« good character | Main | the end of all disciplines »

November 8, 2007

spiritual happiness

Know that the heart is one thing and the body another. The heart is of the celestial world and the body of the visible world. However, even though the body is separate from the heart, nonetheless it has a connection with it; for each good act of the body a light attaches itself to the heart, while for from every bad act of the body a darkness attaches itself to the heart. That light is the seed of spiritual happiness and that darkness is the seed of spiritual misery. It is because of this connection that a person is brought to this world: in order that he make of his body a net and instrument to acquire the attributes of perfection for himself.

Know that the spiritual happiness of a human being is that one becomes of the nature of angles; for one’s essence is of them and one has come into this world a stranger. One’s source is the world of angles. Every foreign characteristic that one bears from here distances one from being in conformity with angles. When going to that place, one must become of their character and not carry any attributes from this place.


Ghazali - On Disciplining the Self

Posted by amin at November 8, 2007 11:38 PM