Hinduism 1:1 - “Brahman is the source of all existence.”
In Hindu philosophy, the concept of Brahman represents one of the most profound and central tenets of the religion. Brahman is described as the ultimate, formless, all-encompassing reality, and is considered the source of all existence. This belief touches every aspect of Hindu thought, offering a lens through which the nature of life, the universe, and the divine are understood.
Brahman, in its essence, is the foundation of all that exists. It is the eternal, unchanging reality that transcends the physical world and the dualities we perceive, such as time and space, good and evil, or life and death. Brahman is beyond form and attributes, existing both within and outside the universe. It is infinite, all-pervading, and the source from which all things emanate and to which all things ultimately return.
In the Upanishads, the sacred texts of Hinduism that delve into philosophical thought, Brahman is described in abstract terms such as "Sat-Chit-Ananda," which translates to "truth, consciousness, and bliss." These qualities emphasize Brahman's absolute nature—unchanging truth, limitless awareness, and eternal joy.
While Brahman is formless and beyond comprehension, it manifests in the material world through the process of creation. All living beings and objects in the universe are considered to be expressions or manifestations of Brahman, though they may not be fully aware of this connection. This creates the distinction between the Nirguna Brahman (Brahman without attributes) and Saguna Brahma (Brahman with attributes), where the former refers to the formless, indescribable aspect of Brahman, and the latter represents Brahman in its more tangible forms, such as gods and goddesses.
For example, Hindu deities like Vishnu, Shiva, and Devi are seen as personifications of Brahman as “Brahma”, allowing devotees to relate to the divine in ways that are accessible to human understanding. However, even these deities are not separate from Brahman; they are expressions of the same singular, unified reality.
A fundamental aspect of the belief in Brahman is the idea that all living beings possess a spark of this divine reality within themselves. The soul, or Atman, is seen as a reflection or fragment of Brahman. In Hinduism, the ultimate goal of human life is to realize the unity between Atman and Brahman. This realization, often referred to as Moksha or liberation, represents freedom from the cycle of birth and death (samsara) and the dissolution of the illusion of separateness.
To recognize Brahman in oneself and the world around is to transcend the ego and the limitations of material existence. It is an awakening to the oneness of all beings and the interconnectedness of life.
Achieving an understanding of Brahman is a central pursuit of Hindu spiritual practice. This can be approached through different paths, depending on one’s temperament and inclinations. Some of these paths include:
- Jnana Yoga (The Path of Knowledge): This path involves deep contemplation and study of the scriptures, especially the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, to gain insight into the nature of Brahman and the self.
- Bhakti Yoga (The Path of Devotion): Through love and devotion to a personal deity, individuals can cultivate an emotional connection to Brahman, recognizing the divine presence in the world around them.
- Karma Yoga (The Path of Selfless Action): By performing one’s duties without attachment to the results, individuals can purify the mind and reduce the ego’s hold, leading to an awareness of Brahman.
- Raja Yoga (The Path of Meditation): Through meditation and disciplined control of the mind and senses, practitioners seek direct experiential knowledge of Brahman.
Each of these paths offers a unique way to approach the understanding of Brahman, yet they all lead toward the same realization: that the individual self is not separate from the ultimate reality.
The belief in Brahman also has a significant impact on how Hindus view life, death, and morality. Since Brahman is the source of all existence, every act of creation, destruction, and preservation is seen as part of a cosmic order. Life is viewed as a journey toward the realization of the divine within, and ethical living, spiritual practice, and mindfulness are ways to harmonize with this deeper reality.
At the heart of this belief is the idea that everything is interconnected. The suffering of one is the suffering of all, and the joy of one is shared by all. Compassion, nonviolence, and selflessness arise naturally from the understanding that all beings are manifestations of the same supreme reality.
In Hinduism, the belief in Brahman as the supreme reality is more than just a theological idea; it is an all-encompassing worldview that shapes how one understands the self, the universe, and the divine. Brahman represents the ultimate unity behind the diversity of the world, the essence that transcends form and name, and the destination toward which all spiritual paths converge. Through devotion, knowledge, and ethical living, Hindus seek to align themselves with this supreme reality, recognizing their own divinity and the sacredness of all existence.
When It Started
The belief in Brahman as the supreme reality comes primarily from the Vedas and Upanishads, which are some of the oldest and most foundational texts of Hindu philosophy.
1. The Vedas: The four Vedas (Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda) are the earliest sacred texts of Hinduism, composed between 1500 and 1200 BCE. Brahman is referenced as the cosmic force behind all creation, though it is more implicitly understood in the early Vedic hymns.
A famous early Vedic hymn from the Rigveda (10.129) speculates on the origin of the universe:
- “In the beginning there was neither existence nor non-existence… That one breathed, without breath, by its own power.” This reflects the early idea of Brahman as the source of all.
2. The Upanishads: The Upanishads (written between 800 and 500 BCE) mark a shift toward a more philosophical understanding of Brahman. They describe Brahman as the formless, all-encompassing reality and the ultimate cause of everything. The Upanishads explore the relationship between Brahman and Atman (the individual soul).
