But when the human soul and the universal Âtman are one, there is no duality and no human expression can be correctly used about the Âtman.
In most of the texts which we have examined the words Brahman and Âtman are so impersonal that they cannot be replaced by God.
That Âtman is to be described by no, no (neti, neti).
The soul is identical with this Âtman and after death may be one with it in a union excluding all duality even of perceiver and perceived.
As a lump of salt has no inside nor outside and is nothing but taste, so has this Âtman neither inside nor outside and is nothing but knowledge.
The Brahmanic Âtman is such a self but it is found nowhere in the world of our experience[408].
But when the Âtman only is all this, how should we see, taste, hear, touch or know another?
Footnote 184: It will be observed that he had said previously that the Âtman must be seen, heard, perceived and known.
The one Âtman or Self, he says, is praised in many ways owing to the greatness of the godhead.
You saw how behind all the Devas or gods, the authors of the Upanishads discovered the Âtman or Self.
This Âtman also grew; but it grew, as it were, without attributes.
The other current of thought which is to be found in many of the texts is the pantheistic creed that identifies the universe with the Âtman or Brahman.
We have seen that Buddha said that there was no âtman (soul).
It is however difficult to understand how âtman as vital breath, or as a separable part of man going out of the dead man came to be regarded as the ultimate essence or reality in man and the universe.
We have already seen that the word Âtman was used in the .Rg-Veda to denote on the one hand the ultimate essence of the universe, and on the other the vital breath in man.
This explanation of tathâgatagarbha as the ultimate truth and reality is given in order to attract to our creed those heretics who are superstitiously inclined to believe in the âtman doctrine [Footnote ref 5].
The former taught[766] that the Âtman or Self within the heart, smaller than a grain of mustard seed, is also greater than all worlds.
But to Yâjñavalkya is ascribed an important modification of these doctrines, namely, that the Âtman is unknowable and transcendental.
He whom the Âtman chooses, by him the Âtman can be gained.
Anyone who reads these treatises and notices the number of apparently eternal beings and the talk about the universal mind is likely to think the old doctrine that nothing has an âtman or soul, has been forgotten.
Here we have not the idea of faith or love, but we have the negative statement that the Âtman is not won by knowledge and the positive statement that this Âtman chooses his own.
The meditation on the Âtman enjoined by Scripture is not an act to be accomplished once only, but is to be repeated again and again.
Self; which as jîvâtman is conversant with the names and forms of individual things.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "tman" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
