Once man is preoccupied with his material life...

Once man is preoccupied with his material life, all dimensions of his existence are enchained, and he loses aspiration and motion. Inevitably, he will also neglect his eternal life and inward purification. As long as desire casts its shadow on his being and his soul is ensnared by darkness, he will be like a speck tossed around on the waves of matter. He will seek refuge in anything but God.

He therefore needs something to awaken him and induce maturity in his thoughts, to remind him of the transitoriness of this ephemeral world and help him attain the ultimate aim of all heavenly teachings-the freedom for the soul from all the obstacles and carriers that prevent man from attaining lofty perfection.

The training and refinement of the self is not to be had cheaply; it requires the renunciation of various pleasures and enjoyments, and the process of cutting loose from them is bitter and difficult. It is true that such exertions will be for the sake of purifying man's inner being and allowing his latent capacities to appear.

Nonetheless, patient abstention from sin and pleasure-seeking is always bitter to man's taste and it is only through obstinate resistance to lower impulses that he can fulfill his mission of breaking down the barriers that confront him and thus ascend to the realm of higher values. Previous…