Say: 'Shall I tell you of something better than thatḍ, then there will issue forth from his interior a yearning and a fervent love because of the motion of the higher part towards its focus: his fire that had subsided re-ignites and there cascade upon him in succession flashes of the divine lights and the risings of the holy illuminations, such that the light of his insight that had been extinguished is now illumined and the veils that had prevented his primordial nature from seeking the [true] resting-place and the [ultimate] abode become thin; the life which he leads is spoiled and his way becomes sullied and what he had deemed pure of the life of this world now seems dark; the vehemence of caprice subsides by the subduing of the spiritual part the corporeal one. He now tastes the sweet water of true life and no longer has patience for the bitter salty one and his heart pursues the inclinations of certainty after the small draughts which he imbibed from the running spring water, knowing [now] that it had been hidden beneath the earth. He seeks the radiance of the light of the stars at night deeming it to be day and exits therefrom whereupon he finds himself in open country wherein the water is brackish and various kinds of grasses such as weeds and watercress. He thinks these aromatic plants and fruits but at this discovery he finds himself barred from the light of the sun and the various scents and fruits; thereupon he resolves to depart for the return [to the spiritual] but he is overcome by the loneliness of estrangement [from what he has seen]; yet he guards against what he has deemed good and delightful and journeys on leaving it behind until the day when the morning light of the eye of certainty shines forth and it is time for the rising of the sun of the unity, he sees a garden the vision of which perplexes his eyesight and the description of which dazzles his intellect and so it is the like of which no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard nor has ever occurred to the mind of man. And when he awakes and the sun has risen, he will find therein close friends and beloved ones and he will know that that [place] is his final lodging and abode.
