To immerse yourself in water is to remember that you are mostly water — that the boundary between body and river is one of permission rather than substance. Nasreddin fell into rivers often enough to develop a philosophy of immersion: 'I always come out different,' he said, 'which I suspect is the point.' The practice of returning to water is the practice of returning to the form from which everything came, which is either spiritual or merely chemical, and perhaps both.
Each step builds on the last.