“He that knows the oldest, jye[s.]tham and the best, cre[s]tham, becomes the oldest and the best.  Now breath is oldest and best” (then follows the famous parable of the senses and breath, 5. 1.  I).  This (found elsewhere) is evidently regarded as a new doctrine, for, after the deduction has been made that, because a creature can live without senses, and even without mind, but cannot live without breath, therefore the breath is the ‘oldest and best,’ the text continues, ’if one told this to a dry stick, branches would be produced and leaves put forth’ (5. 2. 3).[11]] The path of him that partly knows the brahma which is expressed in breath, etc, is as follows:  He goes to the moon, and, when his good works are used up, he (ultimately mist) rains down, becoming seed, and begins life over again on earth, to become like the people who eat him (5. 10. 6); they that are good become priests, warriors, or members of the third estate; while the bad become dogs, hogs, or members of the low castes.[12] A story is now told, instructive as illustrating the time.  Five great doctors of the law came together to discuss what is Spirit, what is brahma.  In the end they are taught by a king that the universal Spirit is one’s own spirit (5. 18. 1).

It is interesting to see that, although the Rig Veda distinctly says that ‘being was born of not-being’ (asatas sad aj[=a]yata, X. 72. 3),[13] yet not-being is here derived quite as emphatically from being.  For in the philosophical explanation of the universe given in 6. 2. 1 ff. one reads:  “Being alone existed in the beginning, one, and without a second.  Others say ‘not-being alone’ ... but how could being be born of not-being?  Being alone existed in the beginning."[14] This being is then represented as sentient.  “It saw (and desired), ’may I be many,’ and sent forth fire (or heat); fire (or heat) desired and produced water; water, food (earth); with the living spirit the divinity entered fire, water, and earth” (6. 3).  As mind comes from food, breath from water, and speech from fire, all 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]