Transcendence

Dimensions are limitless; time is endless. Conditions are not invariable; terms are not final. Thus, the wise man looks into space, and does not regard the small as too little, nor the great as too much; for he knows that there is no limit to dimension. He looks back into the past, and does not grieve over what is far off, nor rejoice over what is near; for he knows that time is without end. He investigates fulness and decay, and does not rejoice if he succeeds, nor lament if he fails; for he knows that conditions are not invariable. He who clearly apprehends the scheme of existence does not rejoice over life, nor repine at death; for he knows that terms are not final.

This alchemy may be briefly described as turning away from the world to God, and its constituents are four: The knowledge of self, The knowledge of God, The knowledge of this world as it really is, The knowledge of the next world as it really is.

Now that you have emerged from your narrow sphere and have seen the great ocean, you know your own insignificance, and I can speak to you of great principles.

The Lord our God is but one only God. Of him, through him, and in him are all things: in another, Am not I he that fills all things? Through his Word are all things made, that are made. He is the original of all things: He is the eternal unmeasurable Unity.

When I think what would be in the place of this world, if the four elements and the starry firmament, and also nature itself, should perish and cease to be, so that no nature or creature were to be found any more; I find there would remain this eternal Unity, from which nature and creature have received their original.

When I think with myself what is many hundredthousand miles above the starry firmament, or what is in that place where no creature is, I find the eternal unchangeable Unity is there, which is that only Good, which has nothing either before or after it, that can add anything to it, or take anything away from it, or from which this Unity could have its original: There is neither ground, time, nor place, but there is the only eternal God, or that only Good, which a man cannot express.

Angels contemplate the beauty of God, and are entirely free from animal qualities; if thou art of angelic nature, then strive towards thine origin, that thou mayest know and contemplate the Most High, and be delivered from the thraldom of lust and anger.

Wrestle to continue to be the man Philosophy wished to make you. Reverence the gods, save men. Life is brief; there is one harvest of earthly existence, a holy disposition and neighbourly acts.

The universe and I came into being together; and I, and everything therein, are One.

The eternal Unity is the cause and ground of the eternal Trinity, which manifests itself from the Unity, and brings forth itself, First, in desire, or will; Secondly, pleasure, or delight; Thirdly, proceeding, or outgoing.

Thus there are three sorts of workings in the eternal Unity. The Unity is the will and desire of itself: the delight is the working substance of the will, and an eternal joy of perceptibility in the will; and the Holy Ghost is the proceeding of the power.

If there were not such a desiring perceptibility, and outgoing operation of the Trinity in the eternal Unity, the Unity were but an eternal stillness, a Nothing; and there would be no nature, nor any color, shape, or figure; likewise there would be nothing in this world; without this threefold working there could be no world at all.

I is the effluence of the eternal, indivisible Unity, or the sweet gracefulness of the ground of the divine power of becoming somethingness.

E is a threefold I, where the Trinity shuts itself up in the Unity; for the I goes into E, and joins IE, which is an outbreathing of the Unity in itself.

Of man's life, his time is a point, his existence a flux, his sensation clouded, his body's entire composition corruptible, his vital spirit an eddy of breath, his fortune hard to predict, his fame uncertain. Briefly, all the things of the body, a river; all the things of the spirit, dream and delirium; his life a warfare and a sojourn in a strange land, his after-fame oblivion. What then can be his escort through life? One thing and one thing only, Philosophy.

But real self-knowledge consists in knowing the following things: What art thou in thyself, and from whence hast thou come? Whither art thou going, and for what purpose hast thou come to tarry here awhile, and in what does thy real happiness and misery consist?

The wisdom is the outflown Word of the divine power, virtue, knowledge, and holiness; a subject and resemblance of the infinite and unsearchable Unity; a substance wherein the Holy Ghost works, forms, and models; I mean, he forms and models the divine understanding in the wisdom; for the wisdom is the passive, and the spirit of God is the active, or life in her, as the soul in the body.

The wisdom is the great Mystery of the divine nature; for in her the powers, colors, and virtues are made manifest.

She is the true divine chaos, wherein all things lie, a divine imagination, in which the ideas of angels and souls have been seen from eternity, in a divine type and resemblance; yet not then as creatures, but in resemblance, as when a man beholds his face in a glass.

The Mysterium Magnum is that chaos, out of which light and darkness, that is, the foundation of heaven and hell is flown, from eternity, and made manifest; for that foundation which we now call hell (being a Principle of itself), is the ground and cause of the fire in the eternal nature; which fire, in God, is only a burning love; and where God is not manifested in a thing, according to the Unity, there is an anguishing, painful, burning fire.

Yet we cannot say that the spiritual world has had any beginning, but has been manifested from eternity out of that chaos; for the light has shone from eternity in the darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it; as day and night are in one another, and are two, though in one.

Once upon a time, I, Chuang dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a barrier. The transition is called metempsychosis.

His five senses are like five doors opening on the external world; but, more wonderful than this, his heart has a window which opens on the unseen world of spirits.

They asked the soul, "Where do you come from, slayer of men: where are you going, conqueror of space?" The soul answered and said, "What has trapped me has been slain, and what kept me caged has been overcome." "My desire has been ended, and ignorance has died." "In an age (dispensation) I was released from the world in a symbolic image, and I was released from the chains of oblivion, which were only temporary (in this transient world)." "From this time on will, I will attain the rest of the ages and seasons of silence."

I showed myself to him just now as Tao appeared before time was. I was to him as a great blank, existing of itself. He knew not who I was. His face fell. He became confused. And so he fled.

Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end.

But if nothing higher is revealed than the very divinity seated within you, subordinating your private impulses to itself, examining your thoughts, having withdrawn itself, as Socrates used to say, from the sense-affections, and subordinated itself to the gods and making men its first care.

The Fourth property is the fire, in which the Unity appears, and is seen in the light, that is, in a burning love.

A man's knowledge is limited; but it is upon what he does not know that he depends to extend his knowledge to the apprehension of God.

In truth, man in this world is extremely weak and contemptible; it is only in the next that he will be of value, if by means of the "alchemy of happiness" he rises from the rank of beasts to that of angels.

The Second property, that is, the motion, was in the beginning of this world the separator or divider in the powers and virtues, by which the Creator, viz. the will of God, brought all things out of the Mysterium Magnum into form; for it is the outward movable world, by which the supernatural God made all things, and brought them into form, figure, and shape.

And this feelingness is the cause of the fire, and also of the mind and senses; for the own natural will is made volatile by it, and seeks rest; and thus the separation of the will goes out from itself, and pierces through the properties, from whence the taste arises, so that one property tastes and feels the other.

Thus, by the Third property of nature, which is the anguish, we mean the sharpness and painfulness of the fire, viz. the burning and consuming; for when the will is put into such a sharpness it will always consume the cause of that sharpness; for it always strives to get to the Unity of God again, which is the rest; and the Unity thrusts itself with its effluence to this motion and sharpness; and so there is a continual conjoining for the manifestation of the divine will , as we always find in these three, viz. in salt, brimstone, and oil, a heavenly in the earthly.

For the soul of a thing lies in the sharpness, and the true life of the sensual nature and property lies in the motion, and the powerful spirit which arises from the tincture lies in the oil of the Sulphur: Thus a heavenly always lies hidden in the earthly, for the invisible spiritual world came forth with and in the creation.

Discard the stimuli of purpose. Free the mind from disturbances. Get rid of entanglements to virtue. Pierce the obstructions to Tao.

The eternal Unity (which I also in some of my writings call the liberty) is the soft and still tranquillity, being amiable, and as a soft comfortable ease, and it cannot be expressed how soft a tranquillity there is without nature in the Unity of God; but the three properties (in order) to nature are sharp, painful, and horrible.

In that flash the Unity feels the sensibility, and the will receives the soft tranquil Unity; and so the Unity becomes a shining glance of fire, and the fire becomes a burning love, for it receives the ens and power from the soft Unity : in this kindling the darkness of the magnetical compressure is pierced through [permeated] with the light, so that it is no more known or discerned, although it remains in itself eternally in the compressure.

Now two eternal Principles arise here, viz. the darkness, harshness, sharpness, and pain dwelling in itself; and the feeling, power and virtue of the Unity in the light; upon which the scripture says, that God (that is, the eternal Unity) dwells in a light to which none can come.

For the spirit of this fire receives ens [or virtue] to shine, from the Unity, or else this fiery ground would be but a painful, horrible hunger, and pricking desire; and it is so indeed, when the will breaks itself off from the Unity, and will live after its own desire, as the devils have done, and the false soul still does.

For so the eternal delight becomes perceivable, and this perceiving of the Unity is called love, and is a burning or life in the Unity of God; and according to this burning of love, God calls himself a merciful loving God; for the Unity of God loves and pierces through the painful will of the fire (which at the beginning arose in the breathing of the word, or outgoing of the divine delight), and changes it into great joy.

And in this fiery will of the eternal nature stands the soul of man, and also the angels; this is their ground and center; therefore, if any soul breaks itself off from the light and love of God, and enters into its own natural desire, then the ground of this darkness and painful property will be manifest in it; and this is the hellish fire, and the anger of God, when it is made manifest, as may be seen in Lucifer; and whatsoever can be thought to have a being anywhere in the creature, the same is likewise without the creature everywhere; for the creature is nothing else but an image and figure of the separable and various power and virtue of the universal Being.

Now the Fifth property is the fire of love, or the world of power and light; which in the darkness dwells in itself, and the darkness comprehends it not, as it is written, John 1. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not: Also, the Word is in the light, and in the Word is the true understanding life of man, the true spirit which God breathed into man for a creaturely life.

The second Principle (the angelical world and the thrones) is meant by the fifth property: for it is the motion of the Unity, wherein all the properties of the fiery nature burn in love.

And so likewise it must be conceived to be in the eternal ground; for the temporary substance is flown forth from the eternal , therefore they are both of the same quality; but with this difference, that one is eternal and the other transitory, one spiritual and the other corporeal.

When the spiritual fire and light shall be kindled, which has indeed burned from eternity in itself, then shall also the Mystery of the divine power and knowledge be always made manifest therein; for all the properties of the eternal nature becomes spiritual in the fire, and yet nature remains as it is, inwardly in itself; and the going forth of the will becomes spiritual.

The first is the going upwards of the fiery will; the second is the going downwards, or sinking of the watery spirit, viz. the meekness; and the third is the going out forwards of the oily spirit, in the midst, in the center of the fiery spirit of the will ; which oily spirit is the ens of the Unity of God, which is become a substance in the desire of nature; yet all is but spirit and power: but so it appears in the figure of the manifestation, not as if there were any severing or division, but it appears so in the manifestation.

This threefold manifestation is according to the Trinity; for the center wherein it is, is the only God according to his manifestation: the fiery flaming spirit of love is that which goes upwards, and the meekness which proceeds from the love is that which goes downwards, and in the midst there is the center of the circumference, which is the Father, or whole God, according to his manifestation.

This fifth property is the true spiritual angelical world of the divine joy, which is hidden in this visible world.

For every property makes unto itself a subject, or object, by its own effluence; and in the seventh all the properties are in a temperature, as in one only substance: and as they all did proceed from the Unity, so they all return again into one ground.

Now these are the seven properties in one only ground; and all seven are equally eternal without beginning; none of them can be accounted the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or last; for they are equally eternal without beginning, and have also one eternal beginning from the Unity of God.

The visible world is only an effluence of the seven properties, for it proceeded out of the six working properties; but in the seventh (that is, in paradise) it is in rest: and that is the eternal Sabbath of rest, wherein the divine power and virtue rests.

On the Seven Minor Planes of the Great Spiritual Plane exist Beings of whom we may speak as Angels; Archangels; Demi-Gods.

In the FIRST [1] motion, the magnetical desire compressed and compacted the fiery and watery Mercury with the other properties; and then the grossness separated itself from the spiritual nature: and the fiery became metals and stones, and partly salnitre, that is, earth: and the watery became water.

The tincture pierced through the earth, and through all elements, and tinctured all; and then paradise was on earth, and in man; for evil was hidden: as the night is hidden in the day, so the wrath of nature was also hidden in the first Principle, till the fall of man; and then the divine working, with the tincture, fled into their own Principle, into the inward ground of the light-world.

Apparently destroyed, yet really existing; the material gone, the immaterial left,—such is the law of creation, which passeth all understanding. This is called the root, whence a glimpse may be obtained of God.

We may very well observe and consider the hidden spiritual world by the visible world: for we see that fire, light, and air, are continually begotten in the deep of this world; and that there is no rest or cessation from this begetting; and that it has been so from the beginning of the world; and yet men can find no cause of it in the outward world, or tell what the ground of it should be: but reason says, God has so created it, and therefore it continues so.

For what the invisible world is, in a spiritual working, where light and darkness are in one another, and yet the one not comprehending the other.

And as the inward divine world has in it an understanding life from the effluence of the divine knowledge, whereby the angels and souls are meant; so likewise the outward world has a rational life in it, consisting in the outflown powers and virtues of the inward world.

But reason will say, "To what end has the Creator made this manifestation"? I answer, there is no other cause, but that the spiritual world might thereby bring itself into a visible form or image, that the inward powers and virtues might have a form and image.

