The Atman

Modern Western psychology fails to be able to effect transformation in most cases because it lacks the central concept of Sat Yoga: the Atman. The Atman has been incorrectly defined as the soul. Unfortunately, the word soul carries a great deal of baggage from religious traditions that obscure our understanding of what is at stake.

Atman is the noetic field of pure awareness in which the ego-identity, symbolic communication, and the systemic unconscious all take root at what become different levels of consciousness. The Atman is energy, imagination, and natural intelligence that have not been filtered through the lens of duality imposed by language and the phantasizing processes of the subconscious ego. The Atman is the original Self, the Real Self, that becomes primordially repressed once the ego comes into possession of the consciousness in infancy.

Atman remains in communication with ego-consciousness through the medium of dreams. The capacity to interpret dreams increases the power of the ego-Self axis, and permits the atmic energies to replenish the ego-consciousness. When this communication is cut off, the ego tends to become gradually more pathological. The Atman can be cut off from consciousness by the internalization of a too-severe paternal superego, to use Freudian terms. It can also be smothered by a too-close enmeshment with the maternal superego.

The Sat Yoga Approach has reconfigured the useful elements from the misguided sciences of psychology and psychoanalysis into the new discipline of Atmanology, restoring the essential role of the Atman as the engine and aim of psychological growth, and developing a new methodology of working not only with the defenses, signifiers, and unconscious phantasms that produce pathology, but through creating a healing noetic energy field in which the Atman can safely emerge and transform its own ego structure to serve its essential nature in a truly transparent and devoted way. By recognizing the existence of higher states of Being beyond the ego, and understanding the pathways of reaching them (known in Yogic terms as the science of raising Kundalini), the Atmanologist can act as an effective guide to midwife the rebirth into consciousness of the Atman, or the God within.

When individual Atmanology sessions are pursued intensively and consistently, in tandem with a regular meditation practice, pure diet, and disciplined practice of asanas and pranayama, breakthroughs into higher states of essential Being can be attained rapidly—and sustained throughout life. It is our birthright to be able to gain such liberation from egoic baggage and live to our full potential. Why wait?

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The Sat Yoga Institute offers private Atmanology sessions to those who wish an accelerated path to Self-realization. We offer this option to those who participate in our retreats. We also are providing training to those who feel called to build a career as professional Atmanologists and help others gain Liberation as well. Professional training can be pursued not only by those who live in Costa Rica, but through online training combined with yearly seminars and retreats.

If you wish to schedule an appointment for a private individual or couple session at our Institute in Escazú, or to find out more about our Institute, please call (506) 2228-1503 or send us an email.

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Atmanology and Buddhism

There is confusion in the minds of many people regarding the Buddhist denial of the existence of Atman. This is really a red herring. Nearly all the Eastern (and Western, too, for that matter) spiritual traditions are in agreement that ultimate reality is a state of nonduality (or non-triplicity)—a realization that self, world, and deity are not three, but a single whole. But they reach that understanding through different logical pathways. The first duality that must be overcome is that between subject and object. Some of those traditions reach the Absolute by denying objectivity—referring to the objective world as illusory, as Maya. This is the path of Advaita Vedanta. The second path is to deny the reality of subjectivity, which is the Buddhist approach of denying the existence of Atman. However, Sat Yogis agree with both paths. It is true that there is no Atman. That is, there is no positive entity that can ever be found that corresponds to an Atman. But, as the Buddhists would agree, there is an essence—whether one refers to that essential nature as Buddha-nature, Shunyata (Emptiness), Brahman, Shiva, God, or even no-Atman—some final term must be used to refer to that which is the source of Mind.

Atman was the original term, and is as good as any, so long as one remembers that Atman is No-Atman, the Real Self is No-Self. Problems arise with any term. Even the term Emptiness creates misunderstandings, because although in the Absolute there is emptiness of ego, there is fullness of love, wisdom, bliss, and power. In the same way that Self is No-Self, Sat Yogis would aver that God is No-God, in the sense that Otherness dissolves in the state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi (the state of meditative absorption in the Supreme Reality beyond concepts). In that state of Absolute Realization, there is no God as an Other (separation is overcome), there is no self as an entity, and there is no world of objects. Ordinary language cannot describe such a transcendental state of awareness. When descriptions are attempted, one must fall on one side or another of the subject/object antinomies, and this leads to the false sense that different religions are describing different ultimate realities, when they are not. All the different practices also come down to the same goal of stopping the chain of conceptual thoughts that are responsible for delusion and bringing an end to the enmeshment of awareness with signifiers. Even the physical practices of asanas, pranayamas, chi kung, and tai chi have this as their primary intention.

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