Another bird said to the hoopoe: “I am my own enemy; how can I venture upon this path, since I carry with me the robber who must waylay me? My lustful soul, my dog-like soul, refuses to submit; I do not even know how to save my spiritual soul. I know the wolf in the field well; but this bitch of a soul, fair in appearance, is not yet well known to me. I am bewildered by this faithless soul, for I would like to know whether I might at last come to know it.”
The hoopoe replied: “O Thou who art like a dog ever straying! Thou who art trampled underfoot like the earth! Thy soul is both askance and one-eyed. It is vile as a dog, lazy and faithless. If a false man takes hold of thee, it is because he is dazzled by the false lustre of Thy soul. It is not good that this bitch of a soul should be pampered and grow fat by artifice. At the beginning of life all was idleness, childishness, weakness, and heedlessness. In the middle of life all was eccentricity and the madness of youth. At the end, when old age takes hold of us, the soul grows languid and the body feeble. With such a life, shaped by folly, how can the soul adorn itself with spiritual qualities? We live heedlessly from beginning to end, and so the result we obtain is nothing. And man often ends by obeying the concupiscent soul that enslaves so many. Thousands of hearts have died of grief, and this faithless bitch of a soul never dies.”
A gravedigger reached an advanced age. Someone said to him: “Answer the question I am about to ask you: you who have spent your whole life digging graves in the earth, have you seen nothing wondrous there?” The gravedigger replied: “The most astonishing thing I have seen there is that my wretched soul has watched me for seventy years digging graves, and has not died once, nor obeyed God’s law for a single moment.”
One evening ‘Abbâçah said: “O you who are present here! Suppose the unbelievers who fill the world, and even the loquacious Turcomans, were to accept the faith sincerely; it might be done. But one hundred and twenty thousand prophets have come so that this unbelieving soul might once and for all become Muslim or perish, and yet they have not been able to accomplish it, though it was right. Whence can this difference between their zeal and the result arise?”
One evening ‘Abbâçah said: “O you who are present here! Suppose the unbelievers who fill the world, and even the loquacious Turcomans, were to accept the faith sincerely; it might be done. But one hundred and twenty thousand prophets have come so that this unbelieving soul might once and for all become Muslim or perish, and yet they have not been able to accomplish it, though it was right. Whence can this difference between their zeal and the result arise?”
“We are all under the sway of this faithless and disobedient soul, which we ourselves sustain within us; will it then be easy to destroy it? When this soul receives support from two sides, it would indeed be astonishing if it were to perish. The spirit, like a horseman, rides steadfastly through the spiritual realm; but day and night this vile soul is his companion at table. However swiftly the horseman makes his steed gallop, this soul ever follows him without tiring, like a dog. All that the heart has received from the object of its love, the soul has taken just as much from the heart. Yet he who firmly binds this dog shall ensnare the lion of both worlds. He who enslaves this dog to himself outstrips his rivals so far that they do not even reach the dust of his shoe; and if he binds this dog fast, the dust of his shoes will be worth more than the blood of others.”
A man who had entered upon the path of spiritualism and was covered with rags was going on his way, when a king caught sight of him and said: “O thou who art covered with rags! Is it I who am worth more than thee, or art thou worth more than me?” The spiritualist replied: “O ignorant one! Strike thy breast and keep silence. Although it is not for me to praise myself, since he who praises himself knows not what he says, yet, as I must do so, there is no doubt that a man such as I am is a thousand times better than a man such as thou art. Indeed, thou knowest not the taste of religion, and thy concupiscent soul has reduced thee to the state of an ass. — This concupiscent soul rules over thee, sire, and thou art weighed down by its burden. It wraps thy head in a halter, day and night, and thou actest only at its command. Whatever it orders thee, thou who art fit for nothing, to do or not to do, thou must do without reply; but I, who have known the secret of the heart, have, on the contrary, made this bitch of a soul my ass. When this soul became my ass, I sat upon it. Thy bitch of a soul rules over thee, and I rule over it; but when my ass mounts upon thee, thou art then like me, and a hundred thousand times better than thy peers.”
O thou who art content with this dog-like soul! thou whom the fire of concupiscence devours, know that the fire of this concupiscence takes away the water of thine honour, the light of thy heart, and the strength of thy body. The darkness of the eyes and the deafness of the ears, old age, the enfeeblement of thy mind and the decline of thine intelligence—all these form its army and its soldiers, who are, in truth, the servants of the prince of death. Day and night He ceaselessly sends forth this army: he sends it before and behind, and when this army comes from every side, thou and thy soul fall far from the path. Thou hast amused thyself with thy dog-like soul and given thyself over to joy, but thou hast become its slave, thou hast submitted to its power. When the king of death and His retinue come to thee, this dog-like soul will part from thee, and thou from it; but if ye resolve to part from one another now, will ye then be subject to this separation? Grieve not if ye are not together in this world, for it will assuredly be with thee in hell.