Brahman

Brahman is the name the Upaniṣads give to ultimate reality: that from which beings are born, by which they live, and into which they return. The word comes from a root meaning to grow or expand, and in the oldest Vedic texts it named the power of sacred speech and ritual before it came to name the ground of everything.

The Upaniṣads approach Brahman in two ways. Some passages describe it positively, as being, consciousness and bliss, or in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad’s formula as reality, knowledge and infinity. Others deny every description: Brahman is “not this, not this” (neti neti), beyond the reach of speech and mind. Much of the history of Vedānta is the history of reconciling these two ways of speaking.

The schools of Vedānta agree that Brahman is the source and support of the world and the goal of the spiritual life. They disagree about its relation to individual selves and to the world. For Advaita, Brahman alone is real and is without qualities; for Viśiṣṭādvaita and Dvaita, Brahman is the personal Lord, Viṣṇu or Nārāyaṇa, possessed of infinite auspicious qualities, and selves and world are real and distinct from it in different ways.