MIND AND ATMAN

We have a mind but are not the mind.  The mind is like our onboard computer.  Philosopher Alan Watts said that the mind is a useful tool but did not say that it was who he was.

The mind creates the illusion of self, the person, the ego, the “I,” which operates in maya, the illusion of the world of form.
 
A person’s true self, the Atman, is covered by five kosha, or sheaths, which include the mind and intellect.  But the Atman is separate from these sheaths and is unaffected by them.  The Atman experiences them, witnesses them, but that is all.

The mind is not the Atman or any conception it has of the Atman.

The Atman, like its source Brahman, is absolute consciousness, which remains constant throughout a person’s life, and throughout all of the lives that it occupies for as many years, centuries, millennia that it takes for it to become liberated.

The mind does not liberate the Atman.  The liberation of the Atman is likened to a bubble of air drifting up from the bottom of a pond.  When the bubble, Atman, reaches the surface, Brahman, it merges with it and is liberated.