A man, while gathering stones on a mountain in China, shed abundant tears from his eyes, and as his tears flowed upon the earth, they turned into pebbles.
If clouds possessed pebbles of this kind, what they rained down until the resurrection would be nothing but a subject for sighs.
Knowledge is the attribute of the pure and truthful man. If thou must go to China to find it, go and seek it there; for, through the ill will of the heedless, knowledge has become as hard to handle as stone. How long shall it remain unknown? The world, a palace of sorrows, is all darkness; but knowledge shines therein like a lamp that shows the way. Indeed, what guides thy soul in this dark place is the jewel of knowledge, that knowledge which enlarges the heart. In these darknesses, which have neither beginning nor end, thou hast remained without a guide, like Alexander; but if thou draw from this precious jewel the fitting advantage, thou wilt feel remorse for the evil thou hast done. If thou dost not possess this jewel, thou wilt have still greater cause for repentance; and whether thou possess it or not, I shall always find thee prey to regret.
If clouds possessed pebbles of this kind, what they rained down until the resurrection would be nothing but a subject for sighs.
Knowledge is the attribute of the pure and truthful man. If thou must go to China to find it, go and seek it there; for, through the ill will of the heedless, knowledge has become as hard to handle as stone. How long shall it remain unknown? The world, a palace of sorrows, is all darkness; but knowledge shines therein like a lamp that shows the way. Indeed, what guides thy soul in this dark place is the jewel of knowledge, that knowledge which enlarges the heart. In these darknesses, which have neither beginning nor end, thou hast remained without a guide, like Alexander; but if thou draw from this precious jewel the fitting advantage, thou wilt feel remorse for the evil thou hast done. If thou dost not possess this jewel, thou wilt have still greater cause for repentance; and whether thou possess it or not, I shall always find thee prey to regret.
The visible world and the invisible world are nothing to the soul; the body is not hidden from the soul, nor the soul from the body. When thou hast come forth from the visible world, which is nothing, there lies the place proper to man. If, then, thou dost pass from that place into this particular place, thou shalt acquire in an instant a hundred kinds of secrets; and if thou fall behind on this path, woe unto thee, thou shalt be utterly lost in tears. If thou deprive thyself of sleep by night and eat not by day, thou mayst find what thou seekest. Seek until thou art lost in thy seeking, abstaining from food by day and from sleep by night.