(6) The water which thou seest springs not from vein Restored by vapour that the cold condenses, Like to a stream that gains or loses breath; But issues from a fountain safe and certain, Which by the will of God as much regains As it discharges, open on two sides. Upon this side with virtue it descends, Which takes away all memory of sin; On that, of every good deed done restores it. Here Lethe, as upon the other side Eunoe, it is called; and worketh not If first on either side it be not tasted. This every other savour doth transcend; And notwithstanding slaked so far may be Thy thirst, that I reveal to thee no more,

(1) Whither stumble ye, sots, who have sopped up the wine of ignorance and can so far not carry it that ye already even spew it forth? Stay ye, be sober, gaze upwards with the [true] eyes of the heart! And if ye cannot all, yet ye at least who can! For that the ill of ignorance doth pour o`er all the earth and overwhelm the soul that's battened down within the body, preventing it from fetching port within Salvation's harbors.

(4) But of this water it behoves thee drink Before so great a thirst in thee be slaked." Thus said to me the sunshine of mine eyes; And added: "The river and the topazes Going in and out, and the laughing of the herbage, Are of their truth foreshadowing prefaces; Not that these things are difficult in themselves, But the deficiency is on thy side, For yet thou hast not vision so exalted." There is no babe that leaps so suddenly With face towards the milk, if he awake Much later than his usual custom is, As I did, that I might make better mirrors Still of mine eyes, down stooping to the wave Which flows that we therein be better made. And even as the penthouse of mine eyelids Drank of it, it forthwith appeared to me Out of its length to be transformed to round. Then as a folk who have been under masks Seem other than before, if they divest The semblance not their own they disappeared in, Thus into greater pomp were changed for me The flowerets and the sparks, so that I saw Both of the Courts of Heaven made manifest.

(2) Be ye then not carried off by the fierce flood, but using the shore-current , ye who can, make for Salvation's port, and, harboring there, seek ye for one to take you by the hand and lead you unto Gnosis' gates. Where shines clear Light, of every darkness clean; where not a single soul is drunk, but sober all they gaze with their hearts' eyes on Him who willeth to be seen. No ear can hear Him, nor can eye see Him, nor tongue speak of Him, but [only] mind and heart. But first thou must tear off from thee the cloak which thou dost wear - the web of ignorance, the ground of bad, corruption's chain, the carapace of darkness, the living death, sensation's corpse, the tomb thou carriest with thee, the robber in thy house, who through the things he loveth, hateth thee, and through the things he hateth, bears thee malice.

(59) "Prescription. 5 Drops of this Water taken inwardly strengthens the understanding and memory, and opens to us most wonderful and sweet things, of which no man hath heard, and of which I dare not further write, because of the Oath I made God to the contrary. Time and the holy use of this blessed Water will teach us, as soon as you have taken it inwardly such influence will happen to thee as if the whole heavens and all the stars with their powers are working in thee. All Knowledge and secret Arts will be opened to thee as in a dream, but the most excellent of all is, you will perfectly learn rightly to know all creatures in their Nature, and by means thereof, the true understanding of God, the Creator of us, Heaven and Earth, like David and Moses and all the Saints of God, for the wisdom of our fountain of living Water will instruct thee as it did Solomon and the Brethren of our fraternity."

(4) Jesus drank of the water of a limpid rill whose taste was more agreeable than the dew of the rose. One of his companions filled a pitcher from this rill, and they went on their way. Jesus, being thirsty, took a sip of water from the pitcher, but the water was bitter, and he stopped in astonishment and prayed: 'O God, the water of the rill and the water in the pitcher are the same. Tell me why the one is sweeter than honey and the other so bitter?' The pitcher* then spoke, and said to Jesus: 'I am very old, and I have been fashioned over a thousand times under the firmament of the nine cupolas - sometimes as a vase, sometimes as a pitcher, sometimes as a ewer. Whatever form I took I have always had in me the bitterness of death. I am so made that the water I hold will always partake of that bitterness.'

O heedless man! Try to understand the meaning of the pitcher. Strive to discover the mystery before life is taken from you. If while living you fail to find yourself, to know yourself, how will you be able to understand the secret of your existence when you die? You participate in the life of man yet you are only a psuedo man.

