For just as the mirror in which rust has become deeply established, polishing does not affect it unless it is returned to the fire, likewise the soul immersed in the love of the lower world, admonitions do not affect it unless it is returned to calamities.

And know that the soul does not attain anything of proximity except according to its detachment, and there is no detachment except by striving. And verily the cream of absolute striving is patience, for the beloved of the corporeal forms is changing over time, and the beloved of the spirits is constant in every moment. And where annihilation is, the beloved is according to it, and where subsistence is, the beloved is according to its lover. And the soul sees outwardly the forms of its meanings, and inwardly the meanings are its forms, for existence with what is in it is the entry of its forms into its conceptualized object.

And know that the sacred outward realities and the arriving spiritual realities have never ceased being remembering, witnessing, present, and it was only the sense that occupied you from them, so you thought them absent due to the occupations of the bodies, like your state in sleep, the secret of the spiritual subtle realities was uncovered to you in the forms of the corporeal realities, and you were addressed with the secrets of the essences,