Question : In 'अहं ब्रह्मास्मि‘ 'Aham’ means ego or body ?
Answer :In Sanskrit, aham means 'I' (pronoun). Aham means Self or self , God as the common entity in man and the existence, the intelligence supreme. When we say 'my body' we sure know we are not the body, though it is 'mine'. The faculty / consciousness that 'knows' body as a perceived object is 'I'. The 'body' and 'world' is perceived in 'consciousness' through 'senses'. Again in the same 'consciousness' thought, feelings emotions, memory are perceived as 'objects' Thus there is 'I' who / which knows them as 'objective things perceived in 'consciousness'. Thus 'consciousness' is the common support for anything to be perceived. But this 'consciousness' has a stable support where-from it emerges into body and returns to the same source. As in the case when one is asleep and nothing is perceived by one. We know inherently by instinct : 'I am one'. This oneness is again 'Aham' The ever-unchanging Reality, deathless, birth-less. This Aham is brahma in 'अहं ब्रह्मास्मि' .
In comparison, BrihadAraNyaka upaniShad explains ‘aham’ / अहं as ‘noun’ is the name of The Supreme Reality ‘brahman’
> ‘aham nAma abhavat’
> He (Supreme Self) acquired this name.
According to ‘Skanda-purANa’ the ‘aham’ -pratyAhAra is the short form of all the letters in the ‘matrix’ of Sanskrit alphabet. from ‘a’, ‘A’, ‘i’, ‘I’, ‘u’, ‘U’ ‘Ru’ ‘RU’, onwards ‘k’, ‘kh’...’y’, ‘r’ , ‘l’, ‘v’, ‘sh’, ‘Sh’, ‘s’ and last ‘h’ attached with the suffix ‘m’. So ‘aham’ denotes all the spoken letters. As Supreme Reality is expressed through all and any of them, ‘aham’ became His name.
In Rgveda, Mandala 10, this Single name is denoted as ‘yahvaH’ that became ‘YHVH’ in Hebrew. This is the name that is not to be pronounced . This word also means ‘One who permeates and pervades all and everything.
Aham brahma asmi in Sanskrit means : I AM THAT (Brahman) . I am not what is perceived, but much more, because the perceived does not exist in the absence of 'I'. So 'Totality' (Brahman) is perceived + one who perceives. This Totality is Self.
And ego is but the 'I'-thought. We as consciousness exist even without saying 'I am'. But when we identify this existence with something perceived - like memory, experience, body, feeling, or name, sex, race, nationality, we are 'ego'. We don't have a 'ego' We are ego in that case. But in common parlance we have accepted the notion : I have no ego, small / big ego, ...
'consciousness' is not 'ego', because 'ego' keeps decreasing, increasing, getting hurt or swollen. 'consciousness' stays unaffected. 'I' is even prior to this 'consciousness'.
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Answer :In Sanskrit, aham means 'I' (pronoun). Aham means Self or self , God as the common entity in man and the existence, the intelligence supreme. When we say 'my body' we sure know we are not the body, though it is 'mine'. The faculty / consciousness that 'knows' body as a perceived object is 'I'. The 'body' and 'world' is perceived in 'consciousness' through 'senses'. Again in the same 'consciousness' thought, feelings emotions, memory are perceived as 'objects' Thus there is 'I' who / which knows them as 'objective things perceived in 'consciousness'. Thus 'consciousness' is the common support for anything to be perceived. But this 'consciousness' has a stable support where-from it emerges into body and returns to the same source. As in the case when one is asleep and nothing is perceived by one. We know inherently by instinct : 'I am one'. This oneness is again 'Aham' The ever-unchanging Reality, deathless, birth-less. This Aham is brahma in 'अहं ब्रह्मास्मि' .
In comparison, BrihadAraNyaka upaniShad explains ‘aham’ / अहं as ‘noun’ is the name of The Supreme Reality ‘brahman’
> ‘aham nAma abhavat’
> He (Supreme Self) acquired this name.
According to ‘Skanda-purANa’ the ‘aham’ -pratyAhAra is the short form of all the letters in the ‘matrix’ of Sanskrit alphabet. from ‘a’, ‘A’, ‘i’, ‘I’, ‘u’, ‘U’ ‘Ru’ ‘RU’, onwards ‘k’, ‘kh’...’y’, ‘r’ , ‘l’, ‘v’, ‘sh’, ‘Sh’, ‘s’ and last ‘h’ attached with the suffix ‘m’. So ‘aham’ denotes all the spoken letters. As Supreme Reality is expressed through all and any of them, ‘aham’ became His name.
In Rgveda, Mandala 10, this Single name is denoted as ‘yahvaH’ that became ‘YHVH’ in Hebrew. This is the name that is not to be pronounced . This word also means ‘One who permeates and pervades all and everything.
Aham brahma asmi in Sanskrit means : I AM THAT (Brahman) . I am not what is perceived, but much more, because the perceived does not exist in the absence of 'I'. So 'Totality' (Brahman) is perceived + one who perceives. This Totality is Self.
And ego is but the 'I'-thought. We as consciousness exist even without saying 'I am'. But when we identify this existence with something perceived - like memory, experience, body, feeling, or name, sex, race, nationality, we are 'ego'. We don't have a 'ego' We are ego in that case. But in common parlance we have accepted the notion : I have no ego, small / big ego, ...
'consciousness' is not 'ego', because 'ego' keeps decreasing, increasing, getting hurt or swollen. 'consciousness' stays unaffected. 'I' is even prior to this 'consciousness'.
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