- In the Chandogya Upanishad (6.2.1), it is stated: “In the beginning, there was Existence alone—One only, without a second.”
- The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (3.8.8) defines Brahman as: “That which is infinite is alone real; the finite is transitory. That infinite is Brahman.”
- The Mundaka Upanishad (2.2.11) describes Brahman as: “Brahman is that by knowing which all else is known.”
3. Bhagavad Gita: The Bhagavad Gita, composed later (around 500-200 BCE), also affirms this idea of Brahman:
- “I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from me…” (Bhagavad Gita 10.8).
This statement aligns with the belief in Brahman as the origin of all existence.
In these texts, Brahman is portrayed as the fundamental principle that is beyond form and attributes, yet pervades all aspects of reality. This idea becomes central to later Hindu philosophy, particularly in the Advaita Vedanta school of thought, where Brahman is understood as the only true reality, with the material world being an illusion (maya).
Where We Relate
As Undefinable and Expansive, we recognize that what we call “God” refers to a reality of existence beyond all time and space, a formless, unnameable, and incomprehensible source of all existence.
While we use “Christian” terminology, we also recognize that what we call “God” is the same source as “Brahman.” With our terms, we agree that it has an aspect of its totality that is undefinable and beyond attributes, as well as the aspect we call the Wholly Spiritual Universe, which becomes and represents all attributes of all existence.
This includes an aspect that judges, chooses, and observes all that it is by joining with itself to manifest as personified images within what it is. We agree that its actuality is the absolute totality of all options and variations of all universes, timelines, and dimensions, being the “end” to which all attributes return and the “beginning” from which all attributes came.
We agree that these are layers of how it manifests, dimensions that expand on the “depth” of what is. The general essence of the Wholly Spiritual Universe becomes all attributes, including the development of individuated densities we call “souls,” which also expand into additional dimensions such as “physical bodies” and “personalities,” including additional glorified manifestations that exceed current human definitions and abilities. We agree that all of these layers of awareness are expanding and transcending from the emptiness of “God” to the fullness of “God,” and some of these layers can be considered “gods” due to their greater awareness and their abilities to channel and express it, to commune and work with humans and beings of other densities. This aligns with the concept of transcending limitations and ascending beyond the layers we seem to experience, into greater dimensions of awareness, experience, and ability.
We concur that there is a path to discover these realizations and a path of simply harmonizing with it in your current experience, whether it is the goal of expanding one’s awareness of it or the goal of living a life aware that it lives as you and through you. Accepting that it is the life within all existence, including to whatever degree you may believe you are living yourself, we agree that devotion to the guidance of a deity or guru always has the potential to greatly expand on these goals, as does devotion to selfless duty and the determination to achieve it through activities like prayer and meditation.
We are in accord with the recognition that each dimension is a training toward the ultimate goal of Divine awareness, which has many degrees of success, each with different attributes manifesting. We agree that the Spirit, as our “soul,” has one life, but it repeats living as physical bodies until it achieves the goal physicality is designed to teach. We understand that teaching is retained by a consciousness that insists it is physical while it possesses knowledge and judgment of oppositions and separation. We agree that every layer of liberation is about transcending manifest ideas.
We are in harmony with the realization that only “Brahman” is real, being constant and whole, and all dimensions are illusory “dreams” in which it experiences its partial and transitory variations. We agree that its reality is our eternal and infinite reality, and what we experience now is our focus on different forms of “knowledge” that we live as if they are real. All of this leads to the development of what we are as the unified “God,” living the story of how its many paths have become its one self. The recognition that the “father” of creation is the ideas, and through its focus, the “mother” of creation manifests them within itself, is simply three aspects of the same whole.
We concur that in its true reality, it is a form of consciousness that experiences absolute joy and bliss, something incomprehensible to any tangible human experience. Not only is it a liberated essence of what we all are, but it is also the essence that has no restraint in any form. Agreeing that this form of consciousness possesses thoughts that become its tangible manifestation. What those thoughts are can be used habitually, moving up and down and in and out of multiple dimensional degrees naturally through a cyclical pattern. It must let go of its learned ways to again learn additional ways. It becomes its own live-er, its own perceiver, as the abstract life itself. It develops all manifestations within itself and lives as itself within itself, constantly redefining itself in different associations and constructs developed through its focus, choosing through its learned desires. It forgets the nature of its true reality in order to experience its life firsthand, reaching out to learn of itself again, to remember and forget again in an additional depth of experience.
Why It Seems
It is natural to look for relatable imagery and constructs to understand our reality. This is the process by which all physicality was developed. The perceiver is designed to search and explore all that can be perceived, expanding on previous variations it believes. This process naturally fulfills its purpose. The Undefinable source of all existence manifested this perceiver simply through its will to do so. Through this, all variations of infinite possibilities came into being.
Understand that there is an approach to communication that is abstract and poetic and another that is concise and literal. Just like communication, the universe has these attributes. In reality, it is beyond all description but becomes all attributes through the perceiver’s focus. Explaining it is not difficult alone, but the reception of the explanation requires conformity to the particular focus of the recipient. In the same way, existence depends on its focus—such realities manifest differently, as do specific words, which become relatable and may no longer have the intended meaning conveyed.
