Atma
Atma (devanāgarī: आत्मन् ātma) o Ātmā, es una palabra Sanskrita que significa "yo". En la Filosofía Hindu, especialmente en la escuela Vedānta, se refiere al verdadero yo más allá del fenómeno.
In the Theosophical literature, it refers to the seventh principle in man and the cosmos. Atman is said to be a ray of the Absolute and, therefore, not individual. Each person participates of this universal principle, which manifests in him or her as the "Higher Self". However, per se, atman is beyond consciousness or any other relative attribute. Its vehicle of expression in the differentiated universe is the sixth principle, or Buddhi.
Universal principle
Ātman, the seventh principle, is frequently described by H. P. Blavatsky as being a ray of the Absolute:
The seventh [principle is] the synthesis of the six, and not a principle but a ray of the Absolute ALL—in strict truth.[1]
This being the case, atman is essentially beyond any description:
Ātma is nothing; it is all absolute, and it cannot be said that it is this, that or the other. . . It is simply that in which we are.[2]
Since atman is omnipresent, it cannot be regarded as a human principle, but rather as a universal one:
Spirit (in the sense of the Absolute, and therefore, indivisible ALL), or Atma. As this can neither be located nor limited in philosophy, being simply that which IS in Eternity, and which cannot be absent from even the tiniest geometrical or mathematical point of the universe of matter or substance, it ought not to be called, in truth, a “human” principle at all.[3]
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 232, fn.
- ↑ Michael Gomes (transcriber), The Secret Doctrine Commentaries (The Hague: I.S.I.S. foundation, 2010), 609.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy, (London: Theosophical Publishing House, 1987), 119.