Brahman

Brahman derives from the Sanskrit root 'brh' meaning 'to expand' or 'to grow,' suggesting an ultimate reality that defies containment. Ancient Hindu texts describe it using negation—'neti neti' (not this, not that)—because any positive description would limit the limitless. This linguistic frustration reveals something profound: perhaps the most important realities can only be approached by systematically eliminating what they're not, a method that influenced via Schopenhauer the 'apophatic theology' discussions in Western mysticism.

When Arthur Schopenhauer encountered the Upanishads in 1814, he called them 'the consolation of my life and will be of my death,' integrating Brahman into his concept of the universal Will. He was among the first Western philosophers to seriously engage with Hindu thought, claiming the Upanishads were superior to all European philosophy—a radical stance that helped crack open the Western philosophical tradition's provincialism. His fusion of Brahman with Kantian metaphysics created a bridge that made Eastern philosophy intellectually respectable in European universities.

The Chandogya Upanishad's teaching 'Tat Tvam Asi' (That Thou Art) claims your individual self (Atman) is identical with Brahman—meaning you are, quite literally, the ultimate reality of the universe. This isn't metaphor or poetry but ontological fact in Advaita Vedanta philosophy, suggesting that the alienation and separation you feel is the fundamental illusion (Maya). Practically, this shifts spiritual practice from reaching toward some distant divine to removing the ignorance obscuring what you already are—a radically different psychological framework than Western religious questing.

When the sage Bahva was asked by King Baskali to explain Brahman, he remained silent. When pressed again and again, he finally said, 'I am teaching you, but you do not understand—this Brahman is silence.' This teaching method—instruction through non-instruction—influenced Zen Buddhism's 'transmission beyond words' and resurfaces in Wittgenstein's 'whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.' It suggests that some knowledge must be realized rather than communicated, a distinction that challenges our assumption that all understanding can be verbalized or taught.

While pantheism says 'God is in everything,' Brahman philosophy is more radical: the 'everything' doesn't really exist as separate things at all. The world of multiplicity is Maya (often mistranslated as 'illusion' but better understood as 'appearance')—like seeing a rope and mistaking it for a snake. This means Brahman isn't distributed throughout reality; reality is Brahman misperceived as separate objects. This philosophical move dissolves the entire subject-object framework that grounds Western epistemology, which is why comparative philosophers still struggle to map Brahman onto Western categories.

If you're already Brahman but don't know it, Hindu meditative practices become less about achieving some future state and more about de-conditioning yourself from false beliefs. Techniques like 'neti neti' systematically strip away identifications—'I am not this body, not these thoughts, not these emotions'—until only witnessing awareness remains. Modern psychology is circling back to this with 'decentering' practices in mindfulness therapy, which help people observe thoughts without identification. The ancient technology anticipated what neuroscience now confirms: the sense of a separate self is a construction, not a discovery.