As we may know by the earth, which is so very hungry after the influence and virtue of the stars, and the spiritus mundi, after the spirit from whence it proceeded in the beginning, that it has no rest, for hunger; and this hunger of the earth consumes bodies, that the spirit may be parted again from the gross elementary condition, and return into its Archaeus again. For the Archaeus of the earth becomes thereby exceeding joyful, because it tastes and feels its first ground in itself again, and in this joy all things spring out of the earth, and therein also the growing of animals consists.

For this body of the flesh and of the will of man is not it, but that which is wrought by the heavenly Archaeus in this gross body, unto which this gross body is a house, tool, and instrument.

And thus human reason is but a house of the true understanding of the divine knowledge: none should trust so much in his reason and sharp wit, for it is but the constellation of the outward stars, and dos rather seduce him, than lead him to the Unity of God.

God is the eternal, immense, incomprehensible Unity, which manifests itself in itself, from eternity in eternity, by the Trinity; and is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in a threefold working, as is before mentioned.

Out of this fiery property, and the property of the light, the angels and souls have their origin; which is a divine manifestation.

The inward eternal working is hidden in the visible world; and it is in everything, and through everything, yet not to be comprehended by anything in the thing's own power; the outward powers and virtues are but passive, and the house in which the inward work.

The eternal manifestation of the divine light is called the kingdom of heaven, and the habitation of the holy angels and souls.

The inward power and virtue of every substance remains eternally.

Chuang Tzŭ said: "O my exemplar! Thou who destroyest all things, and dost not account it cruelty; thou who benefitest all time, and dost not account it charity; thou who art older than antiquity and dost not account it age; thou who supportest the universe, shaping the many forms therein, and dost not account it skill; this is the happiness of God!"

For in whatsoever properties the Mysterium in man is awakened, such a word also utters itself from his powers: as we plainly see that nothing else but vanity is uttered by the wicked. Praise the Lord, all ye his works. Hallelujah.

For man's intellect, however keen, face to face with the countless evolutions of things, their death and birth, their squareness and roundness,— can never reach the root. There creation is, and there it has ever been.

From this essence the word expresses itself in the second separation, that is, of nature, and in that expression, the separation out of the fiery Science is understood; for thence comes the soul and all angelical spirits.

Instead of provoking and stirring it up, they ought to avoid it by yielding. Oh! Jupiter, our Father! If you would deliver men from all the evils that oppress them, Show them of what daemon they make use. But take courage; the race of humans is divine. Sacred nature reveals to them the most hidden mysteries. If she impart to you her secrets, you will easily perform all the things which I have ordained thee. And by the healing of your soul, you wilt deliver it from all evils, from all afflictions.

Tao is something beyond material existences. It cannot be conveyed either by words or by silence. In that state which is neither speech nor silence, its transcendental nature may be apprehended.

Things do not take hold upon the mind, but stand without unmoved, and that disturbances come only from the judgement within; the second, that all that your eyes behold will change in a moment and be no more; and of how many things you have already witnessed the changes, think continually of that. The Universe is change, life is opinion.

But you should abstain from the meats, which we have forbidden in the purifications and in the deliverance of the soul; Make a just distinction of them, and examine all things well. Leave yourself always to be guided and directed by the understanding that comes from above, and that ought to hold the reins. And when, after having deprived yourself of your mortal body, you arrived at the most pure Aither, you shall be a God, immortal, incorruptible, and Death shall have no more dominion over you.

Cultivate unity. You hear not with the ears, but with the mind; not with the mind, but with your soul. But let hearing stop with the ears. Let the working of the mind stop with itself. Then the soul will be a negative existence, passively responsive to externals. In such a negative existence, only Tao can abide. And that negative state is the fasting of the heart.

Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being. If you become my Disciples and heed my sayings, these stones will serve you. For there are five trees in paradise for you, which are undisturbed in summer and in winter and their leaves do not fall. Whoever knows them will not experience death.

When a man considers himself he knows that there was a time when he was non-existent.

Although we have said so much against the world, it must be remembered that there are some things in the world which are not of it, such as knowledge and good deeds. A man carries what knowledge he possesses with him into the next world, and, though his good deeds, have passed, yet the effect of them remains in his character.

I was composed of a formal and a material substance; and of these neither will pass away into nothingness, just as neither came to exist out of nothingness. Thus, every part of me will be assigned its place by change into some part of the Universe, and that again into another part of the Universe, and so on to infinity.

Things, which engross the mind, causing it to cleave to this world and to be careless of the next, are purely evil and were alluded to by the Prophet when he said, "The world is a curse, and all which is in it is a curse, except the remembrance of God, and that which aids it."

Wait in peace, whether for extinction or a change of state; and until its due time arrives, what is sufficient? What else than to worship and bless the gods, to do good to men, to bear them and to forbear; and, for all that lies within the limits of mere flesh and spirit, to remember that this is neither thine nor in thy power.

The governing principle it is which wakes itself up and adapts itself, making itself of whatever kind it wills and making all that happens to it appear to be of whatever kind it wills.

In death there is no sovereign above, and no subject below. The workings of the four seasons are unknown. Our existences are bounded only by eternity. The happiness of a king among men cannot exceed that which we enjoy.

The Master came, because it was his time to be born; he went, because it was his time to die. For those who accept the phenomenon of birth and death in this sense, lamentation and sorrow have no place.

To have attained to the human form must be always a source of joy. And then, to undergo countless transitions, with only the infinite to look forward to,—what incomparable bliss is that! Therefore it is that the truly wise rejoice in that which can never be lost, but endures alway.

Some things are hastening to be, others to have come and gone, and a part of what is coming into being is already extinct. Flux and change renew the world incessantly, as the unbroken passage of time makes boundless eternity ever young. In this river, therefore, on which he cannot stand, which of these things that race past him should a man greatly prize? As though he should begin to set his heart on one of the little sparrows that fly past, when already it has gone away out of his sight. Truly the life of every man is itself as fleeting as the exhalation of spirit from his blood or the breath he draws from the atmosphere. For just as it is to draw in a single breath and to return it, which we do every moment, so is it to render back the whole power of respiration, which you acquired but yesterday or the day before, at birth, to that other world from which you first drew it in.

He who knows what God is, and who knows what Man is, has attained. Knowing what God is, he knows that he himself proceeded therefrom. Knowing what Man is, he rests in the knowledge of the known, waiting for the knowledge of the unknown.

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which are prepared for the righteous.

How does the Sage seat himself by the sun and moon, and hold the universe in his grasp? He blends everything into one harmonious whole, rejecting the confusion of this and that.

