Tat Tvam Asi

who am iHaving decided to have śraddha, an openmind on the possibility of the declaration by the vēdās that ānanda is our very svarūpa, our very seeking, and having understood and on that basis decided that mokṣa is the parama puruṣārtha of this life, and further having seen that scriptures are the only pramāṇa, means of knowledge, to mokṣa, let us commence our learning of the mahāvākya, the all important equation, one of which is “tat tvam asi”.

For any mathematical statement to be called an equation, we need to have 2 sides which appear to be unequal. For example 5+5 = 5+5 is not an equation whereas 6+4 = 7+3 is an equation. The mahāvākya “tat tvam asi” is an equation which can be mathematically expressed as tat = tvam. Here tat indicates īśvara, God,  and tvam indicates jīva, the individual.  In other words the śruti says īśvara = jīva, or God = Individual. Continue reading