One level above symbolism is personification.

1. In symbolism, an object or person represents an idea.
2. In personification, an object has the attributes of a person -- the individuality and consciousness.

Personification is written as though a soul inhabits the object and expresses through it. Human life itself is a personification; the human body is the "object" through which the spirit lives in this world.

With this poetic device, we can express the experience of being the wind, for example. Ordinarily, we would feel the wind blow against us; now we feel the caress from the other side, the other perspective. We can know it from the inside out.

Paul Twitchell said in Eckankar: The Key To Secret Worlds, "Generally speaking, we know a thing mentally by looking at it, by comparing it with other things then by analyzing and defining it. We can know a thing spiritually by becoming it." (Copyright 1969 by Paul Twitchell.)

Such is personification.