The world is unknown, till the value and glory of it is seen: till the beauty and the serviceableness of its parts are considered. When you enter into it, it is an illimited field of variety and beauty: where you may lose yourself in the multitude of wonders and delights.

Centuries of Meditations. First Century, Number 18.
 

A vast and infinite capacity
Did make my bosom like the Deity.

Silence, in The Dobell Poems

I felt no dross nor matter in my soul,
No brims nor borders, such as in a bowl
We see, my essence was capacity.

My Spirit, in The Dobell Poems

The infinity of God is our enjoyment, because it is the region and extent of His dominion. Barely as it comprehends infinite space, it is infinitely delightful; because it is the room and the place of our treasures, the repository of our joys, and the dwelling place, yea the sea and throne and kingdom of our souls. But as it is the light wherein we see, the life that inspires us, the violence of His love, and the strength of our enjoyments, the greatness and perfection of every creature, the amplitude that enlargeth us, and the field wherein our thoughts expatiate without limit and restraint, the ground and foundation of all our satisfactions, the operative energy and power of the Deity, the measure of our delights, and the grandeur of our souls, it is more our treasure, and ought more abundantly to be delighted in. It surroundeth us continually on every side, it fills us, and inspires us, It is so mysterious, that it is wholly within us, and even then it wholly seems, and is, without us. It is more inevitably and constantly, more nearly and immediately, our dwelling place, than our cities and kingdoms and houses. Our bodies themselves are not so much ours, or within us, as that is.

Centuries of Meditations. Fifth Century, Number 2.

Creatures that are able to dart their thoughts into all spaces, can brook no limit or restraint, they are infinitely indebted to this illimited extent, because were there no such infinity, there would be no room for their imaginations; their desires and affections would be cooped up, and their souls imprisoned.

Centuries of Meditations. Fifth Century, Number 3.

Infinity of space is like a painters table, prepared for the ground and field of those colours that are to be laid thereon.

Centuries of Meditations. Fifth Century, Number 5.

But the infinite immovable duration is eternity, the place and duration of all things, even of infinite space itself: the cause and end, the author and beautifier, the life and perfection of all.

Centuries of Meditations. Fifth Century, Number 7.

His omnipresence is an ample territory or field of joys, a transparent temple of infinite lustre, a strong tower of defence, a castle of repose, a bulwark of security, a place of delights, an immediate help, and a present refuge in the needful time of trouble, a broad and a vast extent of fame and glory, a theatre of infinite excellency, an infinite ocean by means whereof every action, word, and thought, is immediately diffused like a drop of wine in a pail of water, and everywhere present, everywhere seen and known, infinitely delighted in, as well as filling infinite spaces.

Centuries of Meditations. Fifth Century, Number 9.

The smallest thing, by the influence of eternity, is made infinite and eternal. We pass through a standing continent or region of ages, that are already before us, glorious and perfect while we come to them.

Centuries of Meditations. Fifth Century, Number 8.

Where do we find peace and rest? Only in abandonment, in the desert and in isolation from all creatures.

Selected German Sermons, Sermon 25.

I declare the good, eternal and everlasting Truth that God must pour himself according to the whole of his capacity into all those who have abandoned themselves to the very ground of their being, and he must do so so completely that he can hold nothing back of all his life, all his being and nature, even of his divinity, which he must pour fully and in a fructifying way into those who have abandoned themselves for God and have taken up the lowest position.

Selected German Sermons, Sermon 7.

Enter your own inner ground therefore and act from there, and all your works shall be living works.

Selected German Sermons, Sermon 10.

The key, then, is to recognize the limitations inherent within dualistic perception, and begin to identify with the larger part of who we are -- i.e., with the essential, fundamental, underlying background of Awareness, which is the field within which all consciousness and multiplicity appear.

Natural Awareness

Who are you? Don't go by formulas. The answer is not in words. The nearest you can say in words is: I am what makes perception possible, the life beyond the experiencer and his experience.

In the Hebrew-Christian tradition the Fall is subsequent to creation and is due exclusively to egocentric use of a free will, which ought to have remained centred in the divine Ground and not in the separate selfhood.

pp 182