This that people say, "Worship this god! Worship that god!" - one god after another! All this is his creation indeed! And he himself is all the gods...He is entered in the universe even to our fingernail-tips, like a razor in a razor-case, or fire in firewood. Him those people see not, for as seen he is incomplete. When breathing, he becomes "breath" by name; when speaking "voice"; when seeing, "the eye"; when hearing, "the ear"; when thinking, "mind": these are but the names of his acts. Whoever worships one or another of these - knows not; for he is incomplete as one or another of these.
One should worship with the thought that he is one's self, for therein all these become one. This self is the footprint of that All, for by it one knows the All - just as, verily, by following a footprint one finds cattle that have been lost...One should reverence the self alone as dear - what he holds dear, verily, will not perish...
So whoever worships another divinity than his self, thinking, "He is one, I am another," knows not. He is like a sacrificial animal for the gods. And verily, indeed, as many animals would be of service to a man, so do people serve the gods. And if even one animal is taken away, it is not pleasant. What then, if many? It is therefore not pleasing to the gods that men should know this.
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, circa 800 B.C.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855
I am Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, and I have the power to be born a second time. I am the divine hidden Soul who created the gods and gives sepulchral meals to the denizens of the deep, the place of the dead, and heaven...Hail, lord of the shrine that stands in the center of the earth. He is I, and I am he!
- Egyptian Book of the Dead, On Coming Forth by Day in the Underworld
Whoever drinks from my mouth shall become as I am and I myself will become he, and the hidden things shall be revealed to him...I am the All, the All came forth from me and the All attained to me. Cleave a piece of wood, I am there; lift up the stone and you will find me there.
- The Gospel According to Thomas (Harper & Row, 1959)