Tathwamasi

Starting alphabet in all Indian languages (correct me if I am worng, as far I know) is “Aa” which made me curious to find what is the historic reason to have this identity in many cases, sure I don’t think it is an issue if we start the alphabets with anything else, language is not mathematics which need to follow a sequence in the alphabetic order. Meaning come from the words not from the alphabets, its perfect to have the alphabets in any order you like, but still the similarity exist.


The search definitely yield results, from some of our old mythological text (Bhagavatam) I got a logical answer to this, with my limited knowledge and intelligence let me narrate what I understood.

Let me clarify few things before we get into the importance of “Aa”, this is the base of this whole thought process, the world, and many educated believe that Hinduisam is based on multiple gods/goddesses and devotion to deities (deity, god, divine etc). on the periphery it all looks true and Hindu’s believe in various gods because of some historical reasons, it can be Ram, Shiva, Ganesh, Krishna, Kaali, and the list seems never ending. The reality stay bit different from here in the mythology, they definitely talk about all this and the good things they done for humanity and reason for each of this AVATAR. But “Bhagavatm” give a clear reason for all this and how this comes to existence. “Bhagavatam” get into the details of this and gives a clear definition of god. This definition clearly state that the god has no shape, no interest towards anyone or anything, never sad or happy, nor affected by all the things happen in this world. This definition leads to multiple issues of current hindu beliefs, where the base is on some defined structure of god, that can be ram, Krishna or shiva etc.

The prudent question here is why then all this names come into hindu way of worshipping god, it’s simple to answer, to reach the ultimate which has no shape we need to start with some defined structure, as like in any known field, learning computer programming demand you to start with the flow charts and pseudo codes, but once the programmer mature he will achieve the same or better results without the aid of a flow chart. Same way to understand the ultimate truth we need a stepping stone and all these known gods will try to take you there, to this supreme power which has no shape, nor can be defined or imagined in a way.

If you had the patience to read this much, you can understand the logic of ‘Aa’ as starting alphabet, in bhagavatam, Krishna is considered as the ultimate god or “Brahmam”. Brahmam say that he is the greatest of all great things, so he is “Aa” in alphabet, which means learning a language start with the concept of Brahmam. Then you start acquiring knowledge, this knowledge start with all material things around, which defenitly lead you to enjoy and understand them the way you want, once you attain this knowledge complete, you will start looking for the power which is asking or making you to do all this, this will lead you to a state, where you will realize what you searching for is inside you, or you are that, that is called “Aham Bramhasmi” so the learning for a human being start with ‘Aa” and ends in “Aham Brhmasmi” where you see the “Brahman inside you”. This is called “Tathwamasi” realizing that you and god are same, that’s the final stage you can attain in your life.

Beautiful concept and I am sure I have not narrated it in an exciting way, but this thought or understanding of this basic structure sure gave me lot of insight. So the learning starts from “Aa” and end at “Aham Brahmatsmi”.