In Hinduism, the Atman is the soul, essence, or innermost “Self” of a being, and is ultimately one with Brahman, the divine.[1]
The word Atman is the reflexive pronoun in the Sanskrit language, the language of ancient India. To put that in less technical terms, the word Atman is the Sanskrit equivalent of the English word “self” or “oneself.”[2]
The concept of the Atman is used in Hinduism to explain the continuity of first-person awareness in our lives. In other words, despite all the changes we undergo as people over the course of our lives, and despite all the ways our worldviews change, what remains stable and constant is the sense of an “I” within us that observes all of these changes. I was once a baby, then I was a child, now I am an adult, and someday I will be an old person; I used to think of the world in one way, now I think of it in another way, and someday I will surely think of it in still another way; but across all of these changes, the sense of an I beneath and behind all of that is always and unshakably present.[3]
The Atman is also a key concept in the Hindu view of reincarnation. Just as the Atman is the enduring constant within any one life we live, it also enables continuity between lives. I may have once been an otter, then I was perhaps a tree, now I am a human, and in my next life I could be a spirit or a slug; but one way or another, there’s a single I across all of these different reincarnations.[4]
As that implies, all beings share the same type of Atman. Since the same Atman can be reincarnated as a human, an animal, a plant, or any other kind of being, there isn’t one type of Atman for animals, another for humans, and so on.[5]
But the Atman is not an isolated individual. Instead, it’s a temporary and provisional “individualization” of Brahman, the divine. Hinduism teaches that Brahman is immanent in all things and also transcends all things. Through Brahman, all things are really One. This means that not only do all beings share the same type of Atman – at bottom, they all share the same Atman, the same Self. Each seemingly separate Atman is actually just a different reflection or particularization of the universal and transcendent Atman/Brahman, the single ultimate Self of all things.[6] To have a firsthand realization of the unity of one’s Atman and Brahman is what Hinduism calls moksha, “liberation,” the Hindu term for spiritual enlightenment.[7]
Hinduism’s teachings about the Atman are therefore a prime example of monism in religion – the belief that the divine is all that truly exists.
The Nature of the Atman According to the Upanishads
Let’s explore the Atman in more depth and detail by turning to a collection of poems called the “Upanishads.” The primary group of sacred scriptures in Hinduism is called the “Vedas,” and the Upanishads are the parts of the Vedas that discuss the ultimate nature of reality and spirituality. Thus, there’s no better place to look for the core Hindu worldview than the Upanishads. And we’re particularly in luck here, because the overarching theme of the Upanishads is the understanding of the true nature of the Atman – Self-realization, you could say.[8]
First of all, the Upanishads are clear about what the Atman is not. In our everyday lives, we identify “ourselves” as a particular body, mind, and ego. But the Upanishads proclaim that the true Self is none of these things, and that our identification with them is deluded. The Self is not the everyday “self.” The Atman is immaterial and immortal, so it can’t be the material, mortal body. And the mind – manas in Sanskrit – is too restless and too preoccupied with the things of this world to be the transcendent, perfectly peaceful Atman.[9] Thus the Katha Upanishad declares,
Those who know they are neither body nor mind
But the immemorial Self, the divine
Principle of existence, find the source
Of all joy and live in joy abiding.[10]
Similarly, the ego – Sanskrit ahamkara – is what results from our erroneously identifying the Atman’s first-person awareness with the mind and the body.[11] The Katha Upanishad therefore goes on to say:
In the secret cave of the heart, two are
Seated by life’s fountain. The separate ego
Drinks of the sweet and bitter stuff,
Liking the sweet, disliking the bitter,
While the supreme Self drinks sweet and bitter
Neither liking this nor disliking that.
The ego gropes in darkness, while the Self
Lives in light.[12]
Instead of the body, mind, or ego, then, what is the Atman? The Upanishads answer that it’s simply pure consciousness, devoid of any and all particular contents. In other words, the Atman is not conscious awareness of anything specific – that’s the mind – but instead just the underlying consciousness itself. Thought processes are things that the mind does with consciousness, but consciousness itself isn’t entangled in any thought processes whatsoever. Likewise, the body can only move and sense things because of consciousness, but those movements and sense impressions are secondary things that the body does with consciousness. Etc. As the Aitareya Upanishad puts it,
Who is this Self on whom we meditate?
Is it the Self by which we see, hear, smell, and taste,
Through which we speak in words? Is Self the mind
By which we perceive, direct, understand,
Know, remember, think, will, desire, and love?
