And worship God, make Him the specific object of your orientation and for your your annihilation in Him, that which is the ultimate in self-abasement [before God]; and associate nothing with Him, by affirming His existence. Be kind to parents, be kind in spirit and soul these two from which the heart is generated, for it is your reality: your are nothing but that [heart]. Fulfil your duties towards them and treat them with true consideration by drawing on the effusion of the former [the spirit] and orienting yourselves towards in submission to it and in reverence, and by cleansing the latter [the soul] and preserving it from the filth of the love of this world and from its being abased by covetousness and greed and the like of these or by the evil of Satan and his enmity towards it; help it through compassion and zeal by procuring for it what is its due and preventing it from its shares; and the near kindred, the one who truly corresponds to you in kinship on account of the nearness in terms of original preparedness and spiritual resemblance; and to orphans, those who are prepared but severed from the light of the holy spirit, which is the true father [of these orphans], by being veiled from it, and to the needy, those who perform works but have no wealth, that is, no share of forms of knowledge, gnoses or realities and have thus stood still unable to journey: these are the felicitous, the righteous whose return shall be to the garden of the acts; and to the neighbour who is near, the one who is at one of the stations of wayfaring that is near to your station; and to the neighbour who is a stranger, the one who at his station is distant from your station; and to the friend at your side, the companion who is at the very source of your station and accompanies you on your [spiritual] journey; and to the wayfarer, the one wayfaring on the path of the truth, who has entered into estrangement from the refuge of the soul, the one who has not arrived at any of the stations of the folk of God; and to what your right hands own, those who are under subject to your will and your love, who are your slaves, each according to what corresponds to him and is appropriate to him of the various types of kindness. If you wish you might interpret 'the near kindred' as that to which the person is conjoined of the disengaged things of the upper kingdom; and 'the orphans' as the spiritual faculties, as has been mentioned already; and 'the needy' as the ego-centric faculties such as the external senses and so on; 'the neighbour who is near' as the intellect; 'the neighbour who is a stranger' as estimation; 'the friend at your side' as yearning or desire; 'the wayfarer' as reflection; 'those owned by the right hand' as the acquired natural traits that are the sources of virtuous acts. Surely God loves not the conceited, who pursues the [spiritual] wayfaring with his soul and not with God, admiring his works [in conceit], and the boastful, who is blissfully gladdened by his states, his stations and perfections, veiled by his inspection of these and by inspecting the fact that he has these attributes.