Paramātmā

Paramātmā · parama-ātmā, “the supreme ātmā”

Rajas has other meanings too: see all meanings of Rajas. Tulā has other meanings too: see all meanings of Tulā. Vṛshabha has other meanings too: see all meanings of Vṛshabha. Vṛścika has other meanings too: see all meanings of Vṛścika. Buddhi has other meanings too: see all meanings of Buddhi. Jñāna has other meanings too: see all meanings of Jñāna. Kshetrajña has other meanings too: see all meanings of Kshetrajña. Yoga has other meanings too: see all meanings of Yoga. Śatānīka has other meanings too: see all meanings of Śatānīka. Titikshā has other meanings too: see all meanings of Titikshā.

Grammar: masculine noun; a compound of parama (supreme) and ātman (self): “the supreme ātmā”. The nominative paramātmā is the form in common use.

Meaning: the supreme ātmā, the one consciousness that dwells as witness (sākshī) and inner ruler (antaryāmī) in every being, distinct from the jīva yet not other than its innermost self; in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Śrī Hari, Bhagavān Vishṇu, who is Parabrahman.

In the scriptures: the Bhāgavata Purāṇa uses the word throughout its teaching on the ātmā: for the witness untouched by the body and its qualities, for the cause into whom the world dissolves and from whom it comes forth, for Śrī Kṛshṇa as the yogīs and his devotees know him, and in the praise the Vedas themselves offer him.

The witness, untouched. The Paramātmā becomes manifest in the upādhi called prakṛti, made of the three guṇas, yet has no contact with its qualities, pleasure, pain and the rest; that is the lordship of Īśvara, and the buddhi always fixed on the Paramātmā is not stained by its own saṃskāras of rāga and dvesha. As the queens of Dvārakā thought Śrī Kṛshṇa under their control, so the movements of the buddhi imagine the Paramātmā, the kshetrajña, to be a jīva under their control (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 11). Sanatkumāra teaches Pṛthu that Bhagavān Vishṇu shines in all hearts as the witness of the field, the antaryāmī and the pratyagātmā, to be known as “I am He”; the Paramātmā is ever free, untouched by puṇya and pāpa, of undivided knowledge, and the stain of pleasure and pain lies only in the products of prakṛti; “I take refuge in that Paramātmā,” Sanatkumāra says (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 22). In Nārada‘s account of Purañjana, the Paramātmā, master of māyā-śakti, whose nature is full consciousness, entered this city of the body and forgot himself; and there is no difference between Bhagavān Vishṇu, the Guru of gurus, and one’s innermost ātmā (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapters 28–29).

Prahlāda teaches the sons of the daityas: rejecting the body and mind with “not this, not this”, seek the Paramātmā in this very body. The witness consciousness by which waking, dream and deep sleep are known is the Paramātmā, beyond body and senses; know him as the witness lighting the states of the buddhi, as one knows the air by the fragrance it carries (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 7, Chapter 7). Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that as fire seems to die, be born, be small or great and be many with the wood, so the Paramātmā seems to take on the qualities of bodies; identification with the body is saṃsāra, and one must know by inquiry the non-dual Paramātmā beyond prakṛti (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 10). The Paramātmā, an actionless mass of consciousness and the jīva’s well-wisher, remains a witness while the jīva, identified with the mind, is bound; the pairs of opposites belong to ahaṅkāra, never to the Paramātmā beyond prakṛti, and one who knows this fears no being (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 23).

The Paramātmā and the world. As pot and the class “pot” are imagined in one clay, so through beginningless ajñāna the division of body and dweller in the body is imagined in the one Paramātmā (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 6, Chapter 15). By his māyā-śakti the Paramātmā creates the world and enters the bodies; as fire takes the shape of the wood it burns, the one Paramātmā shines as many jīvas (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 7). The Paramātmā, cause of the world and Pūrṇa, rules prakṛti and the jīvas; by Kāla he brings the three guṇas to equilibrium, and that is pralaya. Then the Paramātmā, called Kaivalya, is beyond cause and effect, without upādhis, the union of sat, self-luminous jñāna and ānanda; at creation the one Paramātmā stirs māyā by Kāla, creates Hiraṇyagarbha, Brahmā Deva, and appears in that form (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 9). The Paramātmā, directly present, enters bodies and becomes manifest through the senses; the whole world is in him like warp and weft, as a cloth exists only in its threads. On the tree of this body two birds of fine wings make their nest, the jīva and the Paramātmā; the non-dual Paramātmā appears in many forms through māyā, and one who knows him through worthy gurus knows the truth of the Veda (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 12). In Śrī Kṛshṇa’s counts of the tattvas the Paramātmā is always named: nine tattvas, the Paramātmā, māyā-śakti, mahat, ahaṅkāra and the five subtle elements; seven, the five elements, the jīva who knows them, and the Paramātmā; six, the five elements and the Paramātmā, who creates the world with them and enters it as antaryāmī; four, the Paramātmā and fire, water and earth born from him. Like Sūrya, the self-luminous Paramātmā is distinct from adhyātma, adhibhūta and adhidaiva, is their cause, and lights them up (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 22).

