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that makes a man is thus derived from the (true) being (6. 7. 6); and when one dies his speech is absorbed into mind, his mind into breath, his breath into fire (heat), and heat into the highest godhead (6. 8. 7). This is the subtle spirit, that is the Spirit, that is the True, and this is the spirit of man. Now comes the grand conclusion of the Ch[=a]ndogya. He who knows the ego escapes grief. What is the ego? The Vedas are names, and he that sees brahma in the Vedas is indeed (partly) wise; but speech is better than a name; mind is better than speech; will is better than mind; meditation, better than will; reflection, than meditation; understanding, than reflection; power, than understanding; food, than power, water, than food; heat (fire), than water, ether, than heat; memory, than ether; hope, than memory; breath (=spirit), than hope. In each let one see brahma, ego in All. Who knows this is supreme in knowledge; but more supreme in knowledge is he that knows that in true (being) is the highest being. True being is happiness; true being is ego; ego is all; ego is the absolute.[15]
The relativity o£ divinity is the discovery of the Upanishads. And the relativity of happiness hereafter is the key-note of their religious philosophy. Pious men are of three classes, according to the completed system. Some are good men, but they do not know enough to appreciate, intellectually or spiritually, the highest. Let this class meditate on the Vedas. They desire wealth, not freedom. The second class wish, indeed, to emancipate themselves; but to do so step by step; not to reach absolute brahma, but to live in bliss hereafter. Let these worship the Spirit as physical life. They will attain to the bliss of the realm of light, the realm of the personal creator. But the highest class, they that wish to emancipate themselves at once, know that physical life is but a form of spiritual life; that the personal creator is but a form of the Spirit; that the Spirit is absolute brahma, and that in reaching this they attain to immortality. These, then, are to meditate on spirit as the highest Spirit, that is, the absolute. To fear heaven as much as hell, to know that knowledge is, after all, the key to brahma, that brahma is knowledge; this is the way to emancipation. The gods are; but they are forms of the ego, and their heaven is mortal. It is false to deny the gods. Indra and the Father-god exist, just as men exist, as transient forms of brahma. Therefore, according to the weakness or strength of a man's mind and heart (desire) is he fitted to ignore gods and sacrifice. To