(12) 'Tis like water in a vessel, or light through a glass; If they think they come from themselves, they are wrong. When the vessel leaves the fountain, it sees its error; The glass also learns, when the moon sets, When his eyes are opened by the command, "Arise!" Then that disciple smiles a second time, like the dawn. He laughs also at his own previous laughter, When he returns from his long and distant wanderings He says, "Lo! this was the truth, this the secret! To experience joy in that distant valley? What a delusion I was under! what a mistake!

(30) My dear Reader, if you be able, break open all, and look into the Pith, yet you shall not find it, though you should seek in the Deep, in the Stars, in the Elements, in all living Creatures, in Stones, Plants, Trees, and in Metals; also in Heaven and Earth, you Shall not find it. Now you will say, Where then shall I find it? Dear Reader, I cannot so much as lend you the Key that will lead you to it. But I will direct you where you shall find it; it lies in the third Chapter of the Evangelist St. John, in these Words; You must be born anew by Water, and by the Holy Ghost. This Spirit is the Key: When you attain it, receive it, and go before the first Principle, out of which this World and all Creatures are created, and open the first Root, from which such visible and sensible Things did spring.

(1) Comparison of the sensual eye to the The eye of outward sense is as the palm of a hand, The sea itself is one thing, the foam another; Neglect the foam, and regard the sea with your eyes. Waves of foam rise from the sea night and day, We, like boats, are tossed hither and thither, Ah! you who are asleep in the boat of the body, You see the water; behold the Water of waters! Under the water you see there is another Water moving it, Where were Moses and Jesus when that Sun Showered down water on the fields sown with corn?

(11) The pitcher of this body holds the water of life, If you look at the contents you are wise; Know words resemble these bodies, The body's eyes are ever intent on bodies, The soul's eyes on the reasonable soul; Wherefore, in the figures of the words of the Masnavi, The form misleads, but the inner meaning guides. In the Koran it is declared that its parables "Mislead some and guide some." O God! when a spiritual man talks of wine,

(12) Our soul indeed is ill because she dwells in a house of poverty, while matter strikes blows at her eyes, wishing to make her blind. For this reason she pursues the word and applies it to her eyes as a medicine them, casting away [...] thought of a [...] blindness in [...] afterwards, when that one is again in ignorance, he is completely darkened and is material. Thus the soul [...] a word every hour, to apply it to her eyes as a medicine in order that she may see, and her light may conceal the hostile forces that fight with her, and she may make them blind with her light, and enclose them in her presence, and make them fall down in sleeplessness, and she may act boldly with her strength and with her scepter.

A thirsty man discovered a tank of water, but could not drink of it because it was surrounded by a high wall. He took some of the bricks off the top of the wall and cast them over it into the water. The water cried out, "What advantage do you gain by doing this?" He made answer, "The first advantage is this, that I hear your voice; and the second, that the more bricks I pull off the wall, the nearer I approach to you." The moral is, that so long as the wall of the body intervenes, we cannot reach the water of life. The abasement of the body brings men nearer to union with the Deity. Destroy, therefore, the fleshly lusts which war against the soul. Then follows another parable to illustrate the folly of procrastination in this important matter.

(51) To the wise, whose hearts are enlightened, The mere sound of that voice proves its truth." "When you say to a thirsty man, 'Come quickly; This is water in the cup, take and drink it,' Does the thirsty man say, 'This is a vain pretension; Go, remove yourself from me, O vain pretender, Or proceed to give proofs and evidence That this is generic water, and concrete water thereof'? Or when a mother cries to her sucking babe,

(3) And so following, when a man seeth in a bodily or ghostly mirror, or wots by other men’s teaching, whereabouts the foul spot is on his visage, either bodily or ghostly; then at first, and not before, he runneth to the well to wash him. If this spot be any special sin, then is this well Holy Church, and this water confession, with the circumstances. If it be but a blind root and a stirring of sin, then is this well merciful God, and this water prayer, with the circumstances. And thus mayest thou see that no thinking may goodly be gotten in beginners and profiters, without reading or hearing coming before: nor praying without thinking.

(8) But what must we do? How lies the path? How come to vision of the inaccessible Beauty, dwelling as if in consecrated precincts, apart from the common ways where all may see, even the profane?