These are but servants of the Self, who is
Pure consciousness.[13]
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad agrees: “The Self, pure awareness, shines as the light within the heart, surrounded by the senses. Only seeming to think, seeming to move, the Self neither sleeps nor wakes nor dreams.”[14]
“Pure consciousness” is also how the Upanishads define Brahman, the divine. That, in turn, is how the Upanishads identify the Atman with Brahman. In the words of the Aitareya Upanishad, “Consciousness is the world’s eye. Consciousness is the foundation and the brahman is consciousness.”[15]
Other Upanishads make this identification of the Atman with Brahman even more explicit. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad states simply, “The Self is indeed Brahman.”[16] The Mandukya Upanishad reiterates, “Brahman is all, and the Self is Brahman.”[17]
So, according to the Upanishads, there’s ultimately only one Atman “in here” in you or me, and also “out there” in all the cosmos, a Self that is within everything yet also transcends everything. One of the key articulations of this point in the Upanishads is a passage in the Chandogya Upanishad that has become one of the most famous and frequently-commentated passages in all Hindu literature. The sage Uddalaka is regaling his son Shvetaketu with an account of the highest and most sacred lore there is, and he says:
In the beginning was only Being,
One without a second.
Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos
And entered into everything in it.
There is nothing that does not come from him.
Of everything he is the inmost Self.
He is the truth; he is the Self supreme.
You are that, Shvetaketu; you are that.[18]
Self-realization is thus also the realization of the innermost reality of all things. In Uddalaka’s words,
As by knowing one tool of iron, dear one,
We come to know all things made out of iron:
That they differ only in name and form,
While the stuff of which all are made is iron –
So through that spiritual wisdom, dear one,
We come to know that all of life is one.[19]
To head off a misconception that seems to frequently arise among Western students of Hinduism at this point, this teaching that there’s a single divine Atman within everything is emphatically not “pantheism,” as virtually any philosophically-inclined Hindu will tell you. Pantheism is the idea that the divine is only immanent and not also transcendent. The divine and the world both reduce to each other, such that there’s nothing more to the divine than the world as we usually perceive it. The Upanishads’ message is a fundamentally different one: while the world ultimately reduces to the divine, the divine does not reduce to the world. The divine is infinitely greater than the world. The world as we perceive it on an everyday basis, including the everyday “self,” is not the same as the Atman or Brahman. A radical revolution in our awareness is necessary to truly know that our Atman is Brahman, rather than merely reading about it, and that inner revolution brings us to an understanding that’s wildly incommensurable with our everyday perception of things. Pantheism denies this transcendent aspect of both the divine and Self-realization.[20] The Isha Upanishad makes the Upanishads’ view on this particularly clear:
In dark night live those for whom the Lord
Is transcendent only; in night darker still,
For whom he is immanent only.
But those for whom he is transcendent
And immanent cross the sea of death
With the immanent and enter into
Immortality with the transcendent.[21]
What does it mean to “cross the sea of death” and “enter into immortality?” This is the “radical revolution in our awareness” we spoke of a moment ago. The most widespread term for this experience these days is “spiritual enlightenment.” As we’ve already noted in passing, the specifically Hindu term for enlightenment is moksha, which is Sanskrit for “liberation.”[22]
The Atman that has realized its true nature is “liberated” from this world and will no longer reincarnate after the death of the body. The Katha Upanishad, for example, urges its readers toward moksha by reminding them that
Who sees multiplicity
But not the one indivisible Self
Must wander on and on from death to death.[23]
Liberation from this wandering and death is infinitely blissful. As the Chandogya Upanishad puts it, “One who meditates upon the Self and realizes the Self sees the Self everywhere, and rejoices in the Self. Such a one lives in freedom and is at home wherever he goes. But those who pursue the finite are blind to the Self and live in bondage.”[24]
The Atman in Hindu Philosophy
We’ve seen how the Upanishads teach that the Atman and Brahman are ultimately identical. But in what sense are they identical? There’s a considerable tension in the Upanishads between the notion of the Atman as an individual soul and the notion of a single Atman within all things. If there’s only a single Atman in all beings, why don’t all beings achieve moksha whenever any one being does? But if each of us has a separate Atman, why is moksha an experience of the unity of all things?
The attempt to resolve this tension is what leads the two most historically influential Hindu philosophers, Shankara and Ramanuja, to part ways. Unlike the Upanishads, which are treated as infallible revelation, these philosophies are seen as products of the fallible human mind.[25] But because they’ve helped to shape the views of many Hindus, past and present, on the relation between the Atman and Brahman, it’s relevant and important to consider them here.
Shankara lived sometime during the eighth or ninth century AD.[26] The philosophy he developed is known as Advaita Vedanta. The word Vedanta indicates that his thought is an interpretation of the Upanishads,[27] and the word Advaita means “Monistic” or “Non-dualistic.”[28] Monism or non-dualism is the belief that the divine is all that truly exists, so Shankara emphasizes the Upanishads’ teachings on the Atman as the single soul or Self of all things.
