सोऽहम is a compound word made from सः (he) and अहम् (I). Such a simple word, but the meaning of this word is the essence of all Vedic thought. He is I – I am He.
Soham is an अजप मंत्र (Ajāpa Mantra) – a mantra that doesn’t have to be pronounced. Swami Satyananda Saraswati said, “When the name is uttered from the mouth, it is called japa; when it is uttered from the heart, it is called ajapa.” Japa also refers to conscious chanting of a mantra, and when the mantra is in sync with the breath and meditation, the mantra flows without exertion.
Some call this the greatest of all Mantras. Remove the S and the H, and you get ॐ (Om) – and so Soham is a modified version of Om, tailored for practice 21,600 times a day, without any effort from your side. We are born performing this meditation, and will die performing this mediation. If you notice carefully, “So” is the sound of the natural incoming breath, and “Hum” is the sound of the natural outgoing breath. So you practice this mediation even when sleeping!
सोऽहम (Soham), तत्त्वमसि (Tat Tvam Asi), अहम् ब्रह्मास्मि (Ahaṁ Brahmāsmi) , शिवोऽहम् शिवोऽहम् (Shivōham Shivōham) – and many other such Vedic mantras all emphasise the same fact. We are drops of water from the same ocean, not separate, not distinct – and just as water drops from the ocean are as salty, we carry within us the same characteristics of the universal consciousness – the same divinity. And when we are done, when it is time to go back, we return to the ocean, our identities merged into those ocean waters, that universal consciousness, no single drop distinct or separate from the whole…
पूषन्नेकर्षे यमसूर्य प्राजापत्य
व्यूह रश्मीन् समूह ।
तेजो यत्ते रूपं कल्याणतमं तत्ते पश्यामि
योऽसावसौ पुरुषः सोऽहमस्मि ॥
pūṣannekarṣe yamasūrya prājāpatya
vyūha raśmīn samūha |
tejo yatte rūpaṃ kalyāṇatamaṃ tatte paśyāmi
yo’sāvasau puruṣaḥ so’hamasmi ||
Iśa Upaniśad Mantra 16
O, Nourisher, O lonely Courser
of the heavens, O Regulator,
O Sun, thou offspring of Prajapati,
Remove Thy rays, gather up thy effulgence,
So that I may see that which is
Thy most auspicious effulgence.
The Person that is in Thee, That am I.
I came to know that onion and garlic are the same.
If a man fry onion he will have no tasty dish.
If a man fry garlic, let him not eat a scrap thereof.
Therefore found I the flavor of Soham.
(Lalla Vakyani 90)