(26) If we rightly consider how God separated the water under the firmament, from the water above the firmament, then great things will be found therein.

(4) An ocean, a seer alone without duality, becomes he whose world is Brahma, O King! ' — thus Yajnavalkya instructed him. £ This is a man's highest path. This is his highest achievement. This is his highest world. This is his highest bliss. On a part of just this bliss other creatures have their living.

(15) Now observe, the Heaven is the whole Deep so far as the Ethera, or Skies have given up themselves to the Birth of this World, and that Heaven is the Matrix, out of which Earth, Stones, and the material Water are generated. And there God separated the material Water from the Matrix; and here it is very plainly discerned, that the material Water is as it were dead, or has Death in it; for it could not abide in the moving Mother, but was created [to be] upon the Globe of the Earth, and God called it Sea, [Meer;] in which [Word] is understood in the Language of Nature, as it were a Springing [or Growing] in Death, or a Life in Corruption: Although herein I shall be as one that is dumb to the Reader, yet I know it very well, and I am very well satisfied therewith. But because the bestial Man is not worthy to know it, therefore I will not here cast the Pearl before the Swine; but for the Children of God, which will be benefited by it, the Spirit of God will certainly teach and instruct them in it. Note.

(40) At the beginning of the centuries God used the mountains as nails to fix the Earth; and washed Earth's face with the water of Ocean. Then he placed Earth on the back of a bull, the bull on a fish, and the fish on the air. But on what rested the air? On nothing. But nothing is nothing - and all that is nothing. Admire then, the works of the Lord, though he himself considers them as nothing. And seeing that His Essence alone exists it is certain there is nothing but Him. His throne is on the waters and the world is in the air. But leave the waters and the air, for all is God: the throne and the world are only a talisman. God is all, and things have only a nominal value; the world visible and the world invisible are only Himself.

(68) No! for the clear Deity stands everywhere hidden in the circle in the heart of the whole deep; and the seven spirits stand in the body of the deep in anxiety and great longing, and are still kindled by the planets and stars; from whence existeth the mobility, and the birth or geniture in the whole deep.

(42) For the outermost birth of the water cannot comprehend the innermost birth of the water which is called heaven, and which is made out of the midst or centre of the water. ["Heaven is the firmament, viz. the fire-sea, or sea of fire, out of the seven spirits of nature, out of which the stars, as a quintessence, were concreted, incorporated or created by the Word FIAT: It has or containeth both fire and water, and hangeth in itself inwardly on the first Principle, and will bring its wonders, with or as to the figure of them, into the eternal; but its birth or geniture fadeth or passeth away."]

(1) On the nature of seas it says in revelation, that the wide-formed ocean keeps one-third of this earth on the south side of the border of Albûrz, and so wide-formed is the ocean that the water of a thousand lakes is held by it, such as the source Arêdvîvsûr, which some say is the fountain lake.

(91) Again let the Thracian Orpheus sing to us: "His right hand all around to ocean's bound He stretches; and beneath His feet is earth."

(48) When thou beholdest the deep above the earth, thou oughtest not to say that it is not the gate of God, where God in his holiness dwelleth: No, no, think not so; for the whole holy Trinity, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, dwelleth in the centre under the firmament of heaven, though that very firmament cannot comprehend him.

(76) But no one prevents him (God) from doing what he wants. For who is stronger than him, that he may prevent him? To be sure, it is he who touches the earth, causing it to tremble and also causing the mountains to smoke. (It is) he who has gathered together such a great sea as in a leather bag, and has weighed all the water on his scales. Only the hand of the Lord has created all these things. For this hand of the Father is Christ, and it forms all. Through it, all has come into being, since it became the mother of all. For he is always Son of the Father.

