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aham brahmasmi

aham brahmasmi - I am brahman 
tat tvam asi   - you are the absolute (tat/brahman)/ Thou art That  

Both these Upanisadic aphorisms seemingly imply that everyone is brahman 
and therefore apparently support the advaita theory.  Consequently, advaitans
almost always cite them to prove that their's is the only theory supported
by sruti and that Vaisnava approches are all based upon smriti, hence 
based upon ignorance. 

Well, I know valiancy is to go beat the enemy in their house, so that is 
what I will do here (by beating here I only mean defeat their philosophy, not 
any physical or verbal abuse). 

Whenever a reference is made to brahman, inherent is the reference to its 
attributes, i.e. sat, cit, and ananda. 

So, aham bramasmi is analogous to saying, "aham sat-cit-ananda"  

Now the fun begins, sat means eternity, ie. no beginning and no end, 
cit means knowledge, and ananda is bliss. 

Both advaitans and others (since there are several schools of people who do 
not subscribe to the advaita philosophy) agree that there is a spirit soul 
in the body and that body itself is just temporary, i.e. not the real self. 

Now, since aham brahmasmi (and consequently "aham sat-cit-ananda") is a 
Vedic aphorism, it must be true for all beings at all time and space. 

So if I say aham brahmasmi and Vidya also says so, we both must be true and 
yes it sounds right, but not for long. Enter "aham sat-cit-ananda", I am 
sat (by "I" here I am refering to my soul) and all other are also sat.  
Still sounds good, yes we are all eternal, enter the concept of moksha 
(liberation) as tought in advaita, the individual sprit merges with the 
Impersonal Brahman, becomes one. Here is trouble. 

I was eternal, but not any more! there is a logical contridiction. Well, 
several questions can be raised and explanations put forward, so I will 
analyse some of those too (btw that Lord Krishna also tells is the Bhagavad 
Gita about the eternal nature of the soul - 'jiva bhuta sanatanah')  

1. aham brahmasmi is true at all time and space but not for every individual 
   jivatma, i.e. it only becomes true after the individual soul merges 
   with the brahman. 

   But that is not true, because that only means that brahman is brahman 
   the jivatmas are not, rather they become brahman after merging into 
   brahman. Obviously this is completly devoid of any logic. 

   How can something become "eternal" (sat)? 

   Eternity (sat) by definition requires that there be no begining to begin 
   with, i.e. that thing must always be. 

2. aham brahmasmi is true for all beings but not at all time and space. ie. 
   they become brahman after liberation.  

   But this is just another way of saying what was said in (1) and the same 
   contridictions apply. In fact, another one joins in, Veda by definition 
   means knowledge and how can it be knowledge if it is not true at all time 
   and space?   

3. aham brahmasmi is always true but the concept of self, be it body or soul, 
   are both false/illusory.  

   But this is only the Buddhist philosophy which is seriously flawed and 
   not supported by Vedanta, some of the flwas in this theory are: 
   If there is no real self, than what is it that reincarnates or takes 
   rebirth and thus causes suffering? If that non-material self is also 
   illusory, than how can it is carried over from one body to the another? 
   If the body itself is the real self, than moksha/nirvan should be 
   automatic at the time of death, i.e. no need for any type of yoga. 

   Moreover, this reduced brahman to merely sunyata!! 

4. aham brahmasmi is always true but the spirit is all one! 

   Now this is completly absurd. It is beyond doubt that the self in me 
   is different than the self in Vidya and the self in so and so. 

   If we are all just one self, than how can one attains liberation and 
   not all at the same time? 

   How can a part of _one_ be suffering and other part of the same whole 
   one be enjoying? 

   bottomline is that this option is completly ludicrous. 

5. aham brahmasmi is not true. 

   Well that is atheism and we here are not (at least I am not) interested in 
   discussing that option. 

So, where does all this leaves us? 

All I have done here is shown that aham brahmasmi is contrary to adavita 
(including brahmavad and mayavad). But since we (people intended to be part 
of this discussion including me) all already accepted to accept the word of 
Vedas and are not open to any option to the contrary. 

Also, if we do not break up aham brahmasmi, than it certainly implies that 
I am brahman and so are others, so the dvaita philosophy(ies) are also out 
of question. 

The only philosophy which resolves this riddle is one that speaks of 
oneness and difference, of that there are two prominant ones, vishstadvaita 
of Sri Ramanuja and acintya bheda-abheda tatta of Sri Chaitanya. 

