1. On waking from the slumber of the body to return to myself, and on
turning my attention from exterior things so as to concentrate it on
myself, I often observe an alluring beauty, and I become conscious of
an innate nobility. Then I live out a higher life, and I experience
atonement with the divinity. Fortifying myself within it, I arrive
at that actualization which raises me above the intelligible. But
if, after this sojourn with the divinity, I descend once more from
Intelligence to the exercise of my reasoning powers, I am wont to ask
myself how I ever could actually again descend, and how my soul ever
could have entered into a body, since, although she actually abides
in the body, she still possesses within herself all the perfection I
discover in her.