Thus, things exist sometimes in actuality and sometimes in potentiality, forever and perpetually.

O soul: What a vast difference there is between a companion who deprives you, envies you, impoverishes you, saddens you, terrifies you, blinds you, keeps you ignorant, deceives you, and troubles you! You turn toward insight, yet he blinds you; you seek right guidance, yet he leads you into transgression. He grants you fleeting, vanishing possessions that have no reality for them.

He tempts you with false, base desires that have no existence. Thus, you are forever wretched, needy, poor, fearful, sorrowful, abased, miserable, dark, rusted, and enslaved. Whenever you aid him, he increases in poverty; whenever you purify him, he increases in impurity; and whenever you restore his health, he increases in sickness and relapse.

You delude yourself into thinking his friendship is lasting and stable, yet he hastens in his flow to abandon you and depart from you. At that moment, he makes you swallow the agonies of separation and the wandering of the mind. All of this happens to you because of your straying, your deficiency, your blindness, and your ignorance.

What a vast difference there is, O soul, between this companion and another companion! If you accompany him and fall into poverty, he enriches you; if you stray, he guides you; if you are ignorant, he teaches you; and if you are blind, he gives you sight.