Much like words, the original intent conveyed would be “God,” and the interpretation the Perceiver applies becomes its manifested attributes within the Wholly Spiritual Universe. A natural distortion conforms the words into what can be comprehended. Physicality is a conformity of interpreting the abstract into what it currently believes itself to be. Learning to expand understanding is, in turn, to expand on the distortions the perceiver manifests, becoming aware of greater dimensions of what it is.
A natural process occurs of purifying such a concept to be manifest. As it is continuously chosen to be a world, it then undergoes its journey to what it defines as perfection, associating with that concept. Over eons of eternal experience, it takes on different approaches to apply and motivate such achievements.
In the current perceived structure of reality, everything experienced is first conceptual, second believed to be real, and third reacted and responded to. As an eternal being, it has undergone a large variety of social developments, expanding on different attributes and developing different experiences of its own self. Since it had to be its own creator and its own subjects, it has developed many layers, providing different responsibilities to maintain aspects necessary to make its own “free will” possible and to relate to the motivation to “save them.”
Originally it is not energy, but it becomes energy by its desire to experience and know itself. Understanding that its will and desire are attributes of consciousness, the perception of its own manifestation came to be as for what it was only described by what it became. While it came from the end of all totality, its beginning was the destination of all it perceived, moving simultaneously with what it is.
What we know as physical reality has only existed as long as the perceiver has searched for what it is, within concepts that only physical reality could present. The concept of a past is assumed, and so it searches there. All around the perceiver is a representation of what it believes must be done to eventually achieve what it associates with perfection.
While its reality remains the same, its eternal essence deliberately chooses to become various densities of experience by the assumption and habit of its thinking in conjunction with the particular density concepts. While it perceives itself as a physical independent entity, it regurgitates habitual concepts, believing it has no choice. Therefore, while it appears to be in a prison of its own making, it presents its own challenge of learning to escape it.
With an Open Mind
In this very moment, what you are is “Brahman,” and you are taking on a particular perception in association with what you believe. The aspect of you that reflects your representation is inspired to show you what it does as physicality because of the way you respond to it, reacting as if you are a part of it.
Every aspect of the universe is this source, and no particular aspect is exempt. As you perceive your identity, it appears to be represented by thoughts of worlds in which you associate, and it represents what you have previously responded to, including the disagreement of your own reality—the disagreement against your true nature in order for your experience to be authentic as a human being. While perfectly acceptable, it is also true that in reading the nature of this material, you are searching for your truth.
The way you see the world right now is presented right now. The fact that you assume it is consistent with a “past” is a habit and addiction to particular concepts, which it uses to inspire its manifestation as consistent. You sit here perceiving the universe around you, and while it may seem that there are many entities doing the same, you find it noble to remind yourself that you are not the center of it merely to support the idea of your development of “free will,” your development of having “friends” and “family.”
As for time, it has been eons of perfecting what you believe is possible in association with what you believe you are. However, it has been only an instant of developing eons projecting what you believe is necessary to develop your reality around you into its “past,” to justify why it exists this way and give reason to why you are who you are. However, what you have chosen to be has no excuse, and your justification is simply your personal allowance to become what you saw as perfection.
To your reality, there is no concern for success because it is outside of time, and success refers to achievement, which can only be done through processes over time. Therefore, what you see is a story of what you have just defined yourself as the perfect concept. You live life after life in pursuit of this achievement, but in the same way that you can now look at your past, none of it has happened more than within the timeframe of your thoughts about it. While reminiscing may appear to take time, it can do so rapidly, such that what was time in the experience of it is perceived outside of time through “memory.” Your life now, and all your lives in the past and present, are all “memories” of who you actually are. The entire endeavor will conclude with the “success” of what you have always been.
How We Unite
Life in the grand scheme of things is far more extensive than individual births and deaths. While individual personalities would love to experience eternity, they are the definition of perceptual reality in association with an individual body. What you are remembers every life you have lived, including what you perceive you are living now. While it seems that what you are living now does not remember anything beyond its own life, nothing is lost, and you do indeed experience eternity. Only the aspect that is experienced firsthand as a definition in itself, apart from eternity, makes it seem so. On the other side of creation, it is not as convincing.
As one unified essence, unification is already established. It has been through the development of separation that we have been able to experience illusory alternatives to our reality.
How It's True
Anyone who observes their life directly and plainly will eventually recognize the source of their life. Each is a personal endeavor derived from the same source and can be remembered. Every sensation of sensory perceptions disguises the reality from which they extend, but deciphering the interpretation is as simple as direct observation. All belief structures, whether in agreement or not with this concept, are all attempting to recognize it to the depth that they have been able to perceive.
You are capable of perceiving greater depths than you are aware of, and while it may seem to require diligent effort, it is through such awareness that speculation of the reality is no longer required. Firsthand experience is personal evidence.
“Why They Are Right” (book series)
By Rev. Devan Jesse Byrne
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The author of The Statutes Of The Divinely Realized the essence of Undefinable and Expansive, here to coach spiritual people to discover their multidimensional reality beyond the veil.
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