Page:Alchemyofhappiness en.djvu/30

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Ghazzali's Alchemy of Happiness.

the home of the faithful, where the angels are in the presence of God. If men refuse to recognize their own dignity, if they neglect their duty and prefer the qualities of devils and beasts of prey, they will also possess, in the future world, the qualities of beasts of prey, and will be judged with the devils. Our refuge is in God!

Know, thou seeker of divine mysteries! that there is no end to the wonderful operations of the heart. For, to pursue the same subject, the dignity of the heart is of two kinds; one kind is by means of knowledge, and the other through the exertion of divine power. Its dignity by means of knowledge is also of two kinds. The first is external knowledge, which every one understands: the second kind is veiled and cannot be understood by all, and is extremely precious. That which we have designated as external, refers to that faculty of the heart by which the sciences of geometry, medicine, astronomy, numbers, the science of law and all the arts are understood; and although the heart is a thing which cannot be divided, still the knowledge of all the world exists in it. All the world indeed, in comparison with it, is as a grain compared with the sun, or as a drop in the ocean.- In a second, by the power of thought, the soul passes from the abyss to the highest heaven, and from the east to the west. Though on the earth, it knows the latitude of the stars and their distances. It knows the course, the size and the peculiarities of the sun. It knows the nature and cause of the clouds and the rain, the lightning and the thunder. It ensnares the fish from the depths of the sea, and the bird from the end of heaven. By knowledge it subdues the elephant, the camel and the tiger. All these kinds of knowledge, it acquires with its internal and external senses.

The most wonderful thing of all is, that there is a window in the heart from whence it surveys the world. This is called the invisible world, the world of intelli-