Brahman/Atman Identity

One of Guhen Kitaoka's strongest interests is in one of the branches of the Indian Vedanta philosophy. The biggest claim of this philosophy is the absolute monism which consists in "God and our true self are one and the same". It seems that there cannot exist more fundamental teachings than this claim of Advaita (non-dualistic) Vedanta that Absolute God ("Brahman" in Sanskrit, i.e., "something", which transcends both Everything and Nothingness [the void] and which cannot be grasped by the limited human mind or reason) and our true self or identity ("Atman" in Sanskrit) are nothing but identical. And, to realise this experientially - which will necessitate our going beyond mind and reason - instead of intellectually (i.e., as knowledge borrowed from the scriptures), is equivalent to getting "enlightened".

Advaita Vedanta (Vedanta itself, of which Advaita Vedanta is an independent school, is regarded as an at least several thousands year old tradition) has already expounded a thousand years ago the notions and the methodology required for reaching enlightenment ("Nirvana" in Sanskrit), and the depth of its "scientific psychology" (or "spiritual science") is something beyond that of the Freudian or Jungian psychology of this century.

(NB: The text of this page is a quotation from Guhen Kitaoka's paper "NLP and Spirituality" with relevant amendments.)