Sacred Text · The Upanishads

I am Brahman (Aham Brahmasmi)

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad I.4.10 · SBE vol. XV · F. Max Müller

“Verily in the beginning this was Brahman, that Brahman knew (its) Self only, saying, 'I am Brahman.' From it all this sprang. Thus, whatever Deva was awakened (so as to know Brahman), he indeed became that (Brahman); and the same with Rishis and men. The Rishi Vamadeva saw and understood it, singing, 'I was Manu (moon), I was the sun.' Therefore now also he who thus knows that he is Brahman, becomes all this, and even the Devas cannot prevent it, for he himself is their Self.”
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad I.4.10 · F. Max Muller, SBE vol. XV

Translation: F. Max Müller, The Upanishads, Sacred Books of the East, Part I (vol. I, 1879) and Part II (vol. XV, 1884), public domain (Müller died 1900), via the Internet Archive (items upanishads00mlgoog and upanishads02mlgoog). Reproduced in context; Müller’s round-bracket insertions are his own clarifying additions, and optical-scanning artefacts were corrected against his printed wording. The key passages Chandogya VI.8-16 (Tat tvam asi, ‘that art thou’), the Isha opening, Brihadaranyaka I.4.10 (Aham Brahmasmi, ‘I am Brahman’) and IV.5.15 (neti neti), and Katha I.2.18-20 on the immortal Self were validated against the source before publishing. References follow the standard Upanishad numbering.

Christian comparison

How this connects to Jesus

Aham Brahmasmi, ‘I am Brahman’: this is the boldest saying of the Upanishads, that in knowing the Self one knows oneself to be one with the ground of all being. The Gospel makes an equally startling claim, but locates it in one Person, not in every self. Only Jesus could say, I and the Father are one (John 10:30), and before Abraham was, I am (John 8:58). For the rest of us, the Gospel offers not the discovery that we were always God, but the gift of being joined to God through Christ, adopted as beloved children of the Father (Galatians 4:4-7).

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