“Atman is Brahman” / “I and the Father are One”
Both the Advaitic saying, “Atman is Brahman,” and Jesus’ declaration, “I and the Father are one,” point to the indivisibility of consciousness.
“Atman is Brahman” is a core tenant of Advaita Vedanta. Atman refers to the first-person consciousness that gives rise to the sense of a personal “I,” and Brahman is the all-encompassing reality of infinite* being. Accordingly, the apparent personal self is, at its core, nothing other than this infinite reality. There is only one consciousness going on here.
The mind is an activity of consciousness and therefore cannot be separate. In Advaita, one does not merge, at some point, with the ultimate reality of being (Brahman); one simply recognizes that consciousness is not two. Separation is an appearance in the mind in the same way that the mind is an appearance within consciousness.
Jesus offers the same insight in the Gospel of John when he says, “I and the Father are one.” The “I” here is not the body-mind, but the divine consciousness expressing itself through that particular form. This is Jesus’ declaration that the fundamental oneness of his own being is the source of all being: the perceiving consciousness, the light through which all experience is known.