only to tear the
flesh of his teeth and make his mouth bleed and the more he struggles
the more he makes it bleed; like the vulture that has found a piece of
flesh, it attracts other birds in a flock so that for a long time it is
in trouble and flies till at last, quite exhausted, it drops its prey;
like a pot filled with honey and with poison at the bottom, he who eats
of it has a short enjoyment but at last death by venom; like a dream
which rejoices the sleeper who finds when he awakes his joy vanished;
like lightning that brings brilliance for a moment but quickly
disappears, he who builds his hope upon it abides in darkness; like the
silk worm the more it spins itself into the silk the more impossible it
finds to come out.

[Sidenote: More internal struggle.]

After I had pondered thus I once more proposed to my soul to elect
asceticism and had yearning for it. Nevertheless I opposed it with: It
will not do that I should seek refuge from the world in asceticism when
I think of the evils of the world and then again seek refuge in the
world from asceticism when I consider the privations and discomforts of
the latter. I continued in a state of prolonged vacillation without firm
determination like the Kazi of Merv who at first heard one party and
decided in his favour and against the other and then heard the other and
gave judgment in favour of the latter as against the first. And when
again I reflected upon the frightful discomforts and straits of
monasticism I said, How trifling it is all in comparison with eternal
peace. And then once more thinking of the joys of the world I exclaimed,
How bitter and pernicious they are which lead to perpetual perdition and
its horrors; how can a man not regard as sweet the little bitterness
which is succeeded by sweet that endures and how can a man not regard as
bitter a bit of sweet that ends in greater and abiding bitterness? If it
was offered to a man that he should live a hundred years but that every
day he should be hacked to pieces and should be called to life again the
following day and so on, provided that at the close of the century he
should be delivered from the torture and pain and be in security and
delight, he would account as nothing the whole years. How can a man then
not bear the few days of asceticism, the inconveniences of which are
succeeded by much that is beautiful? And we know that the entire world
bears privation and torment and that man from his origin as