The perfect man ignores self; the divine man ignores action; the true Sage ignores reputation.

He who sees what is now has seen all things, whatsoever came to pass from everlasting and whatsoever shall be unto unlimited time. For all things are of one kin and of one kind.

His movements at first may be compared to ordinary walking on land, then to traversing the sea in a ship, then, on the fourth plane, where he is conversant with realities, to walking on the sea, while beyond this plane there is a fifth, known to the prophets and saints, whose progress may be compared to flying through the air.

The pure men of old did not know what it was to love life nor to hate death. They did not rejoice in birth, nor strive to put off dissolution.

"Divine men," replied Confucius, "are divine to man, but ordinary to God. Hence the saying that the meanest being in heaven would be the best on earth; and the best on earth, the meanest in heaven."

In the heart of the enlightened man there is a window opening on the realities of the spiritual world, so that he knows, not by hearsay or traditional belief, but by actual experience, what produces wretchedness or happiness in the soul just as clearly and decidedly as the physician knows what produces sickness or health in the body.

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."

Some may object, "If such is the case, then who can escape hell, for who is not more or less bound to the world by various ties of affection and interest?" To this we answer that there are some, notably the faqirs, who have entirely disengaged themselves from love of the world. But even among those who have worldly possessions such as wife, children, houses, etc., there are those, who, though they have some affection for these, love God yet more.

The earth-born parts return to earth again, But what did blossom of ethereal seed Returns again to the celestial pole. Or else this: an undoing of the interlacement of the atoms and a similar shattering of the senseless molecules.

For the perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing: it refuses nothing. It receives, but does not keep. And thus he can triumph over matter, without injury to himself.

It is the delegated image of God. Your life is not your own. It is the delegated harmony of God. Your individuality is not your own. It is the delegated adaptability of God. Your posterity is not your own. It is the delegated exuviæ of God.

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.

Let knowledge stop at the unknowable. That is perfection.

TAKE no heed of time, nor of right and wrong; but, passing into the realm of the Infinite, take your final rest therein.

The verse, "I breathed into man of My spirit," also points to the celestial origin of the human soul.

The best language is that which is not spoken, the best form of action is that which is without deeds.

We have seen above that one kind of spiritual hell is the forcible separation from worldly things to which the heart clave too fondly.

Whereas, on the contrary, if he has as far as possible turned his back on all earthly objects and fixed his supreme affection upon God, he will welcome death as a means of escape from worldly entanglements, and of union with Him whom he loves.

The effect of music and dancing is deeper in proportion as the natures on which they act are simple and prone to emotion; they fan into a flame whatever love is already dormant in the heart, whether it be earthly and sensual, or divine and spiritual.

The heart of man has been so constituted by the Almighty that, like a flint, it contains a hidden fire which is evoked by music and harmony, and renders man beside himself with ecstasy.

The Sufi then becomes so keenly aware of his relationship to the spiritual world that he loses all consciousness of this world, and often falls down senseless.

The Sufis, who by this means stir up in themselves greater love towards God, and, by means of music, often obtain spiritual visions and ecstasies, their heart becoming in this condition as clean as silver in the flame of a furnace, and attaining a degree of purity which could never be attained by any amount of mere outward austerities.

These harmonies are echoes of that higher world of beauty which we call the world of spirits; they remind man of his relationship to that world, and produce in him an emotion so deep and strange that he himself is powerless to explain it.

Among the yet higher, even among beings in a sense separated, there subsisted a unity such as obtains among the stars. Thus progress towards the higher was able to produce a sympathy even in what are separated.

At the resurrection a man will find all the hours of his life arranged like a long series of treasure-chests.

Today I escaped all circumstance, or rather I cast out all circumstance, for it was not outside me, but within, in my judgements.

He who rises in the morning with only God in his mind, God shall look after him, both in this world and the next.

You have the power to strip off many superfluities which trouble you and are wholly in your own judgement; and you will make a large room at once for yourself by embracing in your thought the whole Universe, grasping ever-continuing Time and pondering the rapid change in the parts of each object, how brief the interval from birth to dissolution, and the time before birth a yawning gulf even as the period after dissolution equally boundless.

Wilt thou one day, my soul, be good, simple, single, naked, plainer to see than the body surrounding thee? Wilt thou one day taste a loving and devoted disposition? Wilt thou one day be filled and without want, craving nothing and desiring nothing, animate or inanimate, for indulgence in pleasures.

God said to the Prophet David, "That servant is dearest to Me who does not seek Me from fear of punishment or hope of reward, but to pay the debt due to My Deity." And in the Psalms it is written, "Who is a greater transgressor than he who worships Me from fear of hell or hope of heaven? If I had created neither, should I not then have deserved to be worshipped?

Human perfection resides in this, that the love of God should conquer a man's heart and possess it wholly.

O God, grant me to love Thee and to love those who love Thee, and whatsoever brings me nearer to Thy love, and make Thy love more precious to me than cold water to the thirsty.

O God! In my eyes heaven itself is less than a gnat in comparison with the love of Thee and the joy of Thy remembrance which thou hast granted me.

Images are visible to man but the light which is within them is hidden. The light of the father will be revealed, but he (his image) is hidden in the light.

The fourth test is that he will love the Koran, which is the Word of God, and Muhammad, who is the Prophet of God; if his love is really strong, he will love all men, for all are God's servants, nay, his love will embrace the whole creation, for he who loves any one loves the works he composes and his handwriting.

The love of God is the highest of all topics, and is the final aim to which we have been tending hitherto.

When you see your reflection, you rejoice. Yet when you perceive your images which have come into being before you, which neither die nor can be seen, how much will you have to bear?

Your element of spirit and all the element of fire that is mingled in you, in spite of their natural upward tendency, nevertheless obey the ordering of the Whole and are held forcibly in the compounded body in this region of the earth. Once more, all the elements of earth and of water in you, in spite of their downward tendency, are nevertheless lifted up and keep to a position which is not natural to them. In this way then even the elements are obedient to the Whole and, when they are stationed at a given point, remain there by compulsion until once more the signal for their dissolution is made from the other world.

The second test of sincerity is that a man should be willing to sacrifice his will to God's, should cleave to what brings him nearer to God, and should shun what places him at a distance from God.

It is in your power to secure at once all the objects which you dream of reaching by a roundabout path, if you will be fair to yourself: that is, if you will leave all the past behind, commit the future to Providence, and direct the present, and that alone, to Holiness and Justice. Holiness, to love your dispensation for Nature brought it to you and you to it; Justice, freely and without circumlocution both to speak the truth and to do the things that are according to law and according to worth. And be not hampered by another's evil, his judgement, or his words, much less by the sensation of the flesh that has formed itself about you- let the part affected look to itself.

