The noble strenuously denied this, saying that no other pleasure of sovereignty, or what not, could compensate him for the loss of wine, which made him sway from side to side like the jessamine. The prophets themselves had rejected all other pleasures for that of spiritual intoxication, and he who has once embraced a living mistress will never put up with a dead one. The moral is, that spiritual pleasures, typified by wine, are not to be bartered away for earthly pleasures. The Prophet said, "The world is carrion, and they who seek it are dogs;" and the Koran says, "The present life is no other than a pastime and a sport; but the future mansion is life indeed."

(24) Thus men suffer themselves easily to be turned away, and so live in their drunkenness.

(1) Whither stumble ye, sots, who have sopped up the wine of ignorance and can so far not carry it that ye already even spew it forth? Stay ye, be sober, gaze upwards with the [true] eyes of the heart! And if ye cannot all, yet ye at least who can! For that the ill of ignorance doth pour o`er all the earth and overwhelm the soul that's battened down within the body, preventing it from fetching port within Salvation's harbors.

(4) A man who drank too much of that which is limpid, often came to the point when he lost both his senses and his selfrespect. Once, a friend came across him in this deplorable state, lying on the road. So he got a sack and put him in feet first and put the sack on his shoulder and set off for home. On the way, another drunk appeared, reeling along, supported by a companion. At this, the man whose head hung out of the sack, woke up, and seeing the other in this pitiable state said reprovingly: 'Ah, unhappy man, in future drink two cups of wine less, then you will be able to walk as I do now - free and alone.'

Our own state is not different. We see faults because we do not love. If we had the least understanding of real love, the faults of those near to us would appear as good qualities.

(23) Pythagoras being asked, how a lover of wine might be cured of intoxication, answered, if he frequently surveys what his actions were when he was intoxicated. Stob. p. 165.

(7) 'And he who desires the world of food and drink, by his mere will food and drink come to him, and having obtained the world of food and drink, he is happy.

(3) The man who does not follow the cycle thus set revolving is a sinner rejoicing in sense-pleasures and he lives in vain.

(57) Give yourself gladness from the true vine of Christ. Satisfy yourself with the true wine, in which there is no drunkenness nor error. For it (the true wine) marks the end of drinking, since there is usually in it what gives joy to the soul and the mind, through the Spirit of God. But first, nurture your reasoning powers before you drink of it (the true wine).

A thirsty man discovered a tank of water, but could not drink of it because it was surrounded by a high wall. He took some of the bricks off the top of the wall and cast them over it into the water. The water cried out, "What advantage do you gain by doing this?" He made answer, "The first advantage is this, that I hear your voice; and the second, that the more bricks I pull off the wall, the nearer I approach to you." The moral is, that so long as the wall of the body intervenes, we cannot reach the water of life. The abasement of the body brings men nearer to union with the Deity. Destroy, therefore, the fleshly lusts which war against the soul. Then follows another parable to illustrate the folly of procrastination in this important matter.

(36) Strong wine made from the juice of the grape was looked upon as symbolic of the false life and false light of the universe, for it was produced by a false process--artificial fermentation. The rational faculties are clouded by strong drink, and the animal nature, liberated from bondage, controls the individual--facts which necessarily were of the greatest spiritual significance. As the lower nature is the eternal tempter seeking co lead man into excesses which inhibit the spiritual faculties, the grape and its product were used to symbolize the Adversary.

(19) Then by the practice of temperance men seek health: and by cramming themselves, and wallowing in potations at feasts, they attract diseases.

(10) Another dangerous property of worldly things is that they at first appear as more trifles, but each of these so-called "trifles" branches out into countless ramifications until they swallow up the whole of a man's time and energy. Jesus (on whom be peace!) said, "The lover of the world is like a man drinking sea-water; the more he drinks, the more thirsty he gets, till at last he perishes with thirst unquenched." The Prophet said, "You can no more mix with the world without being contaminated by it than you can go into water without getting wet."

(32) Every cup should be sweet to you which extinguishes thirst.

Fly from intoxication as you would from insanity.

No good originates from the body.

(23) Then 'Omar said to him, "This wailing of thine Shows thou art still in a state of ' sobriety."' Afterwards he thus urged him to quit that state And called him out of his beggary to absorption in God: "Sobriety savours of memory of the past; Burn up both of them with fire! How long Wilt thou be partitioned by these segments as a reed? So long as a reed has partitions 'tis not privy to secrets, While circumambulating the house thou art a stranger; Thou whose knowledge is ignorance of the Giver of knowledge, The road of the 'annihilated' is another road;

(9) Those who have indulged without limit in the pleasures of the world, at the time of death will be like a man who has gorged himself to repletion on delicious viands and then vomits them up. The deliciousness has gone, but the disgrace remains. The greater the abundance of the possessions which they have enjoyed in the shape of gardens, male and female slaves, gold, silver, etc., the more keenly they will feel the bitterness of parting from them. This is a bitterness which will outlast death, for the soul which has contracted covetousness as a fixed habit will necessarily in the next world suffer from the pangs of unsatisfied desire.

(9) 'A man who steals gold, who drinks spirits, who dishonours his Guru's bed, who kills a Brahman, these four fall, and as a fifth he who associates with them.

(6) A policeman knocked down a drunken man who said to him: 'Why get into such a passion? You are doing something illegal. I am harming no one, but you are mixing yourself up with drunkenness and throwing it into the road. You are much more drunk than I, but no one notices it. Then leave me alone, and ask for justice against yourself.'

(15) Then he that will not take heed and beware of his lies, while he may very well do it, there is no remedy for him neither here nor hereafter: he that soweth and will sow with the devil, must reap with the devil also.