When, therefore, you will have embraced the universal Essence and
will be resting within it, you must not seek anything beyond it.
Otherwise, you will be withdrawing from it; and, directing your
glance on something foreign, you will fail to see what is near you.
If, on the contrary, you seek nothing beyond it, you will be similar
to a universal Essence. How? You will be entirely united to it, you
will not be held back by any of its parts, and you will not even be
saying, "This is what I am!" By forgetting the particular being that
you are, you will be becoming the universal Being. You had, indeed,
already been the universal Essence, but you were something besides;
you were inferior by that very circumstance; because that which you
possessed beyond the universal Essence did not proceed from the
universal Essence, for nothing can be added thereto; but rather had
come from that which is not universal. When you become a determined
being, because you borrow something from non-essence, you cease being
universal. But if you abandon non-essence, you will be increasing
yourself. It is by setting aside all the rest that the universal
Essence may be discovered; for essence does not reveal itself so long
as one remains with the rest. It does not approach you to make you
enjoy its presence; it is you who are straying from it, when it ceases
to be present. Besides, when you stray away, you are not actually
straying away from it, as it continues to be present; you are not
distant from it, but, though being near Essence, you have turned away
from it. Thus even the other divinities, though they be present to many
human beings, often reveal themselves only to some one person, because
he alone is able (or, knows how) to contemplate them. These divinities
(according to Homer),[7] assume many different forms, and haunt the
cities. But it is to the supreme Divinity that all the cities, all the
earth, and all the heavens turn; for the universe subsists by Him, and
in Him. From Him also do all real essences derive their existence;
it is from Him that all depend, even the (universal) Soul, and the
universal Life; it is to His infinite unity that they all turn as to
their goal; a unity which is infinite precisely because it has no
extension.