The truth of the matter is this, that, just as the seed of man becomes a man, and a buried datestone becomes a palm-tree, so the knowledge of God acquired on earth will in the next world change into the Vision of God, and he who has never learnt the knowledge will never have the Vision.

If then, when you arrive at last at your final exit, resigning all else, you honour your governing self alone and the divine element within you, if what you dread is not that some day you will cease to live, but rather never to begin at all to live with Nature, you will be a man worthy of the Universe that gave you birth, and will cease to be a stranger in your own country, surprised by what is coming to pass every day, as at something you did not look to see, and absorbed in this thing or in that. 2 God beholds the governing selves of all men stripped of their material vessels and coverings and dross; for with His own mind alone He touches only what has flowed and

God beholds the governing selves of all men stripped of their material vessels and coverings and dross; for with His own mind alone He touches only what has flowed and been drawn from Himself into these selves. You, too, if you make it your habit to do this, will rid yourself of your exceeding unrest. For it would be strange that one who does not behold the poor envelope of flesh should yet lose his time in admiring dress and dwelling and reputation, and all such trappings and masquerade.

Were God to offer thee the intimacy with Himself of Abraham, the power in prayer of Moses, the spirituality of Jesus, yet keep thy face directed to Him only, for He has treasures surpassing even these.

Perceive at last that you have within yourself something stronger and more divine than the things which create your passions and make a downright puppet of you. What is my consciousness at this instant? Fright, suspicion, appetite? Some similar evil state?

A little while and you will be nobody and nowhere, nor will anything which you now behold exist, nor one of those who are now alive. Nature's law is that all things change and turn, and pass away, so that in due order different things may come to be.

Mind (as well as metals and elements) may be transmuted from state to state; degree to degree, condition to condition; pole to pole; vibration to vibration.

One light of the Sun, even though it be sundered by walls, by mountains, by a myriad other barriers. One common Matter, even though it be sundered in a myriad individual bodies. One vital spirit, even though it be sundered in a myriad natural forms and individual outlines. One intelligent spirit, even though it appears to be divided.

Nowhere in Jewish literature is the idea of prayer raised to such a pitch of sublimity as it is in the lives and writings of the Jewish mystics.

Mystical religion does, of course, transcend all the barriers which separate race from race and religion from religion. The mystic is a cosmopolitan, and, to him, the differences between the demands and beliefs and observances of one creed and those of another are entirely obliterated in his one all-absorbing and all-overshadowing passion for union with Reality.

Thus righteousness is feeble, and the power of evil is constant, mighty, and dire; by what righteousness could it be overcome, if there were not the Thought of Enlightenment?

This foul form that ho has taken he makes into the priceless jewel of a conqueror's form; oh, grasp firmly the Thought of Enlightenment, that exceedingly potent elixir!

Though he have wrought most grievous sins, a man by taking refuge therein escapes them straightway; as ignorant beings under the guardianship of a mighty man escape sore terrors, why seek they not their refuge in this?

They seem to have lived on the borderland of an unusual ecstasy, experiencing extraordinary invasions of the Divine, hearing mystic sounds and seeing mystic visions which, to them, were the direct and immediate revelations of the deepest and most sacred truths.

The Ten Sefirot have close connections with these doctrines of letters - secret doctrines about the Divine nature, about creation, about the relations subsisting between God and the universe.

In ancient Egypt dwelt the great Adepts and Masters who have never been surpassed, and who seldom have been equaled, during the centuries that have taken their processional flight since the days of the Great Hermes.

The date of his sojourn in Egypt, in that his last incarnation on this planet, is not now known, but it has been fixed at the early days of the oldest dynasties of Egypt--long before the days of Moses.

The Hermetic Philosophy is the only Master Key which will open all the doors of the Occult Teachings!

The legends of the "Philosopher's Stone" which would turn base metal into Gold, was an allegory relating to Hermetic Philosophy, readily understood by all students of true Hermeticism.

These teachings really constituted the basic principles of "The Art of Hermetic Alchemy," which, contrary to the general belief, dealt in the mastery of Mental Forces, rather than Material Elements - the Transmutation of one kind of Mental Vibrations into others, instead of the changing of one kind of metal into another.

The Principle of Mentalism: THE ALL IS MIND; The Universe is Mental.

The Principles of Truth are Seven; he who knows these, understandingly, possesses the Magic Key before whose touch all the Doors of the Temple fly open.

If All be Mental, then the art which enables one to transmute mental conditions must render the Master the controller of material conditions as well as those ordinarily called "mental".

In this little book we shall state the basic principles of Mental Transmutation, that all who read may grasp the Underlying Principles, and thus possess the Master-Key that will unlock the many doors of the Principle of Polarity.

Mind (as well as metals and elements) may be transmuted, from state to state; degree to degree; condition to condition; pole to pole; vibration to vibration. True Hermetic Transmutation is a Mental Art.

THE ALL is Mind; the Universe is Mental.

The truth is, that beneath the material chemistry, astronomy and psychology the ancients possessed a knowledge of transcendental astronomy, called astrology; of transcendental chemistry, called alchemy; of transcendental psychology, called mystic psychology.

And still more presumptuous are those who attempt to ascribe to THE ALL the personality, qualities, properties, characteristics and attributes of themselves.

THE ALL being Infinite, Absolute, Eternal and Unchangeable it must follow that anything finite, changeable, fleeting, and conditioned cannot be THE ALL.

THE ALL is Infinite Living Mind -- the Illumined call it SPIRIT!

What is there then higher than Matter or Energy that we know to be existent in the Universe? LIFE AND MIND!

And Death is not real, even in the Relative sense -- it is but Birth to a new life--and You shall go on, and on, and on, to higher and still higher planes of life, for aeons upon aeons of time.

But always remember, that THE ALL is but One, and that in its Infinite Mind the Universe is generated, created and exists.

THE ALL, in itself, is above Gender, as it is above every other Law, including those of Time and Space. It is the Law, from which the Laws proceed, and it is not subject to them.

Anything that has a beginning and an ending must be, in a sense, unreal and untrue, and the Universe comes under the rule, in all schools of thought. From the Absolute point of view, there is nothing Real except THE ALL, no matter what terms we may use in thinking of, or discussing the subject.

The half-wise, recognizing the comparative unreality of the Universe, imagine that they may defy its Laws--such are vain and presumptuous fools, and they are broken against the rocks and torn asunder by the elements by reason of their folly. The truly wise, knowing the nature of the Universe, use Law against laws; the higher against the lower; and by the Art of Alchemy transmute that which is undesirable into that which is worthy, and thus triumph.

