For those of you who took the course in Indian philosophy in the previous term, you recall the late Vedic idea that atman (ātman), the individual soul) is considered equivalent to brahman, the entire divine cosmos.
During meditation and devotional worship—through a sādhana or spiritual practice—one comes to an inner realization that ātman and brahman are actually one.
The individual ātman is seen as being the same as brahman, which is the entire universe.