Let us examine some familiar religious imagery. One of the great themes in both Judaism and Christianity is the End of the World. What is the meaning of the End of the World? The denotation is that there is going to be a terrific cosmic calamity and the physical world is going to end. That, as we know, is the denotation. What is the connotation of the End of the World? In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 13, Jesus tells about the End of the World. He describes it as a terrible, terrible time with fire and brimstone devouring the earth. He says, “Better not to be alive at that time.” He also says, “This generation will not pass away, but these things will have come to pass.” These things did not, however, come to pass. And the Church, which interprets everything concretely, taking the denotation instead of the connotation as the term of the message, said that, no, this did not come to pass but it is going to come to pass, because what Jesus meant by generation is the generation of Man.

Now in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, part of the great mid century discovery of ancient texts, Jesus says, “The Kingdom will not come by expectation. The Kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it.” Not seeing it, we live in the world as though it were not the Kingdom. Seeing the Kingdom-that is the End of the World. The connotation is transcendent of the denotation. You are not to interpret the phrase, “the End of the World” concretely. Jesus used the same kind of vocabulary that Eastern gurus use. In their full-fledged teaching mode they speak as though they were themselves what they are speaking about; that is to say, they have in their minds identified themselves with a mode of consciousness that then speaks through them. So when Jesus says, “I am the all,” he means: “I have identified myself with the all.” That is what he means when he says, in the Gospel of Thomas, “Split the stick, you will find me there.” This does not refer to the one who is talking to you, not to that physical body; it refers instead to that which he indeed, in fact,are. Thou art that(Tat Tvam Asi).