 Mulla Sadra’s method of philosophizing is predicated upon three key modes of acting. First, as we discussed above philosophy is a way of life, a lived mode of being and a process that involves spiritual exercises. For Mulla Sadra, philosophy pursues the summum bonum of enlightened engagement (ma‘rifa) and goodly action, worthy not only of the Aristotelian but also the pious Muslim scholar. To philosophise is to cultivate piety, since the end of philosophy is the higher pious life, a reflection of a Hermetic ideal trope. The more truth one knows, the more pious one becomes. In fact, the more intense one’s being, the better one is and the more felicitous. Philosophy is a religious commitment that obscures the conceptual boundary between theory and doctrine. The very pursuit of intellectual inquiry and discourse is itself the greatest good and the means through which one knows how to live a good life, and enables one to ascend to the highest heavenly host. The disciplining of the mind cures the soul of incorrect doxa and the disease of irrationality. It cures the suffering of the soul insofar as it reduces the alienation of the soul from the truth and ultimately from God through the journey of the intellect back to the One. The dynamic of this journey involves the performance of spiritual exercises. Mulla Sadra urges the reader to practise philosophy as an art and a method of self-improvement and spiritual enlightenment (Mulla Sadra 1986: 232–3). The act of meditation is not irrational detachment but rather the exercise of reason (Hadot 1995: 59). Asceticism is a prerequisite for philosophy following the famous saying of first Shiʿi Imam ‘Ali b. Abi Talib: ‘the study of wisdom requires spiritual exercise and forsaking the world.’ In the introduction to the Four Journeys, he urges self-purification and the pursuit of perfection to obtain divine grace and knowledge. True pedagogy allied with divine grace leads man to perfection and self-realisation. In his commentary upon Qur’anic chapter entitled the Event (al-Waqi‘a), he writes,