The marks of the wholly intelligent and the half-intelligent and the whole man and the half-man and the deluded worthless wretch doomed to perdition.
The intelligent man is he who has the lamp: he is the guide
and
leader of the caravan.
That leader is one who goes after his own light: that selfless traveller is the follower
of himself.
2190. He is the
one that puts faith in himself; and do ye too put
faith in the light on which his
soul has browsed.
The other,
who is the
half-intelligent,
deems an (entirely) intelligent person to be his
eye,
And has clutched him as the blind man clutches the guide, so that through him he has become seeing and active and illustrious.
But (as for)
the ass who
had not a
single barley-corn's weight
of intelligence, who possessed no
intelligence himself and forsook the intelligent (guide),
(Who) knows neither much
nor little of the way
(and yet) disdains
to go
behind the guide,
2195. He is
journeying in a long
wilderness,
now limping
in despair and now
(advancing) at a run.
He has neither a
candle, that he
should make it his leader, nor half a candle,
that he should
beg a light.
He has neither (perfect) intelligence,
that he should breathe
the breath of the living, nor has he a half-intelligence, that he should
make himself dead.
He (the half-intelligent
one) becomes wholly dead in (devotion to) the man of
(perfect)
intelligence, that he may ascend from
his own low place to the (lofty) roof.
(If) you have
not perfect
intelligence, make yourself
dead under the
protection of an
intelligent man whose words are living.
2200. He (the
man devoid of intelligence)
is not living, that he should
breathe in accord with (a) Jesus, nor is
he dead,
that he should
become a channel
for
the (life-giving) breath of
(a) Jesus.
His blind spirit is stepping in every direction: it will not escape in the end, but it is leaping up.
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