Atman, the self

Atman is the Sanskrit word for the self: the innermost essence of a person, beneath the body, the breath and the mind. In the Upanishads it is the part of you that is aware, and it is described as unborn and undying.

It sits at the centre of Hindu philosophy. Whether such a self exists, and what it is, is also the sharpest point of difference between Hindu, Buddhist and Jain thought.

What does the word atman mean?

In the oldest Vedic hymns, atman can mean breath or life, and it is often linked with an old root meaning to breathe. Over time it came to mean the self, then the deepest self. In ordinary Sanskrit it is also used as a reflexive pronoun, like oneself.

What do the Upanishads teach about atman?

The Upanishads, composed from roughly the seventh century BCE onward, turn the question of the self into their main subject.

In the Chandogya Upanishad, the sage Uddalaka teaches his son Shvetaketu that the subtle essence of all things is the self, ending each lesson with tat tvam asi, you are that. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the sage Yajnavalkya describes the self as neti neti, not this, not this: it cannot be pinned down as any object, because it is what knows every object.

The Katha Upanishad gives the best-known image. The self is the rider in a chariot. The body is the chariot, the intellect the driver, the mind the reins and the senses the horses. The five koshas of the Taittiriya Upanishad make a similar point with layers: the self is the awareness inside all of them.

The Mandukya Upanishad puts the core teaching in three words: ayam atma brahma, this self is brahman. Atman, the self within, is one with brahman, the ground of everything.

How do Hindu schools differ on atman?

The Bhagavad Gita repeats the Upanishads’ claim that the self is not born and does not die when the body dies. The schools of Vedanta then disagreed about how the self relates to brahman.

Samkhya and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras use a different word, purusha, the seer, for pure awareness, and they speak of many such selves.

How do Buddhist and Jain traditions see the self?

Buddhism teaches anatta, not-self. The Buddha examined the body, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness, and found no lasting self in any of them. Liberation, in this view, comes from seeing through the idea of a self, not from finding it.

Jainism does teach a soul, the jiva, but not one universal self. Each jiva is a separate, eternal soul whose natural knowledge and bliss are clouded by karmic matter, and moksha, liberation, is that soul’s release.

How does atman show up in a modern yoga class?

Rarely by name. It appears in the idea of a self beneath your roles and moods, and in the reading of namaste as respect for the person in front of you. In the path of jnana yoga, self-inquiry, the question of who is aware is the practice itself.

A simple version fits any class. During the final rest, notice that you can watch your breath and your thoughts. The tradition points to that watcher and calls it atman.