The eighth section (on delight and happiness)

and angel, and the rest of created things besides, so that even the species serves its own members one to another; and your body, which is served in all these worlds, is made subservient to your spirit (rūḥ), and your spirit is made subservient to the service of its Originator. So when you have known what is due to its Originator, and have arrived at the grasp of this and of its obligation toward Him, you are made happy; and when you are made happy, you are at rest; and when you are at rest, the spirit passes over into meanings with which it is occupied on the part of its Maker — meanings that no expression encompasses and no speech suffices for.

Let him weep for himself whose lifetime was squandered — and who has in it neither portion nor share

So rise up, that you may see; for one who has seen is not as one who has heard. And peace be upon whoever followed and did good work, and so arrived, and so was made happy.

And to complete the benefit, we recite to you the passage of the Chief Ibn Sīnā, quoted from the Book of Indication (Kitāb al-Ishārah), in the part on the divine things (al-Ilāhīyāt), under the heading that follows:

The Eighth Section (al-Namaṭ al-thāmin)

(On joy (bahjah) and happiness (saʻādah))

It may prevail over the fancies of the common people that the strong delights (ladhdhah) are the sensory ones, and that what lies beyond these are weak delights or unreal imaginings. Two considerations show the unsoundness of this. The first is that the delights of sensible things are the objects of sexual union and the objects of eating; yet we see that one who has the mastery of some victory — even in a base matter such as chess or backgammon — may have food and a bedmate offered to him, and leaves it for what he gets in exchange of the delight of victory. And he may leave food and bedmate for the sake of decorum, so that his regard becomes