Sakshin (“witness”) The inner Self (atman) is the perceiving
aware ness that sees but is unaffected by the changes that occur around it.
The Upanishads, the speculative works that compose the last
layer of the Vedas, the most authoritative Hindu religious scriptures, explain
it in a rudimentary fashion.
The Self is described as a thumb-sized per son within the
cranium in the Katha Upanishad.
The purusha, or aware but inactive witness to the
alterations of prakrti, or nature, is one of the two essential initial
principles of the Samkhya philosophical system, which develops this concept in
a more deep and comprehensive fashion.
Later philosophical traditions, like as Vedanta, reject the
dualism of the Samkhya school by reducing all reality to a single fundamental
principle known as Brahman.
The Self is also seen as the aware and unchanging witness to
the material flux that surrounds it in Vedanta's view of Brahman as
"being-consciousness happiness" (sacchidananda).