He that has the strength, let him arise and withdraw into himself, foregoing all that is known by the eyes, turning away for ever from the material beauty that once made his joy. When he perceives those shapes of grace that show in body, let him not pursue: he must know them for copies, vestiges, shadows, and hasten away towards That they tell of. For if anyone follow what is like a beautiful shape playing over water- is there not a myth telling in symbol of such a dupe, how he sank into the depths of the current and was swept away to nothingness? So too, one that is held by material beauty and will not break free shall be precipitated, not in body but in Soul, down to the dark depths loathed of the Intellective-Being, where, blind even in the Lower-World, he shall have commerce only with shadows, there as here.

"Let us flee then to the beloved Fatherland": this is the soundest counsel. But what is this flight? How are we to gain the open sea? For Odysseus is surely a parable to us when he commands the flight from the sorceries of Circe or Calypso- not content to linger for all the pleasure offered to his eyes and all the delight of sense filling his days.

The Fatherland to us is There whence we have come, and There is The Father.

What then is our course, what the manner of our flight? This is not a journey for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to land; nor need you think of coach or ship to carry you away; all this order of things you must set aside and refuse to see: you must close the eyes and call instead upon another vision which is to be waked within you, a vision, the birth-right of all, which few turn to use.

(182) Ho! seek aid of Him, not of another than Him Seek water in the ocean, not in a dried-up channel. On cleansing the inward temple of the heart from self-conceit and reliance on carnal reason. When the body bows in worship, the heart is a temple, And where there is a temple, there bad friends are weeds When a liking for bad friends grows up in you, Flee from them, and avoid converse with them. Root up those weeds, for, if they attain full growth, O beloved, this weed is deviation from the "right way," You crawl crookedly, like infants unable to walk.

(5) The Savior said to them: "I want you to know that all men are born on earth from the foundation of the world until now, being dust, while they have inquired about God, who he is and what he is like, have not found him. Now the wisest among them have speculated from the ordering of the world and (its) movement. But their speculation has not reached the truth. For it is said that the ordering is directed in three ways, by all the philosophers, (and) hence they do not agree. For some of them say about the world that it is directed by itself. Others, that it is providence (that directs it). Others, that it is fate. But it is none of these. Again, of the three voices I have just mentioned, none is close to the truth, and (they are) from man. But I, who came from Infinite Light, I am here - for I know him (Light) - that I might speak to you about the precise nature of the truth. For whatever is from itself is a polluted life; it is self-made. Providence has no wisdom in it. And fate does not discern. But to you it is given to know; and whoever is worthy of knowledge will receive (it), whoever has not been begotten by the sowing of unclean rubbing but by First Who Was Sent, for he is an immortal in the midst of mortal men."

(144) Direct not thy mind to the vast surfaces of the Earth; for the Plant of Truth grows not upon the ground. Nor measure the motions of the Sun, collecting rules, for he is carded by the Eternal Will of the Father,. and not for your sake alone. Dismiss (from your mind) the impetuous course of the Moon, for she moveth always by the power of necessity. The progression of the Stars was not generated for your sake. The wide aërial flight of birds gives no true knowledge nor the dissection of the entrails of victims; they are all mere toys, the basis of mercenary fraud:, flee from these if you would enter the sacred paradise of piety, where Virtue, Wisdom, and Equity are assembled.

(43) And understand by this that he who is in darkness will not be able to see anything unless he receives the light and recovers (his) sight by means of it. Examine yourself (to see) whether you wholly have the light, so that, if you ask about these things, you may understand how you will escape. For many are seeking in darkness, and they grope about, wishing to understand, since there is no light for them.

(29) Leaf 15. The first sentence reads: "The fruit of plants by virtue of the Sun, our Stone." The boy holding the dish is made to say: "Drink here all ye that are athirst. Come unto me, run to the waters. Here drink, without price, and drink your fill. Open your eyes and see the wonders of the earth. They learn, my thirsty twenty and four." Beneath the boy are the words: "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth, and divided the waters from the waters. Bless the waters which are above the Heavens." The circle contains this statement: "The earth without form and void. Out of the stars come the rains." The lower left panel continues the alchemical process, ending with admonition to renounce the misery of worldly existence. Above is a prayer to the Virgin Mary which opens thus: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord be with thee. Blessed thou among women."