Nor do I absolve my own self [of blame]; the [human] soul is certainly prone to evil,(12:53)

I do not exonerate my soul, for it wants everything bad. But in this fleeting world, this temporary guest-house, during old age, in a brief life, it is not reasonable to destroy eternal  life  and  everlasting  happiness  for  a  little  bit  of  pleasure.  Since  it  is  not profitable for the reasonable and the aware, willy-nilly my soul has had to follow my reason.

T h e  T h i r d  S u s p i c i o u s  Q u e s t i o n : The worldly say: Do you like us? Do you approve  of us? If you do like us, why are  you stand-offish  and have nothing to do with us? If you don’t like us, that means you object to us and we crush those who object to us.

T h e   A n s w e r : Not you, if I had loved your  world,  I would  not have withdrawn from it. I don’t like either you or your world, but I don’t interfere with them. For I have different goals; my heart is filled with different things, leaving no room for anything else. Your duty is to look to a person’s hand, not to his heart. For you  seek  your  government  and  your  public  order.  So  long  as  his  hand  does  not interfere, what right do you have to interfere in his heart and tell him, “your heart should love us too,” although you are in no way worthy of it? Yes, just as I desire the spring during this winter and long for it but cannot will it or make it come; so too I long  for  the  world  to  be righted  and  I pray for  it  and  I want  the  worldly  to  be reformed, but I cannot will these things because I do not have the power. I cannot bring them about, because it is neither my duty, nor do I have the capacity.

F o u r t h   S u s p i c i o u s   Q u e s t i o n : The worldly say: we have experienced so many calamities, we no longer have confidence in anyone. How can we be certain that given the opportunity you won’t interfere like you want to?

T h e  A n s w e r : The previous points should assure you. In addition, I did not interfere in your world while in my native region among my students and relatives, with those who heeded me in the midst of volatile events. So for someone who is alone in exile, with no one, a stranger, weak, powerless, turned with all his strength towards the hereafter, cut off from all social relations and communication, who has found only a few friends from far afield who also look to the hereafter, and who is a stranger to everyone else and whom everyone else regards as a stranger – for such a person to interfere in your fruitless, dangerous world would surely be compounded lunacy.