(14) Now therefore we say (as the Scripture informs us) that God dwells in Heaven, and it is the Truth. Now mark, Moses writes, that God created the Heaven out of the Midst of the Waters, and the Scripture says, God dwells in Heaven; therefore we may now observe, that the Water has its Original from the Longing of the eternal Nature after the eternal Light of God; but the eternal Nature is made manifest by the Longing after the Light of God, as is mentioned before; and the Light of God is present every where, and yet remains hidden to Nature; for Nature receives only the Virtue of the Light, and the Virtue is the Heaven wherein the Light of God dwells and is hid, and so shines in the Darkness. The Water is the Materia, or Matter that is generated from the Heaven, and therein stands the third, which again generates a Life, and comprehensible Essence, or Substance, out of itself, viz. the Elements and other Creatures.

(108) For it is written, And it was dark on the deep, and the spirit of God moved on the water. The deep signifieth the innermost birth or geniture; and the darkness signifieth the outermost corrupt birth or geniture, in which the wrath burned. The water signifieth the allaying or mitigation of the spirit.

(2) As the ocean is filled with water flowing into it from all sides and remains immovable, so the man into whom all desires flow, but is not a bit affected attains peace and not the man who craves the desires.

(20) Observe this too, my son; that each one of the other lives inhabiteth one portion of the Cosmos - aquatic creatures water, terrene earth, and aery creatures air; while man doth use all these - earth, water air [and] fire; he seeth Heaven, too, and doth contact it with [his] sense. But God surroundeth all, and permeateth all, for He is energy and power; and it is nothing difficult, my son, to conceive God.

(1) WHEN man beholdeth the deep above the earth he seeth nothing but stars, and clouds of water, and then he thinketh, Sure there must be another place, where the Deity presenteth or sheweth forth itself, together with the heavenly and angelical government: man will needs have the deep, together with its regimen or dominion, severed from the Deity; for there he seeth nothing but stars; and the regimen or dominion between, is fire, air, and water.

(14) But that we may so speak of the Heaven, that the Reader might come to understand what that [Heaven] is which God then created, [consider] what Moses writes of it. God made a Firmament between the Waters, and separated the Waters beneath the Firmament from the Waters above the Firmament, and the Firmament he called Heaven, which is very right; but hitherto it has been very ill understood.

(47) Now that impurity in that heaven is the wrath, but the purity is the word of God, which he once spake, saying [Gen.i. 6.]; Let the water under the firmament be separated from the water above the firmament. And that word stands and is comprised in the firmament of the water, and holdeth captive or fixed the outward water, together with the earth. The Gate of the Deity. Observe here the hidden Mystery of God.

(3) It is by Spirit that all things are governed in the Cosmos, and made quick,—Spirit made subject to the Will of Highest God, as though it were an engine or machine. So far, then, [only] let Him be by us conceived,—as Him who is conceivable by mind alone, who is called Highest God, the Ruler and Director of God Sensible, —of Him who in Himself includes all Space, all Substance, and all Matter, of things producing and begetting, and all whatever is, however great it be. XVII

(14) Do not make the mistake of supposing that the little world you see around you--the Earth, which is a mere grain of dust in the Universe--is the Universe itself. There are millions upon millions of such worlds, and greater. And there are millions of millions of such Universes in existence within the Infinite Mind of THE ALL. And even in our own little solar system there are regions and planes of life far higher than ours, and beings compared to which we earth-bound mortals are as the slimy life-forms that dwell on the ocean's bed when compared to Man. There are beings with powers and attributes higher than Man has ever dreamed of the gods' possessing. And yet these beings were once as you, and still lower--and you will be even as they, and still higher, in time, for such is the Destiny of Man as reported by the Illumined.

(46) For the Door of the Deep to the Light of God appears to thee no more; for thou art now a perfect Creature in the first Principle. And now though thou dost elevate thyself, and wouldst break open the Door of the Deep, yet that cannot be [done;] for thou art a whole Spirit, and not merely in the Will only, wherein the Door of the Deep can be broke open; but thou fliest out aloft over the Kingdom of God, and canst not enter in; and the higher thou fliest, the deeper thou art in the Abyss, and thou seest not God yet, who is so near thee.