are there any hindus here who can help expand on some concepts for me?
 

I really don't know that this is the place, but I'm going to ask anyhow as I'm having difficulty understanding the concept of Brahman, which I thought was simply a high class of hindu priests.

Coud you explain this in plain english for me? Is Brahman a concept and Brahmin the term for someone practicing it? How do Brahman and Atman correspond with each other, and them together with Maya?

you're prob better off going to your nearest hindu temple and asking one of the priests to try and explain it...

i only ask here because my last arguement involving hinduism was here, and quite a few people jumped in on it...

If my memory of 'Intro to Philosohy' serves me (The study of the Upanis.ad was the part I was weakest on)...


The Brahman is Everything. The Atman is the soul. However, in the Hindu concept, everything is a part of everything else. There are no individual forces in the universe. It's all Brahman. So the Brahman and Atman are inseparable and the same thing, essentially.

Everything is Brahman. Everything is Atman. The Self is Brahman. The Self is Atman. That cow's Atman is your Atman and is the Atman of everyone else in the universe, and it is all Brahman.

Fun, stuff, eh? The stuff still makes me dizzy.

"Brahmin" is something different entirely. It's is a class in the Hindu heirarchy. The teachers and priest class. There are a few other castes such as warriors, merchants, and laborers.

All are a part of Brahman and have Atman. The Brahmin (I think "Brahamana" or something like that was the name of the entire caste) are probably (this is my opinion... I'm going out on a limb here) named such because their place in the world brings them closer to understanding the Brahman, and puts them in a place to share their knowledge with others.

Yes, I was sort of under the impression that the brahman was the divine everything, and the atman the dvine everything within one's self. i think the terms brahman and brahmin were colliding a bit within my head for some confusion. Still googling my way around, looks like I have a night of reading ahead of me. thanks for the notes D

No worries, man.... happy to share what limited knowledge I have.

If you ever get a handle on this stuff, and want to be confused again, try reading the philosophies of Descartes and Spinoza... I think I actually felt my head explode a little bit during a lecture one day.

Hinduism is pretty deep.
I've been meaning to read up on it.

I sat down and read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse from front back this afternoon. It's the second work of Hesse's I've read recently (read Narcissus and Goldmund a few months back) I understood the story fairly well, but feel like I can still find a deeper level in the book if I have a better understanding of the principals the story is based upon. I think Hesse's obsession (and alot of other authors for that matter) with eastern mysticism, and partially my own disgust with modern western civilization has created an interest in the philosophies, religions, and practices of the east. So I'm diving into some more reading on the subject now...

Additionally I read the first few chapters of The Tao of Detox: The Secrets of Yang-Sheng Dao the other day. My roommate handed me it to take a look at the other day (apparently she's on a cleansing fast right now), and it only took a couple chapters to pull me in too...

I'll definitely make a note on your recommendations, as I'm flying into a reading frenzy as of lately. I finished Plato's Republic not long ago, Timothy Leary's Design For Dying, Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols & The Antichrist, and am still trudging along through his Thus Spoke Zarathustra (I spend about as much time in the dictionary as I do this book, so it's coming along slowly)...

I probably haven't read as many actual books in my entire schooling as I have in the last 4-5 months. Crazy how things change, lol...

Yeah basically what D said

It's been a while since I read anything on Hinduism but to me Brahman is Spirit or universal energy whatever floats your boat.

Atman is an aspect of Brahman that under the illusion of Maya (the physical world of time and space) appears to us to be our separate individual soul/spirit/energy.