Once, when Vidya ranya was discussing Sadhana with his disciples, the disciple questioned him, ‘Swami, you have always been teaching us to say, ‘Dasoham, Dasoham’, but today you are repeating, ‘Soham, Soham’ and ‘Shivoham, Shivoham’, I am Shiva, I am the Lord’. Does this mean that there has been a change in your devotional practice?’ The Guru replied, ‘Dear children, All along I have been praying ‘Dasoham..... O Lord, I am Your servant, I am Your servant’, but one day Cittachora, the stealer of the heart, came and stole the ‘Daa’. After He entered my heart and carried away the ‘Daa’ from Dasoham, He left me with only the Soham. Then later, He came to me in a dream and told me, ‘To begin with you had to start your Sadhana with Dasoham; but, you have come closer and closer to Me. Now you are very near and very dear to Me. Therefore, you can just repeat Soham, for you and I have become one.’ (DBG, p. 49)

Those people who desire to reach the principle of Brahman, which is the goal supreme, have to start their journey from the stage of Dasoham, as explained before. This first stage on the plan is one in which the devotee considers himself to be the servant or the messenger of God; this is the stage of Dvaita or dualism. Gradually one drops the syllable ‘Daa’ eliminates completely, and remains only with Soham, ‘I am He’, in that process, one enters the stage of Vishishtadvaita, which is the second major step on the spiritual path. Then, if one continues with the practice of Soham, after some time the second syllable of Dasoham, namely, so, will also disappear, and only the Aham will remain. Aham means ‘I’ it is the pure self without any modification or limitation. The journey from Dasoham to Aham is a little like healing process that takes place with a wound; the protective layer of hard skin that forms over the wound eventually falls off by itself as the wound heals. When both the Daa and so covering the pure ‘I’, have fallen off, then you are immersed in the one truth, Aham Aham... I am I. When you declare, ‘I am Brahma, I am God’, it is still Vishishtadvaita, there is still some duality, because there are still ‘two entities, ‘I’ and ‘Brahman’. So, this is still not complete Advaita. At the very beginning, when you say, ‘Dasoham, Dasoham, O Lord, I am Your servant’, the Lord is separate and the servant is separate and their status is clearly different. On the other hand, when you say, ‘I am Brahman’, although there is still a trace of duality, the distinction between them is not one of separate subject and object, but more like seeing the reflection or image of yourself in a mirror. Whenever people are different, when there are many separate entities, then there will also be many different images or reflections. But in the stage of Vishishtadvaita, you see only your own image everywhere, because you are all there is, the one Self, being reflected as many images, just like the one sun is seen as separate images in a number of different water-filled pots. So, in the stage of Vishishtadvaita, you are alone; there is none other. The only thing that still comes between you and the divinity is the mirror. You constantly perceive your own reflection, and so you see yourself as very near and face-to-face with the Lord, always very close-by to His Feet.

But when you perceive only the one God who is all pervasive, then where is the need for the image at all? Can there be a place where He is not? When the entire world is the mansion of the omnipresent Lord, then where should you look to find the door to enter His mansion? If there were a separate street and a separate house, then there would have to be a door, which opens on to the street; but in truth, there is no street at all. When the all-pervasive Lord is everywhere, how can there be any special place where you must seek Him to find Him? No, there is no special place where He resides. Once you realize that He is everywhere at all times, then the true perception of the divinity is not that of an object whose reflection is seen in various places, but the realization that there is only you, the Atma, the one Self, abiding everywhere, present in everything in all its fullness. This all-pervasive perception of the divinity as the One without a second, is called Advaita. There is an extraordinary joy, which you obtain when you immerse yourself in the attitude of Dasoham. You soon become filled with delight from having imbibed the Lord’s sweetness, and you never want to leave that happy state. You come to the conclusion that if ever you were to move on from this feeling of being the servant to the state of ‘I am Brahman’, you would not be able to continue to enjoy the consummate sweetness of the Lord. Sugar does not know its sweetness, you may be concerned that if you were to become one with the sugar you would no longer be able to enjoy its sweetness. Since you partake of the Lord’s sweetness in the Dasoham stage, you may prefer to remain in that servant stage, so that you will always be able to taste the sweetness of the Lord; rather than being one with Him. (DBG, pp. 56-58)

(See – Hanuman)