Page "Tat Tvam Asi" Paragraph 12

The Ātman or the innermost core of our self seems to have an individuality of its own.

So, in saying that it is the same as the unqualified Brahman in the Infinite Cosmos, we seem to be identifying two things: one that is unlimited and unconditioned, and one that is limited and conditioned.

Whenever someone says, for instance, that the person B whom you are meeting just now is the same as the person A whom you saw twenty years ago at such and such a place, what is actually meant is not the identity of the dresses of the two personalities of A and B, nor of the features ( those of B may be totally different from A ), but of the essential person behind the names.

So whenever such an identity is talked about we have to throw away certain aspects which are temporarily distinctive or indicative in both and cling on only to those essentials without which they are not what they are.

B and A may have distinct professions, may have different names, may have different attitudes towards you or towards a certain issue, or may have an additional identity, exemplified by, say, having different passports — but still they are the same, is what is being asserted by the statement ' B is the same as A '.