מי יורש קנייני אלוה י״דWho is the Heir of Divine Things 14
א׳
1[68] Who then shall be the heir? Not that way of thinking which abides in the prison of the body of its own free will, but that which released from its fetters into liberty has come forth outside the prison walls, and if we may so say, left behind its own self. For “he who shall come out of thee,” it says, “shall be thy heir” (Gen. 15:4).
ב׳
2[69] Therefore, my soul, if thou feelest any yearning to inherit the good things of God, leave not only thy land, that is the body, thy kinsfolk, that is the senses, thy father’s house (Gen. 12:1), that is speech, but be a fugitive from thyself also and issue forth from thyself. Like persons possessed and corybants, be filled with inspired frenzy, even as the prophets are inspired.
ג׳
3[70] For it is the mind which is under the divine afflatus, and no longer in its own keeping, but is stirred to its depths and maddened by heavenward yearning, drawn by the truly existent and pulled upward thereto, with truth to lead the way and remove all obstacles before its feet, that its path may be smooth to tread—such is the mind, which has this inheritance.
ד׳
4[71] To that mind I say, “Fear not to tell us the story of thy departure from the first three. For to those who have been taught to give ear to the things of the mind, thou ever repeatest the tale.” “I migrated from the body,” she answers, “when I had ceased to regard the flesh; from sense, when I came to view all the objects of sense as having no true existence, when I denounced its standards of judgement as spurious and corrupt and steeped in false opinion, and its judgements as equipped to ensnare and deceive and ravish truth away from its place in the heart of nature; from speech, when I sentenced it to long speechlessness, in spite of all its self-exaltation and self-pride.
ה׳
5[72] Great indeed was its audacity, that it should attempt the impossible task to use shadows to point me to substances, words to point me to facts. And, amid all its blunders, it chattered and gushed about, unable to present with clear expression those distinctions in things which baffled its vague and general vocabulary.
ו׳
6[73] Thus through experience, as a foolish child learns, I learnt that the better course was to quit all these three, yet dedicate and attribute the faculties of each to God, who compacts the body in its bodily form, who equips the senses to perceive, and extends to speech the power of speaking.”
ז׳
7[74] Such is the mind’s confession, and to it I reply, “even as thou hast quitted the others, quit thyself, depart from thyself.” And what does this “departing” mean? It means “do not lay up as treasure for thyself, thy gifts of thinking, purposing, apprehending, but bring them and dedicate them to Him Who is the source of accurate thinking and unerring apprehension.”
