आत्मन्
Atman
ātman
In simple words
Atman is the word for your deepest self: the one who is aware of your body, thoughts and feelings, but is not simply any of them. Many Indian traditions say that knowing this Self clearly is the key to freedom.
What is it?
In the Upanishads, atman names the conscious core of a person, distinct from the changing body and mind. Traditions agree it is the subject of experience but disagree about everything else: whether there is one Self or many, whether it is identical with Brahman (the ultimate reality), whether it acts or only witnesses, and whether it has qualities. Buddhist schools, by contrast, deny that any such permanent self can be found.
Scholar’s note
The term moves from 'breath' or 'self' (reflexive pronoun) in Vedic usage to a metaphysical principle in the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads. Key debates: Advaita's identity of atman and Brahman versus Vishishtadvaita's body–soul (sharira–sharirin) relation and Dvaita's real difference; Nyaya-Vaisheshika's atman as a substance whose consciousness is an adventitious quality; Sankhya-Yoga's plurality of purushas; Jain jiva as intrinsically conscious and size-variable; Buddhist anatman critiques (e.g. the Pudgalavada controversy within Buddhism).How its meaning differs
The Self is pure, non-dual consciousness, identical with Brahman. Individuality belongs to the adjuncts (upadhi) of body and mind, which are superimposed on it through ignorance.
Each self (jivatman) is real, eternal and distinct, yet exists as a mode of Brahman, who is its inner controller. The self is a knower whose knowledge expands fully in liberation.
Selves are eternally many and eternally distinct from God and from one another; each is a reflection-like dependent (pratibimba) of Vishnu with its own intrinsic nature.
What Upanishadic language calls the Self is here purusha: pure witnessing consciousness, inactive and plural, one per being, wholly separate from matter (prakriti).
The self is an eternal, all-pervading substance; consciousness, desire and effort are qualities it acquires when joined with a mind and body, and they cease in liberation.
The soul (jiva) is inherently conscious, blissful and energetic, but its innate qualities are obscured by karmic matter clinging to it; each soul is distinct.
The Buddhist schools reject a permanent self (anatman): what we call a person is a changing stream of physical and mental processes, and grasping at a self is a root of suffering.
In the Bhagavad Gita — as Sadhak Sanjivani explains it
Summary based on Sadhak Sanjivaniसाधक-संजीवनीपर आधारित सारSwamiji explains that the Gita's teaching begins with the distinction between the body and the one who has the body (2.11). The body passes through childhood, youth and old age and then another body is taken, but the self stays the same through all of it (2.13, 2.22). It is never born and never dies, and it is not killed when the body is killed (2.20). He says our nature and the body's nature are completely different: we are not stuck to the body, so nothing of ours is lost when it goes (2.20). The self is an eternal part of God; it becomes a 'jiva' only by taking the body, senses and mind as its own (15.7). Even while it seems to dwell in the body, it neither acts nor is touched by action (13.31).
स्वामीजी बताते हैं कि गीताका उपदेश शरीर और शरीरीके भेदसे आरम्भ होता है (२।११)। शरीरमें बालकपन, जवानी और बुढ़ापा आता है, फिर दूसरा शरीर मिलता है, पर स्वयं इन सबमें वही रहता है (२।१३, २।२२)। यह न जन्मता है, न मरता है; शरीरके मारे जानेपर भी यह नहीं मरता (२।२०)। हमारा और शरीरका स्वभाव बिलकुल अलग है — हम शरीरसे चिपके हुए नहीं हैं, इसलिये शरीर न रहनेपर हमारा कुछ नहीं बिगड़ता (२।२०)। आत्मा परमात्माका सनातन अंश है; शरीर, इन्द्रियों और मनको अपना माननेसे ही वह 'जीव' बना है (१५।७)। शरीरमें रहता हुआ भी यह न करता है, न लिप्त होता है (१३।३१)।
हमारा (स्वयंका) और शरीरका स्वभाव बिलकुल अलग-अलग है। हम शरीरके साथ चिपके हुए नहीं हैं, शरीरसे मिले हुए नहीं हैं।Where it appears in the Gita
You grieve for what does not deserve grief
शोक न करनेयोग्यका शोक
अशोच्यानन्वशोचस्त्वं प्रज्ञावादांश्च भाषसे।
You grieve for those not worth grieving over while speaking learned words; the wise grieve neither for the dead nor for the living.