Ramanuja, who lived in the eleventh or twelfth century AD,[29] was inspired by Shankara but also disagreed with him on a number of crucial points. Ramanuja’s philosophy is known as Vishishtadvaita Vedanta. “Vishishtadvaita” is the word Advaita with the adjective vishishta, “qualified,” added to it. So, like Shankara, Ramanuja advocates a monistic perspective, but Ramanuja’s monism is considerably “qualified” and thus not as purely monistic as Shankara’s.[30]
Let’s look at Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita Vedanta first. This philosophy is monistic because it holds that everything is part of Brahman. However, different things are different parts of Brahman, so the distinctions between things are also real and significant in their own right. Each thing has its own Atman that is fundamentally one with Brahman and thus also one with all things through Brahman, but is still a unique Atman within that overarching oneness.[31]
The purpose of each Atman’s existence is to realize its unity with Brahman and to cease to identify with the body, mind, ego, social role, etc. to which that Atman is circumstantially attached.[32] But this oneness is not total, because even in moksha, the Atman remains a specific part of Brahman rather than something seamlessly united with Brahman as a whole.[33] Thus, Ramanuja’s philosophy is a compromise between pure monism and our everyday perceptions of things as different from each other.
Shankara’s position is much more radical. His monism is not “qualified” or attenuated at all. For Shankara, Brahman is the sole absolute reality, and the world as we perceive it on an everyday basis is so far from that absolute reality that it’s basically an illusion called maya. Things are not actually different from each other, but only appear to be so when we’re trapped in the state of ignorance that defines our ordinary lives.[34]
Thus, for Shankara, the notion that each being has its own Atman that undergoes reincarnation and suffering and death is part of the illusion of maya. The ostensible differences between things are like different reflections of the same moon on different waves in the ocean, and just as insubstantial.[35] There is only one Atman, one consciousness, in all things, and that one Atman is utterly identical to the whole of Brahman. Moksha means piercing through the veil of appearances and replacing ignorance with knowledge.[36]
Ramanuja holds that Shankara’s position doesn’t do justice to the world as we perceive it on an everyday basis,[37] but Shankara would counter that since the everyday world is an illusion, appealing to it is ignorant and doesn’t prove anything at all.
Despite how different these two views on the nature of the Atman are, it’s hopefully clear by now how both are good-faith interpretations of the Upanishads that emphasize different aspects of those texts’ teachings. Shankara and Ramanuja were both devoted Hindus, spiritual masters, and brilliant philosophers. Their different views are appropriate for different people with different temperaments. What matters most in these philosophies is that they both point toward moksha, the realization of the oneness of the Atman and Brahman, which is the overarching goal of the Upanishads’ teachings.
References:
[1] Bartley, Christopher. 2015. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas from Original Sources. Bloomsbury. p. 12-13.
[2] Lochtefeld, James G. 2002. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism. Rosen Publishing Group. p. 69-70.
[3] Bartley, Christopher. 2008. Indian Philosophy A-Z. Shri Jainendra Press. p. 31-32.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Biardeau, Madeleine. 2002. Hinduism: The Anthropology of a Civilization. Transl. Richard Nice. Oxford University Press. p. 17.
[6] Bartley, Christopher. 2015. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas from Original Sources. Bloomsbury. p. 12-13.
[7] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 38-39.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Biardeau, Madeleine. 2002. Hinduism: The Anthropology of a Civilization. Transl. Richard Nice. Oxford University Press. p. 79-81.
[10] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Katha Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 77-78.
[11] Bartley, Christopher. 2008. Indian Philosophy A-Z. Shri Jainendra Press. p. 12.
[12] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Katha Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 80.
[13] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Aitareya Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 274.
[14] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 109.
[15] Bartley, Christopher. 2015. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas from Original Sources. Bloomsbury. p. 18.
[16] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 114.
[17] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Mandukya Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 203.
[18] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Chandogya Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 133.
[19] Ibid. p. 132.
[20] Klostermaier, Klaus. 2007. A Survey of Hinduism. State University of New York Press. p. 171-172.
[21] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Isha Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 58-59.
[22] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 65-66.
[23] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Isha Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 85.
[24] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Chandogya Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 140.
[25] Sastry, Trilochan. 2022. The Essentials of Hinduism: An Introduction to All the Sacred Texts. Penguin/Viking Press. p. 78.
[26] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 142.
[27] Ibid. p. 141-142.
[28] Bartley, Christopher. 2015. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas from Original Sources. Bloomsbury. p. 182.
[29] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 144.
[30] Klostermaier, Klaus. 2007. A Survey of Hinduism. State University of New York Press. p. 361.
[31] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 144-145.
[32] Bartley, Christopher. 2008. Indian Philosophy A-Z. Shri Jainendra Press. p. 32.
[33] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 144-145.
[34] Ibid. p. 142-144.
[35] Chatterjee, Satischandra, and Dhirendramohan Datta. 1960. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy. University of Calcutta Press. p. 404.
[36] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 142-144.
[37] Klostermaier, Klaus. 2007. A Survey of Hinduism. State University of New York Press. p. 362-363.