OF THE DESPISERS OF BODY
" It is unto the despisers of body that I shall say my word. It is not to re-learn and re-teach what I wish them to do ; I wish them to say farewell unto their own body and be dumb.
' Body I am and soul ' thus the child speaketh. And why should one not speak like the children ?
But he who is awake and knoweth saith : body I am throughout, and nothing besides; and soul is merely a word for a something in body.
Body is one great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a herdsman.
Also thy little reason, my brother, which thou callest ' spirit ' it is a tool of thy body, a little tool and toy of thy great reason.
' I ' thou sayest and art proud of that word. But the greater thing is which thou wilt not believe thy body and its great reason. It doth not say ' I,' but it doth 'I.'
What the sense feeleth, what the spirit perceiveth hath never its end in itself. But sense and spirit would fain persuade thee that they were the end of all things : so vain they are.
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