तुम अशोच्यका शोक करते हो और पण्डिताईकी बातें कहते हो; पण्डित मृत या जीवित किसीके लिये शोक नहीं करते।
2.13Like childhood, youth and age — so is a new body
जैसे बचपन, जवानी, बुढ़ापा—वैसे ही दूसरा शरीर
देहिनोऽस्मिन्यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा।
As the embodied one passes through childhood, youth and old age in this body, so it passes to another body; the steady one is not deluded by this.
जैसे इस शरीरमें बालकपन, जवानी और वृद्धावस्था होती है, वैसे ही दूसरे शरीरकी प्राप्ति होती है; धीर मनुष्य इसमें मोहित नहीं होता।
2.16The unreal has no being; the real never ceases
असत्की सत्ता नहीं, सत्का अभाव नहीं
नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सत:।
The unreal has no existence and the real never ceases to be; the seers of truth have seen the essence of both.
असत्का भाव विद्यमान नहीं और सत्का अभाव विद्यमान नहीं; तत्त्वदर्शी महापुरुषोंने दोनोंका तत्त्व अनुभव किया है।
2.20Never born, never dying — the Self is free of all six changes
न जन्म, न मृत्यु—शरीरी छहों विकारोंसे रहित
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूय:।
The Self is never born and never dies; unborn, eternal, changeless and ancient, it is not slain when the body is slain.
यह शरीरी न कभी जन्मता है, न मरता है; यह अज, नित्य, शाश्वत और पुराण है, शरीरके मारे जानेपर भी नहीं मारा जाता।
2.22As one changes worn-out clothes, the embodied changes bodies
जैसे पुराने कपड़े बदलते हैं, वैसे देही शरीर बदलता है
वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि।
Just as a person discards old clothes and puts on new ones, the embodied one leaves worn-out bodies and enters new ones.
जैसे मनुष्य पुराने कपड़े छोड़कर नये धारण कर लेता है, ऐसे ही देही पुराने शरीर छोड़कर नये शरीरोंमें चला जाता है।
13.31अनादित्वान्निर्गुणत्वात्परमात्मायमव्यय: ।
हे कुन्तीनन्दन! यह (पुरुष स्वयं) अनादि होनेसे (और) गुणोंसे रहित होनेसे अविनाशी परमात्मस्वरूप ही है। यह शरीरमें रहता हुआ भी न करता है (और) न लिप्त होता है।
15.7The soul is My own eternal part
जीव मेरा ही सनातन अंश है
ममैवांशो जीवलोके जीवभूत: सनातन:।
The self that has become the jiva is My eternal part, yet it draws to itself the mind and senses, which belong to prakriti.
जीव बना हुआ आत्मा मेरा ही सनातन अंश है; पर वह प्रकृतिमें स्थित मन और इन्द्रियोंको अपना मान लेता है।
Where else it appears
Follow this idea
Trace the idea from one source to the next.
- 1Textकठोपनिषद्Katha UpanishadNachiketa's questions to Death set out the Self as unborn and undying — one of the earliest sustained teachings.
- 2Gita verseBhagavad Gita 2.20The Gita restates the teaching: the Self is not born and does not die when the body dies.
- 3Traditionअद्वैत वेदान्तAdvaita VedantaAdvaita reads these texts as teaching the identity of the Self with Brahman.
- 4TextविवेकचूडामणिVivekachudamaniA classic Advaita manual (traditionally attributed to Shankara) on discriminating the Self from the not-self.
- 5Thinkerरमण महर्षिRamana MaharshiA modern teacher who made the direct question 'Who am I?' the central practice.
- 6Conceptअनात्मन्Anatta (Anatman)For contrast: the Buddhist teaching that no permanent self is to be found at all.
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