While the beliefs of the general public about the existence or nonexistence of God are divided into religious and atheist, this Upaniṣad daringly declares that only God truly "is"... that in fact, apart from God, nothing really exists here... that the ṛṣi, he who really sees, will see wherever he looks, whether on the manifest or the unmanifest, nothing but God...

indraṁ mitraṁ varuṇamagnimāhuratho

divyaḥ sa suparṇo garutmān

ekaṁ sadviprā bahudhā vadanti

agniṁ yamaṁ mātariśvānmāhuḥ

"Although God is one, they refer to Him as Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni. They mention Yama, Mātariśvān... the sages call the One God diverse names". Ṛg Veda (1.164.46)

That means that it is clearly established that after all, although we may refer to and address Him in different ways, God is One...

Looking into the unmanifest, you realize Brahman, and if you look into the manifest you realize Bhagavān. When deeply observing into one's own self, Paramatma is realized. You will discover that in essence, all is Divine; that God manifests himself as everything and everyone...

In the Bhagavata Purāṇa (1.2.11) it says:

vadanti tat tattva—vidas

tattvaṁ yaj jñānam advayam

brahmeti paramātmeti

bhagavān iti śabdyate

"The sages and seers, who have realized the Absolute Truth, refer to the non—dual as Brahman, Paramātmā or Bhagavān"... Many are those who fail to understand that the Truth is both manifest and unmanifest. This subject has been the subject of endless disputes for hundreds of years between those who are exclusively devoted to a Personal God or Bhagavān, and the exclusive followers of the unmanifest, the Self or Brahman...

When we touch a clay plate, we are touching clay... Although the clay has been used in order to prepare a plate, a jug, a vase, a pitcher, it remains clay, and in fact there is no substantial difference between clay as a substance and objects made of clay. The raw material has not ceased to be clay just because it has acquired the form of a vase or a jug, or has received a specific name, such as "plate" or "pitcher"...

Although it is presented to us as a vase or any other instrument, in fact the only thing that exists there is... clay...

Similarly, as long as we continue thinking that the experience of a Personal God is in conflict with the Self or the Impersonal Brahman, we only express our ignorance of reality...

Hinduism is an inclusive, pluralistic and universal religion. It recognizes, accepts and embraces the Truth wherever it expresses itself, and does not take in account the cultural package. Its attitude is not and has never been exclusive. The religion Sanātana—dharma embraces within itself so many different attitudes simultaneously, knowing God as the Whole or the Totality...

The variety and diversity we witness in this phenomenal manifested reality are not in conflict with the Whole and its unity. According to this verse, we see that bhakti and jñana are not in conflict, as is mistakenly believed by so many spiritual seekers, but rather that they complement each other. This mantra is a perfect and clear exposition of the synthesis of both yogas, or of a true and authentic integral Bhakti — Vedānta. In spiritual life, far from being in conflict, bhakti and jñana must complement each other. The cultivation of devotion to God in his personal aspect through the process of deity worship, just as all the wisdom of bhakti, is meditation on the aspect of the manifest, which has to be harmoniously included in the process of discovery of the Self.

Devotion without wisdom can easily fall into sectarianism and fanaticism, and wisdom that lacks love, or the mind without the heart, can become mere speculative knowledge of intellectual character. Hinduism is a fusion of religion with philosophy. It is hard to demarcate where one ends and the other begins. Religion without philosophy can decline to cheap religiosity or blind faith, and philosophy bereft of religion can fall into simple meaningless mental speculation...

The message of the Upaniṣad continues to be that of transcending the internal fracture that we project, accepting life just as it is, in both its manifest and unmanifest aspects, and going beyond both the body and the soul as a whole...

Reality is one; however, the mind divides...

Manifest Brahman is nature, our physical body and all that we can experience through our senses. Manifest reality is the objective plane, while the unmanifest refers to the subject that lies behind the phenomenal world. Manifest and unmanifest refer to our own mental and sensory experience of the reality, rather than to the reality itself, they refer rather to a way of perceiving or grasping than to the perceived and grasped. Sambhūti is the world experienced through the relative mind and senses where everything is seen as parts, fragments and pieces, as separate entities and objects, a broken reality. Asambhūti refers to what has not been born, or has not been expressed in the world of the names and forms. It is important to understand that the Upaniṣad tries to lead us to an appreciation of both of them or of the Totality, in which there is no real difference between the two. In fact, manifest and unmanifest are nothing but an illusion, the duality created by the ego. The disappearance of the ego is fusion or yoga... What we perceive as nature, with its changing forms and diverse states, is the one and only eternal, changeless Self.

Sambhūti and asambhūti do not correspond to two different physical states but to different experiences of the soul... reality is the Whole...

The unmanifest consciousness realizes itself in self—manifestation... the unmanifest manifests itself, but not in order to return to the same unmanifest. Rather, it is a return which is a conscious transcendence; to hide and lose itself while expressing and discovering itself. However, the importance of the manifest, namely, the bodies, the mind etc., should not be diminished. These represent very important transition phases in the journey of the soul...