They resolve the riddle because they tell that aham brahmasmi is always 
true for all beings (souls). They way it is done is that they tell that 
we all have the attributes of sat, cit, and ananda (which is what is required 
to establish that aham brahmasmi is true and thus uphold the Vedic scriptures) 
BUT, we are not brahman in the sense that we are limited and the Absolute is 
unlimited. We are eternal and the Supreme Absolute is eternal. We have 
knowledge and the Supreme has knowledge, however our knowledge is limited
which is why we are in this material world undregoing repeated birth and 
death but the Supreme has complete/infinite knowledge, which is also in 
line with the common experience. and we have limited bliss and the Supreme 
has infinite bliss, which also explains why we are hankering after pleasure 
here and there in temporary mundane things, other embodied souls, etc but 
the Supreme is self-satisfied.  

vishstadvaita, as the name implies is qualified monoism, thus it puts more 
emphaisis on the oneness than on difference. 

acintya bheda-abheda tattva on the other hane begins with "bheda" difference 
and ends with "abheda" nondifference and thus puts more emphaisis on the 
difference. In the language of bheda-abheda, vishstadvaita can be actually 
written as "abheda-bheda tattva". 

Now, if there is difference between us (spirit souls) and the Absolute 
(brahman), even though there may also be oneness in certain sense, common 
sense would tell (the scripture also affirm that) that difference better be 
assigned more important. 

I have developed a metaphor here to explain my point about difference being 
more important than oneness and which is also why we Gaudias Vaisnavas do 
not call dvaita philosophy as wrong rather accept Madhvacharya as one of 
our spiritual teachers which gave the freedom to some of the people (who 
don't know much about this branch of vaisnavism) to fling accusitions at us 
by saying that we are wrong since we try to follow both dvaita and acintya 
bheda-abheda (Shisha Rao and Vidya beging the prominant ones here). 

Consider the case of cats and Lions (Big Cats!) Now both cats and lions 
belong to the same biological family, so there is oneness but they are also 
different (no explanation needed for that!)   

Consider the fate of 4 cats that go in a place which has some lions/tigers, 
one that thinks it is same as the lions, one that thinks it is more similar 
to lion than it is different, one that thinks it is just different, and last 
that thinks it similar but the there is difference and that is more important. 

The last two will be most secure since they know about the difference, the 
second ones is more likely to get into trouble and the first one is in for 
some bid trouble (here btw I assume that the popular myth about lions not 
attacking cats out of professional courtsey is not true).   

Now this is only a metaphor, however I believe there is some similarity it 
has with us, in the sense of our subordinate position to the Supreme even 
though we are qualitatively one with it (aham brahmasmi/aham sat-cit-ananda). 

This metaphor also explains why I believe dvaita (which only speaks of 
difference and thus is incomplete) is still valid although advaita, which 
speaks only of the oneness is wrong. 

For those who only know of the bheda, the Lord will impart them intelligence 
to make their knowledge, but those who only think/know of the oneness, ie. 
think themselves to be the Lord or deny the existence of a seperate Supreme 
on the basis of the superficial understanding of aham brahmasmi, well the 
lions are hungry and the cats are there :-)) 

Lord Krishna explicitly says in the Bhagavad Gita that "those who are 
completly devoted to Me, I destroy their ignorance with the shining lamp 
of knowledge, dweling in their hearts as the supersoul (paramatma)". 

So, the dvaitans are safe but the advaitans are most certainly on the wrong 
track. They have to deal with all the troubles themselves and progress is 
slow and even questionable, given the limited knowledge and strength of an 
infinitestimal individual jivatma. BG 12.5 confirms this. 

        "For those whose minds are attached to the unmanifested, impersonal
         feature of the Supreme, advancement is very troublesome. To make
         progress in that discipline is always very difficult for those who 
         are embodied." 

It is beyond doubt that Lord Chaitanya who is Krishna Himself established 
the most perfect doctrine, acintya bheda-abheda tattva, and I encourage 
anyone to come forward and refute it if they think they can. The explanation 
given for aham brahmasmi also applies for tat tvam asi because "tat" also 
means the Absolute/brahman. 

However, I have already said that their is absolutely no point in trying to 
say/do what Shisha Rao and Vidya did, i.e. falsly claim that Gaudia follow 
both dvaita and acintya bheda-abheda tattva and hence they are wrong. This 
as I said before is based either upon incomplete knowledge of Lord Chaitanya's 
teachings and/or a desire to deride them somehow even if that takes a little 
concocted presentation of facts.  

There are other aphorisms in the Upanisads which speak of the duality more 
explicitly, but aham brahmasmi and tat tvam asi are the two most often 
cited by adavitans, so I only dealt with those here. Vidya and others, the 
bottom line is that sruti speaks of both oneness and difference even in the 
ultimate state and there is absolutely no way that you can resolve that 
with your incomplete philosophy. Even the most straightforward monoistic 
aphorism that you cite I have shown has the difference, by way of the 
eternal nature of spirit souls, built into it. 

Lets see who is willing to talk and accept logic here and where does the 
fudge between logic and dogma comes from. 

Hari Bol! 
Manish
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