Atman: Meaning of the True Self in Yoga and Hinduism

Atman (Sanskrit: आत्मन्, ātman) means "self". In Hindu philosophy it is the true self: the awareness in you that stays the same while your body, thoughts and moods change. The Upanishads teach that this inner self is one with Brahman, the ground of everything that exists. How close that oneness is depends on the school you ask.

What does atman mean?

In everyday Sanskrit, ātman is the ordinary word for "oneself". It works like the English reflexive: "he saw himself" uses a form of atman. In philosophy the same word points further in. Ask what is left when you take away your name, your body, your job and your thoughts. The answer the Upanishads give is atman: the one who is aware of all of those things.

A few traits come up again and again in the texts:

• It is the witness. Atman is what sees. It is never the thing seen, so it cannot be found the way you find an object.
• It does not change. Childhood, old age, sleep and waking pass through it. The Bhagavad Gita (2.20) says the self is not born and does not die.
• It is the same in every being. In most Hindu schools there is atman in every living creature, human or not.

Atman is usually translated as "self" or "soul". "Self" is closer. "Soul" carries Christian ideas of a personal soul that is judged, and atman in Vedanta is closer to pure awareness than to a personality.

Where the word comes from

The oldest meaning of atman is breath. Linguists trace it to an Indo-European root for breathing, the same one behind the German Atem (breath) and atmen (to breathe). In the Rigveda, the earliest Sanskrit text, the word shows up as breath, the life in a body, and the body itself.

Over the following centuries the meaning moved inward: from the breath that keeps you alive, to the life inside you, to the self behind it all. By the time of the early Upanishads, roughly 800-300 BCE, atman had become the central question. The Katha Upanishad compares the body to a chariot, the senses to the horses and the mind to the reins. Atman is the passenger. It is not the one pulling.

Atman and Brahman

Brahman is the reality behind the whole universe. Atman is that reality as it is found inside you. The Upanishads sum up the link in four short sayings, later called the mahavakyas, the "great sayings":

• Tat tvam asi: "You are that" (Chandogya Upanishad). A father, Uddalaka, teaches his son Shvetaketu that the subtle essence of everything is also his own self.
• Aham brahmasmi: "I am Brahman" (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad).
• Ayam atma brahma: "This self is Brahman" (Mandukya Upanishad).
• Prajnanam brahma: "Consciousness is Brahman" (Aitareya Upanishad).

Do not mix up Brahman with Brahma, the creator god. Brahman is not a god with a face or a story. It is the ground that gods, people and stones all share.

Three ways to read "atman is Brahman"

This is where the Hindu schools part ways, and it is the main thing to know if you read about atman in more than one book.

• Advaita Vedanta (non-dual), taught by Shankara around the 8th century CE: atman and Brahman are identical. The sense of being a separate person is a mistake of perception, called avidya, ignorance. Liberation is seeing through the mistake.
• Vishishtadvaita (qualified non-dual), taught by Ramanuja in the 11th-12th century: each atman is real and individual, and it lives inside Brahman the way a body belongs to the one who lives in it. One, but with real parts.
• Dvaita (dual), taught by Madhva in the 13th century: atman and Brahman are eternally distinct. The self depends completely on God and never becomes God.

Most English writing about atman, and most yoga studios, use the Advaita reading without saying so. It is one reading. Millions of Hindus follow the other two.

Atman in yoga

If you practise yoga, you may expect the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali to be about atman. The word does appear, a few times. Sutra 2.5 defines ignorance as mistaking what is not the self for the self. Sutra 2.41 says a clear, settled mind becomes fit to see the self.

But Patanjali's main word for the self is purusha, and his philosophy is not Vedanta. It follows Samkhya, a dualist system with two principles: purusha, pure awareness, and prakriti, everything that changes, including body and mind. There are many purushas, one for each being, and there is no single Brahman they merge into. The goal Patanjali calls kaivalya means "aloneness": awareness standing apart from the mind, resting in its own nature (Sutra 4.34).

So yoga classes often blend two traditions: Patanjali's methods and the Upanishads' language of one universal self. The blend is old. The Bhagavad Gita already mixes Samkhya, yoga and Vedanta. It helps to know which text you are quoting.

