Human constitutionSimplifiedDefined by Blavatsky

Atman

Also: Atma · Spirit · The Higher Self in the strict sense

Sanskrit ātman, ‘self, breath’; Vedantic usage, adopted by Blavatsky as the seventh principle · AHT-man

Blavatsky

Original sense

Atman is not the personal soul. It is the universal Spirit, the seventh principle, identical in every being and only ‘human’ when mirrored by Buddhi. She refused to call Atman ‘my spirit’ as if it were a private possession. Personality (the lower quaternary) is mortal; Atman is not an individual at all.

Atma is no individual property of any man, but the Divine essence which has no body, no form…
The Key to Theosophy, on the seven principles

The sevenfold key: Atma, Buddhi, Manas, Kama, Prana, Linga-śarīra, Sthula-śarīra. Confusing Atman with the reincarnating ego (higher Manas) or with a guardian angel is, for her, a basic error.

New Age

Later sense

Often a poetic synonym for ‘soul,’ ‘higher self,’ or the inner child of light — something personal you can ‘connect with’ in meditation and whose job is to make this life go better.

Typical use. ‘Follow your atman,’ ‘atman-level healing,’ blended with Higher Self coaching.

The drift

The core survived; the metaphysics was flattened.

A rigorously impersonal principle was personalized. Blavatsky’s Atman cannot want a better career. The New Age Atman is a wiser version of the personality — which is exactly the confusion she spent pages forbidding.

Related terms

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