Nothing escapes the Principle of Cause and Effect, but there are many Planes of Causation, and one may use the laws of the higher to overcome the laws of the lower.

All are on the Path, whose end is THE ALL. All progress is a Returning Home.

The Created and the Creator are merged.

While All is in THE ALL, it is equally true that THE ALL is in ALL. To him who truly understands this truth hath come great knowledge.

"As Above so Below; as Below, so Above." This centuries old Hermetic axiom embodies one of the great Principles of Universal Phenomena.

According to the Principle of Correspondence, which embodies the truth: "As Above so Below; as Below, so Above," all of the Seven Hermetic Principles are in full operation on all of the many planes, Physical Mental and Spiritual.

Only the most advanced Hermetists are able to grasp the Inner Teachings regarding the state of existence, and the powers manifested on the Spiritual Planes.

The higher the degree of rate of vibration, the higher the plane, and the higher the manifestation of Life occupying that plane.

The man of the Sixth Sub-Division will be "The Super-Man"; he of the Seventh will be "The Over-Man."

The Seven Minor Planes of the Great Spiritual Plane comprise Beings possessing Life, Mind and Form as far above that of Man of to-day as the latter is above the earth-worm, mineral or even certain forms of Energy or Matter.

These Unseen Divinities and Angelic Helpers extend their influence freely and powerfully, in the process of Evolution, and Cosmic Progress.

This Fourth Dimension may be called "The Dimension of Vibration".

He who understands the Principle of Vibration, has grasped the scepter of Power.

Spirit is at one end of the Pole of Vibration, the other Pole being certain extremely gross forms of Matter.

THE ALL, in itself, manifests a constant vibration of such an infinite degree of intensity and rapid motion that it may be practically considered as at rest.

The Hermetic Teachings are that not only is everything in constant movement and vibration, but that the "differences" between the various manifestations of the universal power are due entirely to the varying rate and mode of vibrations.

The Hermetists teach that if the vibrations be continually increased the object would mount up the successive states of manifestation and would in turn manifest the various mental stages, and then on Spiritward, until it would finally re-enter THE ALL, which is Absolute Spirit.

The Principle of Vibration underlies the wonderful phenomena of the power manifested by the Masters and Adepts, who are able to apparently set aside the Laws of Nature, but who, in reality, are simply using one law against another; one principle against others; and who accomplish their results by changing the vibrations of material objects, or forms of energy, and thus perform what are commonly called "miracles."

The Universal Ether, which is postulated by science without its nature being understood clearly, is held by the Hermetists to be but a higher manifestation of that which is erroneously called matter--that is to say, Matter at a higher degree of vibration--and is called by them "The Ethereal Substance."

He will see that these states are all matters of degree, and seeing thus, he will be able to raise or lower the vibration at will--to change his mental poles, and thus be Master of his mental states, instead of being their servant and slave.

Spirit and Matter are but the two poles of the same thing, the intermediate planes being merely degrees of vibration.

Thus it is with all living things; they are born, grow, and die -- and then are reborn.

The Hermetic Teachings are that Man may use Law to overcome laws, and that the higher will always prevail against the lower, until at last he has reached the stage in which he seeks refuge in the LAW itself, and laughs the phenomenal laws to scorn.

The Master can change these "pleases" and "wants" into others at the opposite end of the mental pole.

The Masters do not escape the Causation of the higher planes, but fall in with the higher laws, and thus master circumstances on the lower plane.

The purpose of this work is not to give an extended account of psychic phenomena but rather to give to the student a master-key whereby He may unlock the many doors leading into the parts of the Temple of Knowledge which he may wish to explore.

One may change his mental vibrations by an effort of Will, in the direction of deliberately fixing the Attention upon a more desirable state. Will directs the Attention, and Attention changes the Vibration. Cultivate the Art of Attention, by means of the Will, and you have solved the secret of the Mastery of Moods and Mental States.

True Hermetic Transmutation is a Mental Art.

We thank thee, holy Father, for thy holy name, which thou hast caused to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which thou hast made known unto us through Jesus thy Son; to thee be the glory for ever.

Above all, we thank thee that thou art able to save; to thee be the glory for ever.

Let grace come, and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the Son of David.

In every place and time offer unto me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great King, saith the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the Gentiles.

For in the last days false prophets and seducers shall be multiplied, and the sheep shall be turned into wolves, and love shall be turned into hate; and because iniquity aboundeth they shall hate each other, and persecute each other, and deliver each other up; and then shall the Deceiver of the world appear as the Son of God, and shall do signs and wonders, and the earth shall be delivered into his hands; and he shall do unlawful things, such as have never happened since the beginning of the world. Then shall the creation of man come to the fiery trial of proof, and many shall be offended and shall perish; but they who remain in their faith shall be saved by the rock of offense itself. And then shall appear the signs of the truth; first the sign of the appearance in heaven, then the sign of the sound of the trumpet; and thirdly, the resurrection of the dead — not of all, but as it has been said, The Lord shall come and all his saints with him; then shall the world behold the Lord coming on the clouds of heaven.

To carry out a commandment from pure love, means, in Jewish theology of all ages, to attain a high stage of mystic elation which can only be arrived at as the result of a long preliminary series of arduous efforts in the upward path.

I take refuge with the Enlightened One, awaiting the coming of the perfect Light; I take refuge in the Law and the Congregation of Sons of Enlightenment.

He felt instinctively that the Merkabah typified the human longing for the sight of the Divine Presence and companionship with it.

Ezekiel's image of Yahve riding upon the chariot of the 'living creatures,' accompanied by sights and voices, movements and upheavals in earth and heaven, lying outside the range of the deepest ecstatic experiences of all other Old Testament personages, was for the Jewish mystic a real opening, an unveiling, of the innermost and impenetrable secrets locked up in the interrelation of the human and the divine.

The door is flung wide open so that man, at the direct invitation of God, can come to the secret for which he longs and seeks.

The human movement from within is but a response to a larger Divine movement from without.

The Chariot (Merkabah) was thus a kind of 'mystic way' leading up to the final goal of the soul. Or, more precisely, it was the mystic 'instrument,' the vehicle by which one was carried direct into the 'halls' of the unseen.

It was the aim of the mystic to be a 'Merkabah-rider,' so that he might be enabled, while still in the trammels of the flesh, to mount up to his spiritual Eldorado.

One can see quite clearly how its governing idea is based on a conception general to all the mystics, that the quest for the ultimate Reality is a kind of pilgrimage, and the seeker is a traveller towards his home in God.

The organic life, the self, conscious and unconscious, must be moulded and developed in certain ways; there must be an education, moral, physical, emotional; a psychological adjustment, by stages, of the mental states which go to the make-up of the full mystic consciousness.