The idea also turns up on the mat in small ways. The greeting namaste is often explained as bowing to the atman in the other person. Svadhyaya, self-study, one of the five niyamas, includes the study of texts that point to the self.

How atman is practised

In Vedanta you do not gain atman. You already are it. The practice is removing what hides it. Three methods come up most often:

1. Neti neti, "not this, not this". From the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Sit still and notice a sensation in your knee. Is that you? Not this. A thought about dinner? Not this. You keep setting aside what can be observed until only the observing is left.
2. Self-inquiry. The 20th-century teacher Ramana Maharshi taught one question: "Who am I?" When a thought comes, ask who it comes to. Then look for that "I" instead of answering in words.
3. Witness meditation. Sit, breathe and watch body, breath and thoughts as they come and go, without following them. The beginner's guide to meditation covers how to sit and where to start.

Asana and breath work support this in the yoga tradition by steadying body and mind, the way the 8 limbs of yoga build from posture to meditation. Twenty minutes on the mat will not show you the atman. It can make it easier to sit still afterwards.

Atman and anatta: the Buddhist view

The Buddha taught anatta (Sanskrit anatman), "not-self". Look at the body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness, he said, and you find nothing permanent in any of them, so none of them can be a lasting self. Clinging to them as "me" is a root of duhkha, suffering.

Did he reject atman outright? Here the sources disagree. The Theravada tradition and most scholars read anatta as a flat denial of any permanent self. Other scholars point out that when a wanderer asked the Buddha directly whether there is a self, he stayed silent, and they argue he set the question aside rather than answering no. Either way, Buddhist teaching and the Upanishads draw opposite conclusions from a similar practice: watching what changes.

Where the sources disagree

A short map, so you can recognise which view a book or teacher is taking:

• Atman and Brahman are one (Advaita, and most yoga studios) versus distinct (Dvaita) or one with real parts (Vishishtadvaita). It depends on the school, and no single view is "the Hindu view".
• Yoga is about atman (common in modern teaching) versus Patanjali is about purusha (Samkhya scholars). Both hold if you mean different texts. The Yoga Sutras are dualist. The Gita and later Hatha texts blend in Vedanta.
• The Buddha denied the self versus he left the question open. A live scholarly debate, with texts cited on both sides.
• Atman means soul. A usable translation, but it brings in a personal soul that Vedanta does not mean. "Self" is safer.

If you want to read the texts with a teacher, our yoga philosophy classes go through them one idea at a time, and 50 Sanskrit yoga terms covers the words that come up on the way.

Frequently asked questions

What is the concept of atman?

Atman is the true self in Hindu philosophy: the unchanging awareness behind your body, thoughts and feelings. The Upanishads teach that it is one with Brahman, the reality behind the universe, and that knowing this leads to liberation, moksha.

What is the difference between atman and Brahman?

Atman is the self inside a being. Brahman is the reality behind everything. In Advaita Vedanta they are the same thing seen from two sides. In Dvaita they are eternally separate, and in Vishishtadvaita the atman is a real part of Brahman.

Did Buddha reject atman?

The Buddha taught anatta, not-self: nothing in body or mind is a permanent self. Most traditions read that as a rejection of atman. Some scholars argue he refused to answer whether a self exists at all, and set the question aside instead.

What are the three types of atman?

There is no single classical list. Some teachers speak of jivatman, the individual self, and paramatman, the supreme self. Vedanta also describes three bodies that cover the atman: the physical, the subtle and the causal body.

Is atman the same as the soul?

Close, but not the same. "Soul" in English usually means a personal soul with a character. Atman in Vedanta is pure awareness without personal traits. "Self" is the more accurate translation.

Is atman mentioned in the Yoga Sutras?

Yes, a few times, for example in Sutras 2.5 and 2.41. Patanjali's main word for the self is purusha, though, and his system is dualist, closer to Samkhya than to Vedanta.

How do you pronounce atman?

Two syllables: AHT-mun. The first a is long, as in "father", the t is soft, with the tongue against the teeth, and the second syllable is short.