Religions hold that God is other.
Maharishi teaches, in the tradition of the Ancient Vedic Masters, that God is your Self.
Atma is the Sanskrit word for Self.
Atma is the Field of the Absolute That underlies the created world.
Atma is never changing;
It is unmanifest and unbounded;
It is eternal.
The relative field of Creation, on the other hand, is always changing;
It is manifest with phenomenal appearances;
It is bounded by space, time and causation.
We experience our relative world with the consciousness of the relative field;
The consciousness of waking, dreaming or sleeping.
The consciousness of the relative field cannot experience God.
Your Self, That is Divine Being, is hidden and covered by all the activity in the world;
And by all the thoughts of your mind.
In order to experience Universal God That is your Self, you must transcend the relative field.
If you have a Meditation Practice that allows you to transcend, then you go beyond the relative field:
Then the Consciousness of Divine Being, of Universal God, is the experience.
It is the experience of your Self, revealing ItSelf to ItSelf by ItSelf.
That experience of God transforms your mind and your physiology.
When you have a dedicated practice where you transcend regularly and repeatedly, then in time, your mind and your physiology rise to That status of Self;
Rise to That status of Universal God.
You know your Self to be completely separate from all the activity here in the relative field.
You know your Self as Divine Being, as Universal God.
This is the first stage of Enlightenment.
Now the experience of God is lived alongside the experience of the relative field.
The Consciousness of Divine Being is held simultaneously with the consciousness of the relative field.
God is not other.
God is your Self.