22: Atma means as you all know the self or the ego or an individualised centre of consciousness around which all worldly experiences in their dual aspect of subjective and objective cluster and arrange themselves.  It is as it were one of the foci from which emerge rays of light to illumine the cosmic waters and in which also converge the rays sent back by those waters.  In Theosophical writings, it is called the selfconscious individuality or the Higher Manas.  From this point of view, you will see that the Higher Manas is the most important principle or the central pivot of the human constitution or the true soul.  It is the thread which ought to be caught hold of by one who wants to know the truth and lift himself out of this conditioned existence.  To this it may be objected that Atma represents the seventh principle of the theosophical septenary and that the Manas is far lower in the scale.  But the plain answer is that the seventh principle is the ultimate state attainable by the self after crossing the ocean of conditioned existence or samsara."—Some Thoughts on the Gita, p. 26.