... Renunciation is not made in order to obtain some later recompense, for it bears
its fruit within itself, fruit of knowledge and beauty. Spiritual virtue is
neither a mere negation of the natural instincts... It takes birth from a
presentiment
of the Divine Reality which underlies all objects of desire...
and this presentiment is in itself a sort of 'natural grace'...
(p. 87)
In a sense all the virtues are contained in spiritual poverty (al-faqr)...
This poverty is nothing other than a vacare Deo, emptiness for God;
it begins with the rejection of passions and its crown is the effacement of the
'I' before the Divinity.
(p. 88)
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