what is brahman

Brahman is a concept in Hinduism that connotes the highest universal principle and the ultimate reality in the universe. It is the immaterial, efficient, formal, and final cause of all that exists. Brahman is eternal, conscious, irreducible, infinite, and omnipresent, and it is the spiritual core of the universe of finiteness and change. The concept of Brahman is found in the Vedic Samhitas, the oldest layer of the Vedas, and is extensively discussed in the early Upanishads. According to the Vedas, Brahman is the Cosmic Principle and is referred to in hundreds of hymns in the Vedic literature. In the Advaita (Nondualist) school of Vedanta, Brahman is categorically different from anything phenomenal, and human perceptions of differentiation are illusively projected on this reality. The concept of Brahman is also present in the Upanishads, where it is described as Sat-cit-ānanda (truth-consciousness-bliss) and as the unchanging, permanent, highest reality. Brahman is considered the essence of the individual soul and comprises the all-pervading, absolute existence that binds everything in the universe together as one. The Upanishads teach that Atman, the inmost soul or breath of life, is also Brahman, the ultimate reality that pervades the entire universe.