O you who believe, with cognitive faith, when you rise, up from the sleep of [spiritual] forgetfulness and seek out the prayer of the presence, the real communion and the orientation towards the Truth, wash your faces, that is, cleanse the existence of your hearts with the cleansing water of pure and beneficial knowledge in the way of the knowledge of the divine laws, [virtuous] character traits and the transactions that entail the elimination of the barriers against the sullying of the attributes of the soul; and your hands, that is, your powers, [cleanse them] from the filth of partaking of lusts and disposing of abominable matter, up to the elbows, up to the measure of what is due by right and what is beneficial, and wipe your heads, [wipe away] in the direction of your spirits the darkness of the turbidity of the heart and the dust of its changing when it orients itself towards the lower world and [towards] the love of this world by the light of guidance. For the spirit is not sullied by attachment but its light is veiled from the heat and the heart in turn becomes black and darkens. It suffices for the diffusion of its [the spirit's] light to polish the higher aspect of the heart that is adjacent to it, since the heart has two aspects, one of which is towards the spirit and the head, and is the one referred to here, while the other is towards the soul and its faculties and it is more likely that the feet [here] are a reference to this [latter]; and your feet, those aspects of your natural corporeal faculties, [wash these] by shaking off the dust of being engrossed in lusts and excessive indulgence in pleasures, up to the ankles, up to the level of moderation by which the body becomes upright. According to this then, the one who is engrossed in lusts and indulges excessively in pleasures is in need of washing it [the soul] with the waters of the knowledge of [virtuous] character traits and the knowledge of spiritual disciplining so that it might return to the purity with which the heart prepares for the presence and the communion [with the divine]. As for the one whose pool is near in terms of these by virtue of his moderation, it suffices him to wipe, which is why the one who must wipes and the one who must washes.