As Evelyn Underhill says: "Mysticism shows itself not merely as an attitude of mind and heart, but as a form of organic life.

An angel as an 'incorporeal soul' is more akin to the Aristotelian doctrine of 'intelligences,' the intermediate beings between the Prime Cause and existing things.

The mediæval Christian mystics - Ruysbroeck, Catherine of Genoa, Jacob Boehme, and others - appeal constantly to the same figure for the expression of their deepest thoughts on the relations between man and the Godhead.

The choice of the metaphor probably rests on the fact that 'fire' can be adapted to symbolise either or both of the following truths: (a) the brightness, illumination which comes when the goal has been reached, when the quest for the ultimate reality has at last been satisfied; (b) the all-penetrating, all-encompassing, self-diffusing force of fire is such a telling picture of the mystic union of the soul and God.

These latter words are the description of the ecstatic state, the moments of exaltation, the indescribable peace and splendour which the soul of the mystic experiences when, disentangling itself from the darkness of illusion, it reaches the Light of Reality, the condition so aptly phrased by the Psalmist who said: "For with thee is the fountain of life; in thy light shall we see light" (Psalm, xxxvi. 9)

A tree under which may rest all creatures wearied with wandering over life's paths, a bridge open to all wayfarers for passing over hard ways, a moon of thought arising to cool the fever of the world's sin, a great sun driving away the gloom of the world's ignorance, a fresh butter created by the churning of the milk of the Good Law.

The angel is a kind of representative of the Deity among mortals. It is a sort of God in action. God is very near man and not transcendent.

The term 'angel' stands for the powers embodied in all earthly phenomena, the world-forces which are outflowings of God and represent the aspect of the Divine activity in the universe.

How to bridge the chasm between God and the world, how at the first creation of man it was possible for God who is the all-holy and all-perfect, to come into contact with imperfect man, is an oft-recurring subject of speculation in the Talmud and Midrashim.

The world impregnated with traces and symptoms of a Divine Life.

And now that thou hast made diligent search and found therein nothing essential, say wherefore thou still clingest to the body.

The truth is that God was in many senses brought very near, and the angel was but an aspect of this 'nearness.' God was immanent as well as transcendent, and the angel was a sort of emanation of the Divine, an off-shoot of Deity, holding intimate converse with the affairs of the world.

As for the angels, some are created for the time being, out of the subtle elements of matter [as air or fire]. Some are eternal angels [i.e. existing from everlasting to everlasting], and perhaps they are the spiritual intelligences of which the philosophers speak.

The angels are not corporeal; this is what Aristotle also said; only there is a difference of name; he calls them 'separate intelligences' (sichlim nifrādīm), whereas we designate them angels.

Wisdom is the quality through which God acts in the world, and by the instrumentality of which the Deity is known to man.

In like manner the forces without me I cannot control; but I will control the thought within me, and what need have I for control of the rest?

The Rabbi, however, who stayed on and succeeded in eliciting from the Shechinah a promise that the ministering angels should henceforth cease from troubling him, is the type of the mystic who feels the mental and physical elation, the joy, the rapture, the triumph consequent upon the conviction of his having, at last, reached the goal of his quest - the sight, sound and touch of the Ultimate Reality.

Writers on mysticism, no matter to what school of religious thought they may happen to belong, familiarise us with the great fact that the mystic, by reason of the high levels of spiritual intensity on which his life is lived, experiences certain physical sensations which enable him to see or to hear something of the mystery of the Divine Presence.

A feature of the Shechinah mysticism which deserves a deeper appreciation than is usually accorded it, is to be found in the reiterated Rabbinic belief that goodness and piety radiate an atmosphere of divinity which infects all who breathe it, with a new impulse towards the good, the beautiful and the true.

Companionship with the good must be acquired at all costs. It is the dynamic power for opening the door to the spiritual world.

One of the distinguishing features of the mystical temperament is the contrast in the effects which this sudden invasion of a Divine Presence had upon the objects of the visitation. The two Rabbis who left the synagogue did so, most probably, as the result of the fearful weakening and depressing effect of the vision. The Rabbi, however, who stayed on and succeeded in eliciting from the Shechinah a promise that the ministering angels should henceforth cease from troubling him, is the type of the mystic who feels the mental and physical elation, the joy, the rapture, the triumph consequent upon the conviction of his having, at last, reached the goal of his quest - the sight, sound and touch of the Ultimate Reality.

Companionship with the good must be acquired at all costs. It is the dynamic power for opening the door to the spiritual world. The man of virtue is Shechinah-possessed; and to touch only the hem of his garment is to become Shechinah-possessed too.

But when the thought of wrath is slain, all my foes are slain.

Emanation implies that all existing things are successive outflowings or outgoings of God. God contains within Himself all. He is perfect, incomprehensible, indivisible, dependent on nothing, in need of nothing. Everything in the cosmos, all finite creatures animate and inanimate, flow out, radiate, in a successive series, from God, the Perfect One.

Everything is originally comprehended in Him, "with no contrasts of here or there, no oppositions of this and that, no separation into change and variation".

The multiplicity that one beholds in the cosmos, the whole panorama of thought, action, goodness, badness, the soul, the mind - all things that go to make up the pageant of man's life in the universe, are emanations, radiations from the one Unity, manifestations of the God from whom all things flow and to whom they must all finally return because they are ultimately one with the One, just as the flame is one with the candle from which it issues.

Can the ill-will of others towards me touch me in this life or in births to come, that I should dislike it?

My present tribulation is not so heavy, and will be very gainful; let me be glad of a suffering that redeems the world from its suffering.

God as the En-Sof and as a Being utterly divested of attributes is an idea that can only be postulated negatively.

It is man's duty to strive after union with the Infinite, his pursuit of the finite leads him to that which lies at the extremity of the Divine nature rather than that which lies at the heart of it. This constitutes evil. It is a state of absence, a negation, because man who, like the universe, is but one of the manifestations of the Divine, can only attain the real when he seeks the Real who is his fount, his home.

The idea of God using the Heavenly Man (Adam ‘Ilā-ā) as a chariot on which to descend indicates a noteworthy identity of teaching in the Zohar and Plotinus.

He is the beginning as well as the end of all stages (dargin); upon Him are stamped (etrashim) all the stages. But He can only be called One, in order to show that although He possesses many forms, He is nothing other than ONE.

The idea of the Heavenly Man, or Adam Kadmon ('First' or 'Original' Man), or Shechinta Tā-tā-ā ('Lower' or 'Terrestrial' Shechinah), is vital to an understanding of the Zohar and of all Kabbalistic literature.

He made this world of below to correspond with the world of above. Everything which is above has its pattern here below and all constitutes a unity.

