Man is closer to God than the fishes are to the ocean.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

One day Inayat was praying on the roof of the house,
offering his prayers and he thought to himself that
there had not been an answer yet to all the prayers
he had offered to God and he did not know where God
was to hear his prayers and he could not reconcile
himself to going on praying to the God whom he knew
not. He went fearlessly to his father and said: "I do
not think I will continue my prayers any longer, for it
does not fit in with my reason. I do not know how
I can go on praying to a God I do not know." His
father, taken aback, did not become cross lest he
might turn Inayat's beliefs sour by forcing them
upon him without satisfying his reason and he
was glad on the other hand to see that, although
it was irreverent on the child's part, yet it was
frank, and he knew that the lad really hungered
after Truth and was ready to learn now, what
many could not learn in their whole life.

He said to him: "God is in you and you are in God.
As the bubble is in the ocean and the bubble is
a part of the ocean and yet not separate from
the ocean. For a moment it has appeared as a
bubble, then it will return to that from which
it has risen. So is the relation between man
and God. The Prophet has said that God is
closer to you than the jugular vein, which in
reality means that your own body is farther from
you than God is. If this be rightly interpreted,
it will mean that God is the very depth of your
own being." This moment to Inayat was his very
great initiation, as if a switch had turned in him,
and from that moment onward his whole life
Inayat busied himself, and his whole being
became engaged in witnessing in life what he
knew and believed, by this one great Truth.

The innermost being of man is the real being
of God; man is always linked with God. If he
could only realize it, it is by finding harmony
in his own soul that he finds communion with
God. All meditation and contemplation are
taught with this purpose: to harmonize one's
innermost being with God, so that He is seeing,
hearing, thinking through us, and our being is a
ray of His light. In that way we are even closer
to God than the fishes are to the ocean in which
they have their being.

Many think that spiritual attainment can only
be achieved by great labor. It is not so; labor
is necessary for material attainment, but for
spiritual attainment what one needs is a seeking
soul like that of Moses. Moses falling upon the
ground may be interpreted as the cross, which
means, 'I am not; Thou art.' In order to be,
one must pass through a stage of being nothing.
In Sufi terms this is called Fana, when one thinks,
'I am not what I had always thought myself to
be.' This is the true self-denial, which the Hindus
called Layam, and the Buddhists annihilation. It
is the annihilation of the false self which gives
rise to the true self; once this is done, from that
moment man approaches closer and closer to
God, until he stands face to face with his divine
ideal, with which he can communicate at every
moment of his life.