Atman
...this sense of identity, like all other
sectors of the personality, is an imitation of a certain specific
aspect of Essence. Ego identity is an imitation of the identity
of Essence, the true self. The Hindus call it the Atman. The
sense of identity of the personality exists because there is
an unconscious memory of this true self. The personality's sense
of identity develops through the loss of the true self. The
child had it to start with, but its loss led to the development,
through internalizations and identifications, of the ego sense
of identity coalesced around a vague memory of the true identity.
A self-representation is felt as relating to self because of
this vague memory of self. This is the reason for the vagueness
about identity in everybody's experience. (Essence, pg 169)

Different spiritual traditions have given it different
names: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam call it Spirit; Buddhism
calls it Buddha nature; Taoism calls it the Tao; Hinduism calls
it Atman or Brahman. The various traditions differ in how they
conceptualize Essence and how much they emphasize it in their
teaching, but Essence is always considered to be the most authentic,
innate, and fundamental nature of who we are. (Spacecruiser Inquiry)

The self is usually referred to as the "atman," and
the impersonal spirit as the "Brahman." Mircea Eliade,
in his comprehensive study of Indian spiritual systems, writes
about the Upanishads, one of the main spiritual texts: "The
great discovery of the Upanishads was, of course, the systematic
statement of the identity between the atman and the Brahman." (Pearl
Beyond Price)