“On one hand the former king wants to thank the great sage; on the other hand he performs the last duty that is left to him alone from his long term in office: he scares with his divine weapons the ascetics that sunbathe in the radiance of the great sage, pretending to be like, or even equal to the sage.

“This fright of the fakirs shows the true nature of the hypocrites who all too often grow roots around the true saints, bathing in their radiance - without really striving for truth themselves: instead of going as true seekers the safe ways to gaining knowledge as prescribed by the sages, the fakir looks for individual, insignificant powers; he feigns the supernormal to himself and to onlookers.

“The real, ignorant standpoint of a hypocrite one can see clearly when one appears with divine weapons: these real means of gaining knowledge frighten him very much, and all persuasion will not help: he runs away from the divine knowledge like the fly from the scorching flame, because he thinks he gets parched from truth; at the same time however, he likes to settle in the environment of the true sage, like the fly likes to be around the warming light.

“By nature the sage is infinitely kind and therefore would never drive off the deluded ascetic but rather protect him - just like he protects life, no matter how low it is.

Since the king Helgi does not share this noble attitude of the sage, he despises all this and thinks of a means to change things.

“Indeed the king is aware that the sage knows much better than him how deluded the ascetics are who create a wrong impression of wisdom with everyone, and how much they hurt the reputation of the sage - and how many people they lead astray; for not only do these deluded fools see god or the gods as separate from themselves - which in fact is their own narrow truth - but they even spread this self-destructive view amongst the people, be it in the form of a religion or a philosophy or an ideology.

“If these fakirs come in touch with truly divine weapons - which are used by a man like by a god - they get scared and run away: for indeed they fear the formation of free will and conscience: they fear enlightenment - as if it meant their death, whereas indeed the opposite is the case.

“On the height of his absolute perfection the sage is too simple and too comprehensively magnanimous to give them this direct experience of the divine tools of cognition himself, thus creating fear within them for their activity and their further narrow and egoistic existence; the warrior, however, is different, and therefore Helgi appears in the hermitage with the divine weapons.

“The king does not even have to chase away the fakirs; at the sight of divine tools of cognition they run away by themselves as if they ran for their lives - and here they represent all religious fanatics, all the fanatics among the philosophers, and the fanatics among the ideologists; in reality they all run away from true life.