HOW IT IS

To experience the Atman is to know that it is eternal, constant, unchanging, permanent, abiding, and reliable.  When we turn to it, that is, when we read about it, study it, meditate upon it, contemplate it, pray to it, we can count on it being there always.

To experience what we call ourselves is to know that we are not eternal, are ever changing, in flux, impermanent, transitory, not abiding, and unreliable, and will die one day. 

The Atman has never died and never will, with the added advantage that when it awakens, is liberated, it will never again be reborn into this world of form, its chain of samsara, birth, death, and rebirth, broken at last.