Although works of devotion are not incompatible with gnosis, no one who connects them in the slightest degree with himself is a gnostic. This is the theme of the following allegory. Niffarī seldom writes so lucidly as he does here, yet I fancy that few of my readers will find the explanations printed within square brackets altogether superfluous. THE REVELATION OF THE SEA “God bade me behold the Sea, and I saw the ships sinking and the planks floating; then the planks too were submerged.” [The Sea denotes the spiritual experiences through which the mystic passes in his journey to God. The point at issue is this: whether he should prefer the religious law or disinterested love. Here he is warned not to rely on his good works, which are no better than sinking ships and will never bring him safely to port. No; if he would attain to God, he must rely on God alone. If he does not rely entirely on God, but lets himself trust ever so little in anything else, he is still clinging to a plank. Though his trust in God is greater than before, it is not yet complete.] “And He said to me, ‘Those who voyage are not saved.’” [The voyager uses the ship as a means of crossing the sea: therefore he relies, not on the First Cause, but on secondary causes.] “And He said to me, ‘Those who instead of voyaging cast themselves into the Sea take a risk.’” [To abandon all secondary causes is like plunging in the sea. The mystic who makes this venture is in jeopardy, for two reasons: he may regard himself, not God, as initiating and carrying out the action of abandonment,--and one who renounces a thing through ‘self’ is in worse case than if he had not renounced it,--or he may abandon secondary causes (good works, hope of Paradise, etc.), not for God’s sake, but from sheer indifference and lack of spiritual feeling.] “And He said to me, ‘Those who voyage and take no risk shall perish.’” [Notwithstanding the dangers referred to, he must make God his sole object or fail.] “And He said to me, ‘In taking the risk there is a part of salvation.’” [Only a part of salvation, because perfect selflessness has not yet been attained. The whole of salvation consists in the effacement of all secondary causes, all phenomena, through the rapture which results from vision of God. But this is gnosis, and the present revelation is addressed to mystics of a lower grade. The gnostic takes no risk, for he has nothing to lose.] “And the wave came and lifted those beneath it and overran the shore.” [Those beneath the wave are they who voyage in ships and consequently suffer shipwreck. Their reliance on secondary causes casts them ashore, _i.e._ brings them back to the world of phenomena whereby they are veiled from God.]