section 12. BRAHMA IS ATMa.--I. Upanishads.--This idealistic conception became more marked when Brahma was identified with the Atma, the subject of individual thought. "The universe is an Idea, my Idea"--this doctrine is constantly preached in detailed expositions and in pithy phrases like the famous "I am Brahma" (aham brahmasmi), "thou art that" (tat tvam asi). Hence all phenomena are known when their substrate Brahma is known as the Self of the knower.

For tat tvam asi see Ch. VI. viii. 7 f.; aham brahmasmi, B.A. I. iv. 10; cf. tad vai tat, "truly this is that," B.A. V. iv., etad vai tat, Kath. IV. 3-6. The most adequate treatment of this theme is B.A. IV. iii.-iv.: the Self is "the Spirit (Purusha)

made of understanding amid the Breaths, the inward light within the heart, that travels abroad, remaining the same, through both worlds," wandering in waking and dreaming through this world, and in deep sleep or death through the world of Brahma; in dreams it builds up a fairy world from the materials of waking thought; in dreamless sleep it is merged in the "understanding self," prajna atma, viz. Brahma as universal subject of thought, without consciousness of objects distinct from itself (cf. section section 11, 15,18). Atma is pure consciousness, Kau. III f.; as a purely intellectual force pervading all being, it is compared to salt dissolved in water, B.A. II. iv. 12, Ch. VI. xiii. Atma known, all is known, Ch. VI. i. f.; the later view of it as impassive spectator of the subjects, objects, and activity of finite thought, Pra. VI. 5, S'vet. VI. 11, Sarvopanishatsara, etc.

Ch. VIII. i. f. lays special emphasis on the presence of the whole macrocosm, the universal Self, in the heart of man, and hence on the absolute freedom of him who knows the Self within him. The whole world of cognitions exists for us only in so far as it enters into the range of our egoity; our pleasures are only for the satisfaction of our Self, which is the All; this recognition unites our soul with the universe and gives us control of all things from their source, B.A. II. iv., IV. v. The final reality of cognition is infinitude, bhuma,

illimitable ideation, on realising which the soul wins absolute freedom, Ch. VII. xxiii. f.