The actual body can be fettered,
but the mind is uncontrollable. The body will die and will become dust
or be eaten by vultures; but the spirit will exist forever."
Commoro - "Where will the spirit live ?"
"Where does fire live? Cannot you produce a fire* (* The natives always
produce fire by rubbing two sticks together.) by rubbing two sticks
together? Yet you SEE not the fire in the wood. Has not that fire, that
lies harmless and unseen in the sticks, the power to consume the whole
country? Which is the stronger, the small stick that first PRODUCES the
fire, or the fire itself? So is the spirit the element within the body,
as the element of fire exists in the stick, the element being superior
to the substance."
Commoro - "Ha! Can you explain what we frequently see at night when lost
in the wilderness? I have myself been lost, and wandering in the dark I
have seen a distant fire; upon approaching the fire has vanished, and I
have been unable to trace the cause, nor could I find the spot."
"Have you no idea of the existence of spirits superior to either man or
beast? Have you no fear of evil except from bodily causes?"
Commoro. - "I am afraid of elephants and other animals when in the
jungle at night; but of nothing else."
"Then you believe in nothing - neither in a good nor evil spirit!