The real part of man is his soul, and the things just mentioned, the skin, flesh, bones, and veins, are only an outward covering, a veil, but are not the man.

For, inside man, there is the secret of the Heavenly Man. . . . Everything below takes place in the same manner as everything above.

Man, having the privilege to behold everywhere the Divine image - the world being an embodiment of God - can, if he will, make his way to the Invisible Author of all; can have union with the Unseen.

A ubiquitous term is En-Sof, applied to the Deity. These words mean literally 'No End.' The Deity is boundless, endless.

Before having created any shape in the world, before having produced any form, He was alone, without form, resembling nothing. It is forbidden to picture Him by any form or under any shape whatsoever, not even by His holy name, nor by a letter [of the alphabet] nor by a point. But after He had created the form of the Heavenly Man (Adam ‘Ilā-ā) He used him as a chariot (Merkābāh) on which to descend.

Now he who is patient will seek for strength, for in strength lies Enlightenment. Without strength there is no righteous work, as without the wind there is no motion. And what is strength? Vigour in well-doing. What is its contrary called? Faintness, clinging to base things, despair, self-contempt.

As the seed of the cotton-tree is swayed at the coming and going of the wind, so will he be obedient to his resolution; and thus divine power is gained.

ALL finite creatures are, in divergent senses and varying degrees, part and parcel of the Deity.

Creatio ex nihilo is unthinkable, seeing that God, in the Neoplatonic view, is the Perfect One, 'an undivided One,' to whom no qualities or characteristics can be ascribed, and to whom, therefore, no such idea as that of intention or purpose, or change or movement, can be applied.

All existences are emanations from the Deity. The Deity reveals Himself in all existences because He is immanent in them. But though dwelling in them, He is greater than they. He is apart from them. He transcends them.

In the world to come there is neither eating nor drinking, nor marrying, nor bargaining, nor envy, nor hatred, nor quarrel; but the righteous sit, with crowns upon their heads, and feed upon the splendour of the Shechinah.

The Crown represents, as it were, the first stage by which the Infinite Being takes on the properties of the finite and becomes drawn out of His impenetrable isolation.

The Most Ancient One is at the same time the most Hidden of the hidden. He is separated from all things, and is at the same time not separated from all things. For all things are united in Him, and He unites Himself with all things. There is nothing which is not in Him.

He made ten lights spring forth from His midst, lights which shine with the form which they have borrowed from Him, and which shed everywhere the light of a brilliant day.

The Ancient One, the most Hidden of the hidden, is a high beacon, and we know Him only by His lights, which illuminate our eyes so abundantly. His Holy Name is no other thing than these lights.

These three, father, mother, son (i.e. the two Sefirot, viz. Wisdom and Intelligence, and their offspring Reason), hold and unite in themselves all that which has been, which is, and which will be.

The name 'I am' signifies the unity of all things.

Afterwards He brought out that light which is the celestial mother, and when she bare a child, then He called Himself 'that I am'.

The Ten Sefirot together are thus a picture of how an infinite, undivided, unknowable God takes on the attributes of the finite, the divided, the knowable, and thus becomes the cause of, the power lying at the bottom of, all the multifarious modes of existence in the finite plane - all of which are thus a reflection of the Divine.

The universal infiltration of the light of the En-Sof, its diffusion throughout all the Sefirot, gave rise to the idea of the existence of a changeable and an unchangeable element in each of the Sefirot.

When thus vigour has been nurtured, it is well to fix the thought in concentred effort; the man of wandering mind lies between the fangs of the Passions. It cannot wander if body and thought be in solitude; so it is well to forsake the world and put away vain imaginations.

I will think of myself as a sinner, of others as oceans of virtue; I will cease to live as self, and will take as my self my fellow-creatures.

Neoplatonism gave to the Zohar the idea of the soul as an emanation from the 'Overmind' of the universe. There was originally one 'Universal Soul,' or 'Over-soul,' which, as it were, broke itself up and encased itself in individual bodies. All individual souls are, hence, fragments of the 'Oversoul,' so that although they are distinct from one another they are, in reality, all one.

There are many instances in Talmudic literature, of men seeing the Shechinah at the hour of death. It is the signal of the return of Neshāmāh to its home, the Oversoul, of which it is but a loosened fragment; and the return can only begin after it has completed its education within the life-limits of an earthly body.

All souls must undergo transmigration; and men do not understand the ways of the Holy One (blessed be He). They know not that they are brought before the tribunal both before they enter into this world and after they leave it. They know not the many transmigrations and hidden trials which they have to undergo, nor do they know the number of souls and spirits (Ruaḥ and Nefesh) which enter into the world, and which do not return to the Palace of the Heavenly King. Men do not know how the souls revolve like a stone which is thrown from a sling. But the time is drawing nigh when these hidden things will be revealed.

Whosoever serves God out of love, comes into union (itdaḅak) with the place of the Highest of the High, and comes into union, too, with the holiness of the world which is to be.

But if Neshāmāh is so exalted, so sacrosanct, why should it have emanated from its immaculate source at all, to become tainted with earth? The Zohar anticipates our question and gives its answer as follows: "If thou inquirest why it [i.e.. the soul] cometh down into the world from so exalted a place and putteth itself at such a distance from its source, I reply thus: It may be likened to an earthly monarch to whom a son is born. The monarch takes the son to the countryside, there to be nourished and trained until such a time as he is old enough to accustom himself to the palace of his father. When the father is told that the education of his son is completed, what does he do out of his love for him? In order to celebrate his home-coming, he sends for the queen, the mother of the lad. He brings her into the palace and rejoices with her the whole day long.

When the soul has completed the cycle of its earthly career and hurries back to become blended with the Oversoul, it revels in ecstasies of love, which the Zohar describes with a wealth of poetic phraseology.

When Adam our first father dwelt in the garden of Eden he was clothed, as men are in heaven, with the Divine light. When he was driven forth from Eden to do the ordinary work of earth, then Holy Writ tells us that "the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skin and clothed them." For, ere this, they wore coats of light, of that light which belongs to Eden.

Man's good deeds upon earth bring down on him a portion of the higher light which lights up heaven. It is that light which covers him like a coat when he enters into the future world and appears before his Maker, the Holy One (blessed be He). It is by means of such a covering that he can taste of the enjoyments of the elect and look upon the face of the 'shining mirror.

Would that my fellow-creatures should understand that all is as the void!

Then when will the day come when I may bring peace to them that are tortured in the fire of sorrow by my ministrations of sweetness born from the rain-clouds of my righteousness, and when I may reverently declare to the souls who imagine a real world that all is void, and righteousness is gathered by looking beyond the Veiled Truth?