In the Vedantic (and subsequently Yogic) schools of Hinduism, Brahman is the signifying name given to the concept of the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendant reality that is the Divine Ground of all being. It is regarded as the source and sum of the cosmos, that constricted by time, space, and causation, as pure being, to some extent a sort of "world soul." Thus, in the beginning of its history, it was deemed a sort of super-stuff from which all that is arises, and debuts with this verse:
Great indeed are the Gods who have sprung out of Brahman.Atharva Veda
However, as the centuries passed and the first Upanishads, the primary Vedantic scriptures that putatively serve as commentaries on the original liturgical books of the Vedas, are written the concept of Brahman fittingly grew in scope and complexity. Soon, the ancient writers of the Upanishads, around the 1st millennium BCE, insisted that brahman, in addition to being material, efficient, formal and final causes of the cosmos, was also utterly beyond all four senses of origin. Essentially, it is also beyond being and non-being alike, and thus does not quite fit with the usual connotations of the word God and even the concept of monism. It is said that brahman cannot be known, that we cannot be made conscious of it, because brahman is our very consciousness. Brahman is also not restricted to the usual dimensional perspectives of being, and thus enlightenment, moksha, yoga, samadhi, nirvana, etc. in the Hindu perspective is not merely coming to know brahman, but to realize one's 'brahman-hood', to actually realize that one is and always was brahman. Indeed, closely related to the Self concept of brahman is the idea that it is synonymous with jiva-atma, or individual souls, our atman (or soul) being readily identifiable with the greater soul of Brahman.
The word Brahman is originally derived from the Vedic use of the Sanskrit word for power and burgeoning, or swelling. In pre-Vedantic Hinduism, it signified the power to grow, the expansive and self-altering process of ritual and sacrifice, often visually realized in the sputtering of flames as they received the all important ghee (clarified butter) and rose in concert with the mantras of the Vedas. Hence another term with the same root, which refers to the highest of the four castes, the Brahmins, who by virtue of their priesthood have such powers.
Philosopher mystics of the Upanishads identify Brahman, the world soul, with atman, the inner essence of the human being, or the human soul. In the Hindu pantheon, Brahman should not be confused with the first of the Hindu trinity of Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver) and Shiva (the Destroyer). Brahma is, like the other gods, Ishwar, or manifested Brahman, fundamentally ego-conscious, whereas Brahman is without ego, without existence and beyond form.
