aham brahmAsmi: I am brahma

brahma is the sanskrit word for all that is.

Not all that exists, but all that is.

I am that I am – Yahweh

For example, let’s say the words “purple zebra”.  A purple zebra doesn’t exist, as far as we know, but it IS, because it is in your head right now.

Sort of like a black swan.  A “black swan” was a word/concept used in medieval Europe to describe something that didn’t exist.  Then, when the Europeans went to Australia, lo and behold, there were actual black swans.

So brahma is all that is, whether we know it to presently exist or not.

You can deify brahma if you want, and give it a Personage, so that you would call it Brahma with a capital B, but you don’t have to.  Here, it is “simply” the word for all that is.

Clearly, you are part of brahma. In particular I know at least that I am a part of brahma.

aham means I in sanskrit but you can insert your name here.

The box is dashed because the box, usually reserved for the Universal Set, implies there is something outside of the box, whereas brahma is not just the box on your screen, but your screen, the county it is in, the country, the galaxy, the universe, and perhaps, all universes. So the universal set is porous and hence dashed.

Thus, we have “aham is a subset of brahma.”

Hopefully, that’s not too hard to cognize.

Yoga teaches us what can be a surprising thing:

all of everything is a subset of us.

The kingdom of heaven is within you. – Jesus

As you do to the least of these you do unto me. – Jesus

sarvabhuutastham aatmaaanam sarvabhuutaani caatmaniiksate

He sees the Self in all beings, and all beings in the Self. (Bhagavad Giitaa, 6.29)

So “brahma is a subset of aham.”

If aham is a subset of brahma and brahma is a subset of aham, then the only mathematical conclusion is that aham IS brahma.

We ARE the porous “box” of everything that is. One picture becomes the next.

In sanskrit, this is said by the ancient inestimable phrase:

“aham brahmAsmi”,

which simply means “I am brahma.”

To explain this further I like this quote:

The concept of unity is used to cancel the concept of the many; the concept of self (infinite consciousness) is used to cancel the conceptualisation of unity. [The term “unity” itself implies disparate objects. Ed.] The self can neither be conceived of as existence or non-existence, it is what is. (Vasistha’s Yoga, p. 400)

You are what is.  Truly,

Om tat sat.  (Thou art that.)