I have shown in the previous chapters how the divine body symbol functions in the writings of Teilhard de Chardin and Rāmānuja. It serves, for both, as a metaphor to disclose an apprehension of reality in terms of the divine Person (Christ/the Highest Person). It also becomes an analogical model of an integrated worldview. In other words, the term ‘body’ is extended in its usage to apply to all aspects of reality which together constitute a mode or part of the divine. And since the divine is understood, in both cases, in terms of consciousness, the whole of the material world is presented as being alive and conscious.

The term ‘divine body’ acts as a root-metaphor for both writers to disclose this non-dualistic vision. The world is perceived as part of a divine totality. Rāmānuja and Teilhard both describe how it is to ‘see’ the world in the ‘light’ of the Lord's presence. Clearly, for them this sacred knowledge is experienced as a transformed perception. The symbolic language they employ communicates something of this transformed state of being.

As a model representing a theological ‘map’, the divine body reveals a way of viewing things in terms of relationships: it refers to the inter-related unity of the divine and the cosmos at every conceivable level.