Aham Brahmasmi

Aham Brahmasmi is one of the four great sayings of the Upanishads which are the Indian spiritual texts. lt literally means, I am Brahman which is equivalent to saying, I am God. This saying was made the central theme of Advaita or nondual philosophy by the propounder of the philosophy Adi Sankara. Let us explore this saying a little. The ultimate reality or God is said to be spaceless and timeless by many indian philosophies. It is hard to imagine such a reality. But there is a reasonably close equivalent which is the state of deep sleep. What would have been several hours of sleep is seen as a single moment when we wake up from a really deep sleep. We seem to have dissolved our presence completely and experience no time. Actually there is a state beyond deep sleep which is rarely experienced and Is truly an experience of spacelessness and timelessness. But since many can relate to deep sleep let us use that to understand the concept of Aham Brahmasmi.

Having been brought up in an era of science and technology which one would we accept as real, the state of wakefulness or the state of deep sleep?

The reason we are inclined to think of the state of wakefulness as real is because there is a continuity in our existence and our life experiences are tied together.

Think of it this way. Logic happens when there is change but when there is no change as in the state of deep sleep there is no logic.

In the case of deep sleep logic actually is impossible as there is no change in anything. A reasonable interpretation of this is causes and effects inhere together and hence the changelessness or spacelessness and timelessness of deep sleep.

Even when the sleep is not deep, the dreams do not follow strict logic and are mostly an unconstrained experience. We can interpret this as an experience that does not follow the rules of logic.

So coming to the question of which is a real state, we can say that a freer existence is more real than a constrained one and hence can conclude that the experience of the state of sleep especially that of deep sleep is more real than the state of wakefulness.

We can also conclude that there is something in our self that is able to experience the state of spaceless and timelessness. It is also beyond the physical self because just a physical being will always experience or affected by space and time.

We can reasonably reach the following conclusions.

1. There is a non physical reality to our self

2. It is free and unbounded

3. There is no dual experience in it.

4. It is more real

The above exactly fits the truth Aham Brahmasmi which is, I am really God as propounded by the Vedic spiritual texts and taken as his central theme by Sankara