Brahman and Atman | The Nature of Reality

Unlike other world religions, people following Hindu traditions are liberal to practice anything we feel that corresponds to our personality and likes ie., we are free to believe and practice what is right for our minds and are not forced by our community to practice and strictly follow certain rules simply because you are born into that community. Our culture was always secular. However, we end up in a wrong cave, doing this, blinded by the western materialism and ordered structural model of how to live life. Human life cannot be simply tuned with books or rules written by someone. During old times, anyone could come up with stories and tell that they met god or that they are god, and could bring a political order among the community.

So, what is the concept of God in Hindu tradition? Why do we have 33 million gods in this tradition? Can we humans understand god? If we can understand god, then is god that easily understandable? Then why should we humans, lie that we understand god better than others?

One feature of diversity that is especially striking to outsiders is the multiplicity of Gods within Hindu tradition. There are those with a specific area of jurisdiction for which the word "god" with a small “g” might be appropriate, and there are those of such all-embracing supremacy that only the term "God" with a capital “G” will do. In any Hindu temple there are likely to be many divine images, or murtis, even though the central image may be of a particular God, a form of Shiva, or the Goddess, or Vishnu. In a temple of Shiva, for example, the central sanctum will contain a Shiva linga, a simple stone shaft, where offerings of flowers, sweets, grains, and water may be presented. Surrounding this central sanctum, however, there may be a dozen subsidiary shrines to various deities. To one side of Shiva might be the image of his son Ganesha, the elephant-headed god. On the other, there might be the image of another son, Murugan, also known as Skanda or Karttikeya. Elsewhere there might be shrines dedicated to Lord Rama, with his wife Sita at his side. There might be an image of the River Ganges, personified and bearing a brimming pot of sacred waters. There might be an image of Lord Krishna, playing the flute and attracting all who hear with its amorous melody.

Hinduism represents the diversity and plurality of the Divine. There are many Gods, and there are many names and forms of each God. But most worshippers would insist that this many-ness must be understood in relation to God’s oneness. The sages of old used the term Brahman to describe the Reality that transcends all personal names. Brahman is one, though the “names and forms” of this one are different. This one Reality—call it Brahman, the Divine, or the Real—can be perceived in and through an infinite number of names and forms. The Rig Veda affirms, “Reality is One. The sages speak of it in many ways.” This idea is sounded repeatedly throughout the whole history of Hinduism.

Brahman and Atman : That Art Thou

The Upanishads, dating largely from the eighth to the sixth centuries BCE, are the “wisdom literature” of the Vedas. Most Upanishads take the form of dialogues between teachers and students. They explore speculative questions about the origin, basis, and support of the universe. “What is the cause? What is Brahman? Whence are we born? Whereby do we live? On what are we established?” So asks the seeker in the Shvetashvatara Upanishad.

The teachers of the Upanishads point the way to a profound realization: Atman, the inmost soul or breath of life, is also Brahman, the ultimate reality that pervades the entire universe. Reality beyond is also within. The teachers of the Upanishads teach by example and analogy. One asks his student to bring him a fig. 

“Open it,” says the teacher. “What do you see there?”
“Some very small seeds, sir.”
“Open one of those small seeds. What do you see there?”
“Nothing at all, sir.”
“Truly from what you cannot see, the whole fig tree grows. That is Reality. That is Atman. That art Thou.”

Brahman underlies the whole universe. It is the life-force which is the subtle essence of everything. One cannot see Brahman, as one cannot see the inside of the tiny seed of a fig. But Brahman is there and gives life to all, as the seed produces the fig tree. Whether inside the fig seed or inside oneself, it is the same living source.

Atman is this drop of water rising from the ocean (Brahman), which eventually has to fall back into it.(source:author)

Imagine an ocean and the drops of water in the ocean. Atman, the force withing all living being is a drop of water and Ocean is the Brahman, the supreme force. So we all living being rise out of Brahman and dissolve within it(this process is life*). Brahman is infinite, everything within it and Brahman withing everything. Brahman is the word used in Vedic literature for the Supreme being. Hindu tradition talks about One God and oneness in all living beings and the cosmos.

Other teachers take a different teaching strategy in pointing to Brahman. Rather than seeing Brahman as pervading the universe, they speak of Brahman as wholly transcendent, describable in human terms only by saying what Brahman is not: “It is not coarse, not fine, not short, not long, odorless, tasteless, without eye, without ear, without voice, without name,  not aging, not dying, without measure, without inside and without outside.” This way of speaking stretches the mind beyond the available categories of the world to glimpse that which cannot be contained by human categories.

*stay tuned to read more.