Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The individual soul or essence.
  • noun The essence that is eternal, unchanging, and indistinguishable from the essence of the universe.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The soul as it is conceived by the Brahman philosophers: the existence of it is denied by the Buddhists. The soul of the universe is equally called atman.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The life principle, soul, or individual essence.
  • noun The universal ego from whom all individual atmans arise. This sense is a European excrescence on the East Indian thought.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Hinduism The soul; one's true self.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Sanskrit ātmā, ātman-, breath, spirit.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Sanskrit आत्म‍ (Ātmā, "wind, breath, soul"), from Proto-Indo-European (compare Old English ǣþm ("breath")).

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Examples

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  • atman is brahman=]

    February 10, 2009