Do not neglect the practice of the virtues; if you do, your spiritual knowledge will decrease, and when famine occurs you will go down into Egypt (Genesis 41:57, 46:6).
Watchfulness cleanses the conscience and makes it lucid. Thus cleansed, it immediately shines like a light that has been uncovered, banishing such darkness. Once this darkness has been banished through constant and genuine watchfulness, the conscience then reveals things hidden from us.
According to the degree to which the intellect is stripped of the passions, the Holy Spirit initiates the intellect into the mysteries of the age to be.