Śrī Kṛshṇa, the Paramātmā. When Nārada, in his former birth, longed to see Śrī Hari again, the Paramātmā, beyond senses and mind, made himself known as sound in the sky, spoke his blessing and fell silent (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 6). The one Paramātmā is equally in all, and to one of equal vision all directions give joy (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 9, Chapter 19). In the rāsa the gopīs know him as the witness of all minds (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 30), and among them he shone like the complete Paramātmā with his śaktis of knowledge, action and the rest (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 32). When Śrī Kṛshṇa entered Kaṃsa‘s arena, each saw him according to his nature, and the yogīs saw him as the very truth of the Paramātmā (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 43). Sudāma, knowing that the unconquerable one comes under the control of his devotees, meditated on him intensely, removed the bond of ahaṅkāra and quickly attained the form of the Paramātmā (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 81). At Samantapañcaka Śrī Kṛshṇa taught the gopīs: the Paramātmā pervades all as the enjoying jīva; know that both the body of five elements and the jīva shine in me, the imperishable, beyond them both (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 82). And Piṅgalā, waiting through the night for lovers, lamented that she had sought pleasure from the unworthy while the imperishable Paramātmā, giver of bliss and riches, was in her own heart (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 8).

The praise of the Vedas. Śrī Śuka answers Parīkshit‘s question, how the śrutis can speak of Brahma, with the discourse held in Janaloka. There Sanandana told how the Paramātmā withdrew the world with the mahat and the causal powers and entered yoga-nidrā, and how at the end of the pralaya the presiding devatās of the Vedas, born from his breath, woke him with words that set him forth. Their stuti teaches, in order, among much else:

  1. Victory to the undefeated Deva: destroy the beginningless māyā of all beings. He has every aiśvarya by nature and awakens the powers of action and knowledge in all.
  2. Mahātmās escape sorrow by serving the ocean of amṛta that is his accounts; those who are his bhaktas truly live, and others breathe like leather bellows.
  3. The mahat, ahaṅkāra and the subtle elements could form the brahmāṇḍa only because he entered and blessed them.
  4. In the five kośas he appears as “I”, yet he is the Ānanda-Brahma within them, what remains when all that is not the self is negated.
  5. He creates bodies from himself and seems to enter them as sat and cit; the bodies of devas, animals and the rest are mithyā, and the ātmā in them is real, equal and one.
  6. His foot is moksha; all karma the Veda enjoins is to be offered there. Ātma-tattva is hard to know, so he comes as avatāra to make it known.
  7. What yogīs reach by meditation his enemies reached by remembering him; the gopīs, their minds on his arms, and the śrutis that hold his feet, are equal before him.
  8. When he withdraws all there are no elements, no body, no time, not even the Veda; difference in the ātmā comes from ajñāna, and he is cidānandaghana, where ajñāna has no being.
  9. Those who serve him as the self of all set their foot on the head of death; Sūrya and the others do their work in awe of him, and time is only the play of his eyebrows.
  10. The restless mind cannot be held without a guru, as merchants at sea are lost without a helmsman; the maharshis who meditate on his feet are tīrthas on earth.
  11. Though he is in the heart he is not attained, like a forgotten jewel at the neck, until the heaps of desire are uprooted; those who hear his teachings attain him as moksha.
  12. Even he does not know his own end, for he is endless; brahmāṇḍas whirl in him like dust in the sky, and the śrutis reach him by negating what is not the self.

(Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 87)

Resting the mind in him. When the mind rests in the Paramātmā, the karma-vāsanās fall away, sattva grows and rajas and tamas go (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 9). Satya, Śrī Kṛshṇa says, is seeing the Paramātmā everywhere, not truthful speech alone (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 19); by yama and niyama and the limbs of yoga, by inquiry into the tattvas, or by ārādhana of and meditation on Śrī Kṛshṇa, the mind comes to rest in the Paramātmā, and there are no other means (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 20).

Related terms: Ātmā · Jīva · Kshetrajña · Antaryāmī · Sākshī · Parabrahman · Pratyagātmā

Sources

  • Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 6, 11; Skandha 4, Chapters 22, 28–29; Skandha 6, Chapter 15; Skandha 7, Chapter 7; Skandha 9, Chapter 19; Skandha 10, Chapters 30, 32, 43, 81–82, 87; Skandha 11, Chapters 7–10, 12, 19–20, 22–23