Soham Tattva (The Reality of Self)

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Soham Tattva describes the journey of the seeker of transcendental knowledge. The author of the book tries to share his experience and attempts to describe the transcendental state that is almost impossible to describe with the help of human language, human feelings, and human knowledge. The inexpressible state can only be attained after overcoming the numerous obstacles scattered across the path of Yoga that leads to the knowledge of Self or Atma Jnana. This book provides a glimpse of the different stages a Yogi passes through in his/her transcendental journey and how he/she should differentiate among the different phases that are usually associated with the state of a sentient being or the embodied existence of the Jeeva and reject the unreal states until he/she attains the real state of Brahma. Soham Tattva was originally written in Bengali and was first published in 1910. This is its English Edition.

Paramhangsa Soham Swami (1858-1918) was an Advaitin monk. In his pre-monastic days he was known as Shyamakanta Bandopadhyay. He was famous across the Bengal Presidency in the last two decades of the 19th century for his unusual vocation - wrestling with tigers. At the age of 41, he became an ascetic and realized the Truth of Self in Samadhi. To eradicate superstition and social, religious, and gender-based discriminations, he wrote copiously on Advaita Vedanta or the philosophy of non-dualism.

It is only Brahma, the pure consciousness that by its imagination seems to be displaying the divine play of the universe by assuming infinite forms. It is the ignorant, it is the wise, it is bound, it seeks liberation; it is also the liberated. It is in one form the preceptor, in another form the disciple; in one form the instructor, in another form it is the instructed; in one form it is the author of scriptures, in another form the reader; this is Brahma's game of life. There is hardly any possibility that these edifications will benefit those individuals who are firmly bound by socio-religious habits and emotions. They are only beneficial for those whose social and religious bondage has slackened or those who are desirous to sever those ties and seek liberation.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages