Being at leisure tonight, I venture to ask

One of my friends about perfection of life.

He said, 'The subject of the perfect life

Is deep and difficult task to discuss,

But I will try to give you an outline

Of its simplest traits. Just you listen!

Was not the luminous produced from

The obscure? But the multiform from

The unshaped and unembodied? And

The spiritual from the heavens? And

The bodily from the seminal essence?

'After this all things produced one another

From their bodily constructions. Thus,

It is that those which have nine apertures

Are born from the womb, and those

With eight openings from eggs so long.

But their comings leave no trace

And their goings no monument;

They enter by no door, they dwell

In no residence: they are in a broad space

Reaching all in all the ten directions.

'All those who search for and find

Perfection in this are strong in their limbs,

Sincere in their hearts and far-reaching

In their thinking, acute in their hearing

And clear in their seeing.

It always was like this, and it will be so.

They exercise their minds

Without being toiled; they do respond

To everything aright without regard to terms,

Places and circumstances.

Without this, the heavens would not be high,

Nor the humble earth tremendously broad

And wide; the sun and moon would not move,

And nothing would flourish without

These attributes of being existent.

'But even the famously known intellects

Do not necessarily know it;

Reasoning will not make men wise in it;

Have decided against such methods.

However you try to add to it,

It admits of no increase;

However you try to take from it,

It admits of no decrease. . . In a word,

You should, as by vigilance,

Clear and purge your mind,

Wash your spirit white as snow,

And sternly repress your insight.

It doesn't matter what you do in life

But if you do it from the bottom

Of your heart/mind, your life

Can be considered as the perfect life.'