Appendix 2 - True Nature of the Atman

After patient research and continuous struggle to know the ultimate Truth, the great monistic sages of India realized that the ego or the individual soul is nothing but a changeful receptacle of a subtler substance, which is unchangeable and eternal. They called it the Atman in Sanskrit. There is no word in the English language, which conveys the meaning of this Atman. It is much finer than ego or the living soul of the individual. Atman is the unconditioned reality in man, and the living soul or the individual ego is the subtle covering of it, like the globe that covers the light of a lamp. That Atman is not a part of the universal ego, but it is one with the unconditioned Reality of the universe, which is called in Vedanta the Brahman or the all-pervading Spirit. Sometimes it is called Paramatman, which was translated by Ralph Waldo Emerson as Over-Soul. It is finer than the cosmic Ego or God. It is sexless, neither masculine nor feminine. It is sometimes translated by the Oriental scholars as the Self. But ‘Self’ is a confusing word. Some people mistake it for the Anglo-Saxon self, which acts and progresses, and which is another name for the ego.

According to the non-dualistic on monistic conception of the true nature of man, the Atman or Self, or the spiritual essence of man, is the same as the Brahman, the spiritual essence of the universe. The relation of the true nature of man to God is not longer like that of a creature to the Creator, nor like that of a son to his father, nor like that of a part to the whole, but it is absolute loneliness on the highest spiritual plane. The Atman, or the divine Spirit of man, is, therefore, the same as the absolute divinity of the cosmos. On that highest spiritual plane there is no distinction, no idea of separation, and no idea of creation or projection. All ideas of separateness as well as all differentiations of phenomenal names and forms merge into the absolute ocean of Reality which is unchangeable, eternal, and one without the second. It transcends the limit of nescience or maya, but it saturates or rather pervades with its essence all things of the universe, as the Upanishad says: “ishavasya-midam sarvam”, etc. The essence of the Atman or the Brahman is infinite, as it is not limited by the categories of time, space, and causation. But we generally say or conceive that the external space, nay, every particle of atoms and molecules of the phenomenal world, is covered by the Atman. Some say that phenomena are like the waves in the ocean of the infinite Reality, and the individual souls are like so many bubbles in that ocean of ‘the absolute existence. As a bubble rises on the surface of the ocean, takes a form, lives there, comes near other bubbles, lives in a group for some time, moves in the company of others, changes its size, and goes down again, so the individual soul rises in various forms, passes through the different stages of evolution, and lives there for ever and ever, sometimes as manifested and at other times as unmanifested. And the light of intelligence in the soul or ego is due to the reflection of the Atman or divine Spirit on the mirror of the heart of the ego or soul. Therefore the soul (ego) is called the image or reflection of the Atman or the divine Spirit.

This idea is beautifully expressed in one of the Upanishads: “In the cave of our heart have entered the two—the Atman or the divine Spirit and the individual ego or soul. Dwelling on the highest summit, or in the ether of the heart, the one witnesses the other, while the soul reaps the fruits or rewards of its own works. The wise men and sages describe the one as the light, and the other as the reflection, image, or shadow”. You will notice here what a deep meaning lies at the back of the expression: ‘man is the image of God’. The ancient vedic seers used the same expression in a sense which many of the best philosophers of the Western world have failed to grasp or comprehend. Thus the most ancient monistic sages explained the highest relation of the individual soul to the Atman or divine Spirit, by calling it the reflection or image of the self-effulgent light of the Absolute. But as a reflection cannot exist independent of the light whose reflection it is, so the soul of man cannot exist independent of the Atman. Therefore the true nature of the soul is Atman, the divine and real Spirit which cannot be divided into parts, and which is one absolute source of existence, intelligence and bliss.

Starting from the gross form of the body, when a real and earnest seeker after absolute Truth marches onward toward the Absolute, he passes through all the intermediate stages of faiths or sadhana, dualistic, qualified non-dualistic and monistic or non-dualistic, until he reaches that state of Divine communion, where he realizes the oneness of the soul with the Brahman. Then he declares: ‘I am Brahman, I am He, I am in the sun; in the moon; in stars; I am one with the all-pervading Reality.’ But it can be said in this connection that the idea of communion is inadequate and incorrect according to non-dualistic Vedanta, as in the divine realization of the Brahman, there exists no dual principles of the ego and the Brahman, but the ego or individual soul realizes then the only inexpressible existence of the Brahman which shines as one without the second.