section_path: Philosophy and practice/The Mahāvākyas - the identity of Ātman and Brahman
section_name: The Mahāvākyas - the identity of Ātman and Brahman
paragraph_text: The Mahāvākyas - the identity of Ātman and Brahman
  
  Moksha, liberation from suffering and rebirth and attaining immortality, is attained by disidentification from the body-mind complex and gaining self-knowledge as being in essence Atman, and attaining knowledge of the identity of Ātman and Brahman. According to Shankara, the individual Ātman and Brahman seem different at the empirical level of reality, but this difference is only an illusion, and at the highest level of reality they are really identical. The real self is Sat, "the Existent," that is, Ātman-Brahman. Whereas the difference between Ātman and non-Ātman is deemed self-evident, knowledge of the identity of Ātman and Brahman is revealed by the shruti, especially the Upanishadic statement tat tvam asi.