Anātman

(Pāli: Anātta). The doctrine that there is no permanent, unchanging Self (Sk. ātman) and that the human experience of selfhood is composed of impermanent, constantly changing factors and hence is illusory. The anātman (or anātta) doctrine is a central tenet of Buddhism, which states that the sense of self is actually the result of the activity of five aggregates (Sk. skāndhas; Pāli khāndhas), all of which are impermanent. They are form (rūpa), sensation (vedanā), perception (Sk. samjñā; Pāli saññā), latent tendencies or personality characteristics (Sk. samskāras; Pāli sankāras), and conditioned consciousness (Sk. vijñāna; Pāli viññāna). In the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, however, the Buddha taught that there is an enduring Self (Atman) which is the Buddha- Nature (Buddha-dhatu) in all beings. Thus Buddhist literature teaches both the existence and non-existence of Self or Atman. By contrast, Hindu philosophy, especially Vedānta, postulates an unchanging ātman as the true Self of each human being.

Theosophy states that there are two manifestations of self: the personal ego (usually termed jīva in Hindu philosophy) and the real Self (ātman), which manifests as ātma-buddhi. Theosophy clearly agrees with Buddhism that the personal ego is transitory, therefore is in some sense illusory. It has to be transcended. In her Voice of the Silence, Helena P. BLAVATSKY states that when the soul says “This is I,” it is caught in the web of the delusion of personality (called in Pāli sakkāyadiṭṭhi). In The MAHATMA LETTERS TO A. P. SINNETT, the Mahātma KOOT HOOMI similarly considers sakkāyadiṭṭhi and the doctrine of a Self (ātma-vāda) as leading to illusion or māyā. What brings this sense of selfhood about is called ahamkāra or the “I-making” faculty, sometimes translated “egoity.”

As to the doctrine that ātman is the real or “highest Self,” theosophical literature appears to affirm its existence. However, a deeper analysis of the Mahātma Letters and the writings of Blavatsky shows that this is not exactly the case. Blavatsky explains that ātman is non-personal or non-individual. In the Key to Theosophy, she says that ātman “is no individual property of any man, but is the Divine essence which has no body, no form, which is imponderable, invisible and indivisible, that which does not exist and yet is, as the Buddhists say of Nirvana” (Key, sect. 7). While ātman is commonly assumed to be the human Spirit or Self, Blavatsky stressed in her writings that in fact ātman cannot even be considered a human principle. She says that it “becomes the HIGHER-SELF of man only in conjunction with Buddhi, its vehicle. . . .” (idem.) Again,

We include Atma among the human “principles” in order not to create additional confusion. In reality it is no “human” but the universal absolute principle of which Buddhi, the Soul-Spirit, is the carrier. (Key, sect. 6, fn.)

The inclusion of ātman as a seventh principle is, therefore, an exoteric classification. In a strict sense it is not a self (or a Self), not a unity of individuality, but rather is equivalent to the universal consciousness:

Ātma, the “Higher Self,” is neither your Spirit nor mine, but like the sunlight shines on all. It is the universally diffused “divine principles,” and is inseparable from its one and absolute Meta-Spirit, as the sunbeam is inseparable from sunlight. (Key, sec. 8) For Atman or the “Higher Self” is really Brahma, the ABSOLUTE, and indistinguishable from it. . . . It is the God above, more than within us. (Key, sec. 9)

The Secret Doctrine further elucidates on this point based on “the Eastern Esoteric teaching,” quoting which, Blavatsky says:

“A Dhyani has to be an Atma-Buddhi; once the Buddhi-Manas breaks loose from its immortal Atma of which it (Buddhi) is the vehicle, Atman passes into NON-BEING, which is absolute Being.” This means [she continues] that the purely Nirvāṇic state is a passage of Spirit back to the ideal abstraction of Be-ness which has no relation to the plane on which our Universe is accomplishing its cycle. (SD I:193)

V.H.C.

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