Brahman-Atman.
By Alan D. Griffin
​ In Hinduism, The ultimate deity is Brahman. Brahman is not a god the way we would understand god in the west. In Hinduism Brahman represents everything that there is, we are all Brahman. Everything around us is Brahman. Brahman is the source of ultimate truth. We are simply playing out a part of this ultimate truth in a three dimension physical world. The Atman, which is similar to the idea of a soul, is the absolute individual self. The absolute self however, is just a piece of the three dimensional physical world. In other words all the absolute selves of every human, every animal, every plant, and every animate and inanimate object collectively make up the physical world we experience. The Brahman only knows its own Atman which means Brahman only knows that it is the source of ultimate truth which is his Atman. This means that the Brahman only knows that it is Brahman. The ultimate goal in Hinduism Is total self-realization. So at the moment the Brahman knew his atman with the statement “I am Brahman” it accomplished total self-realization. After you accomplish total self-realization there is nothing more for you to do if you are all that there is. This is the reason for Tad Ekam. Tad Ekam in Hinduism is the physical manifestation of Brahman. So, Brahman is static once it has self-realization, the chaos stops. Tad Ekam came out of Brahman and yet it is Brahman. It is just Brahman in a three dimensional physical world. The only nourishment Brahman needs is novelty. Novelty is the only way to overcome the static state Brahman was in after self-realization. The atman we are searching for is only a small piece of the atman of Brahman. The experiences we gather throughout life in search of self-realization is actually gathering novelty for Brahman. Once we succeed in self-realization there is no more reason for reincarnation because there is no more novelty for us to gather therefore we are no longer serving a purpose for Brahman so we return to its which is just our Atman returning to the Atman of Brahman in which it was a part of in the first place.