Charge of the God #2

In truth certainly and without doubt,
whatever is below is like that which
is above, and whatever is above is like
that which is below, to accomplish
the miracles of One Thing. (1)

Unless you make yourself equal to me, you cannot understand me; like is understood by like. Make yourself grow to immeasurable immensity, outleap all body, outstrip all time, become eternity and you will understand me. Having conceived that nothing is impossible to you, consider yourself immortal and able to understand everything, all art, all learning, the temper of every living thing. Go higher than every height and lower than every depth. Collect in yourself all the sensations of what has been made, of fire and water, dry and wet; be everywhere at once, on land, in the womb, be young, old, dead, beyond death. And when you have understood all these at once - times, places, things, qualities, quantities - then you can understand me. But if you shut your soul in the body and abase it and say, "I understand nothing, I can do nothing; I fear the sea, I cannot go up into heaven; I do not know what I was, I do not know what I will be," then what have you to do with me? While! you are mean and cleave to the body, you can understand none of the things which are beautiful and good. To be ignorant of the divine is the ultimate failing, but to be able to know, to will and to hope is the straight and easy way leading to the good. As you journey, the godd will meet you everywhere and will be seen everywhere, where and when you least expect it, as you lie awake, as you fall asleep, sailing or walking, by night or by day, as you speak or keep silent, for there is nothing that it is not. And do you say, "god is unseen"? Hold your tongue! Who is more visible than god? This is why I made all things: so that through them all you might look on me. This is my goddess, this is my excellence: that I am visible through all things. For nothing seen in the act of understanding, god in the act of creating.

(1) - is from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus as found in "The Western Way" by Caitlin and John Matthews. The remaining material is a revision of the "C! orpus Mermeticum" XI: 20-22 as found in "Hermetica" by Brian P. Copenhaver.