POIMANDRES.

"...what you have heard." "I do not seem to you to understand? I do understand and remember, and at the same time, I give thanks." "If you understood, tell me, why are those who are in death worthy of death?" "Because the gloomy darkness, from which the moist nature comes, from which the body consists in the sensible world, and from which death flows, anticipates the body itself." "You have understood rightly, O you. But according to what did you understand yourself to move into him, which the Logos Word/Reason of God possesses?" "I say that the Father of all things consists of light and life, from whom the human was born." "You speak well, for God is light and life, and the Father, from whom the human was born. If, therefore, you learn that you are from life and light, and that you come from these, you will return into life." Poimandres said these things. "But tell me still," I said, "O Nous Divine Mind, how shall I go into life?" "God says, let the mindful human recognize himself. For not all humans possess the Nous Divine Mind." "You speak well, O you." "I, the Nous, am present to the holy, the good, the pure, and the merciful, to those who live piously. My presence becomes a help, and they immediately recognize all things, and they propitiate the Father with love, and they give thanks, blessing and hymning Him in an orderly manner with affection. And before they surrender the body to its own death, they loathe the senses, knowing their workings; or rather, I shall not allow them to inhabit the incoming..."