By means of our Spirit, our higher Self, we are close to God, we are in God, and it is through Him that we can master our lower self

"By means of our Spirit, our higher Self, we are close to God, we are in God, and it is through Him that we can master our lower self. On high we are already free and in the light, but we must be so here below as well. This relationship between above and below, spirit and matter, has been represented by the symbol of the serpent swallowing its tail. The head of the serpent represents our higher Self and its tail our lower self. By means of this symbol, the initiates intended to say: ‘You are both in God, in the light, and at the same time outside of Him, in the dark.' But head and tail belong to the same creature, to the serpent, so they are not separate. And since the serpent swallows its tail, this means that our spirit, our higher nature, works on our matter, on our lower nature: it seeks to take hold of our matter so that there is no longer any conflict between the two."