Once you realise that you are not an individual but a whole universe.

_Aham Brahmasmi is an egoistic phrase.

Tat Tvam Asi(Thou Art That )makes it complete phrase.

That is the notion that is found in the Upaniṣads. In India, when the famale power of the goddess serevived during their period, there female on that the ultimate mystery is found in the mystery of one’s own being but that mystery is deeper than any individual’s thinking can go.

This spiritual experience has been termed Gnosticism, from the Greek gnosis, or knowledge, and it describes this intuitive realization mystery that transcends speech. For that reason, for that reason,the language we use in speaking of religious mystery is that of the metaphor.

Metaphor is the language of myth that remains, as we have observed, a still widely misunderstood term. Even many so-called well-educated people think that “myth” means something that is false that is, a lie or distortion about some person or event.

But that misunderstanding arises, as we know, only when we misread metaphorical language. All of our religious ideas are metaphorical of a mystery. It is vital to recall that if you mistake the denotation of the metaphor for its connotation, you completely lose the message that is contained in the symbol.

God is a symbol. The connotation of the symbol lies beyond all naming, beyond all numeration, beyond all categories of thought. One often asks, “Is God one, or is God many?” These, however, are categories of thought and do not serve well in talking about what is beyond all speech. You are probably familiar with one of my favorite quotations from Heinrich Zimmer, who used to say, “The best things can’t be told. The sec- ond best are misunderstood.” Why are the second best misunderstood? Because they are metaphors that, as we only seem to repeat too often, are misread for their denotation rather than their connotation.

Jesus dies, is resurrected, and goes to Heaven. This metaphor expresses something religiously mysterious. Jesus could not literally have gone Heaven because there is no geographical place to go. Elijah went up into the heavens in a chariot, we are told, but we are not to take this statement as a description of a literal journey. to

These are only spiritual events described in kinds of two metaphor. There seem to be people: Those who think that metaphors are facts and those who know that they are not facts. Those who know the facts and are what we call “atheists,” and those who think they are facts are “religious.” Which group really gets the message?