That the sound vibration of the Supreme Lord is identical with the Supreme Lord is a fact. This is confirmed in the Nārada-pañcarātra:
- vyaktaṁ hi bhagavān eva
- sākṣān-nārāyaṇaḥ svayam
- aṣṭākṣara-svarūpena
- mukheṣu parivartate
"When the transcendental sound vibration is practiced by a conditioned soul, the Supreme Lord is present on his tongue." In the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad it is said that when oṁkāra is chanted, whatever is seen as material is seen perfectly as spiritual. In the spiritual world or in spiritual vision there is nothing but oṁkāra, or the one alternate, om. Unfortunately, Śaṅkara has abandoned this chief word, oṁkāra, and has whimsically accepted tat tvam asi as the supreme vibration of the Vedas. By accepting such a secondary word and leaving aside the principal vibration, he has given up a direct interpretation of the scripture in favor of his own indirect interpretation.
Śrīpāda Śaṅkarācārya has unceremoniously obscured the Kṛṣṇa consciousness described in the puruṣa-vedānta-sūtra by manufacturing an indirect interpretation and abandoning the direct interpretation. Unless we take all the statements of Vedānta-sūtra as self-evident, there is no point in studying Vedānta-sūtra. Interpreting the verses of Vedānta-sūtra according to one's own whim is the greatest disservice to the self-evident Vedas.