is delusion is implied here, and the “extinction of gods in brahma” is once or twice formulated.[20] The fatal error of judgment is to imagine that there is in absolute being anything separate from man’s being.  When personified, this being appears as the supreme Person, identical with the ego, who is lord of what has been and what will be.  By perceiving this controlling spirit in one’s own spirit (or self) one obtains eternal bliss; “when desires cease, the mortal becomes immortal; he attains brahma here” in life (Katha Up. 2. 5. 12; 6. 14; Br. [=A]ran.  Up. 4. 4. 7).

How inconsistent are the teachings of the Upanishads in regard to cosmogonic and eschatological matters will be evident if one contrast the statements of the different tracts not only with those of other writings of the same sort, but even with other statements in the same Upanishads.  Thus the Mundaka teaches first that Brahm[=a], the personal creator, made the world and explained brahma (1. 1. 1).  It then defines brahma as the Imperishable, which, like a spider, sends out a web of being and draws it in again (ib. 6, 7).  It states with all distinctness that the (neuter) brahma comes from The (masculine)

One who is all-wise, all-knowing (ib. 9).  This heavenly Person is the imperishable ego; it is without form; higher than the imperishable (1. 2. 10 ff.; 2. 1. 2); greater than the great (3. 2. 8).  Against this is then set (2. 2. 9) the great being brahma, without passions or parts, i. e., without intelligence such as was predicated of the [=a]tm[=a]; and (3. 1. 3) then follows the doctrine of the personal ‘Lord, who is the maker, the Person, who has his birth in brahma’ (purusho brahmayonis).  That this Upanishad is pantheistic is plain from 3. 2. 6, where Ved[=a]nta and Yoga are named.  According to this tract the wise go to brahma or to ego (3. 2. 9 and 1. 2. 11), while fools go to heaven and return again.

On the same plane stands the [=I]c[=a], where [=a]tm[=a], ego, Spirit, is the True, the Lord, and is in the sun.  Opposed to each other here are ‘darkness’ and ‘immortality,’ as fruit, respectively, of ignorance and wisdom.

In the K[=a]ush[=i]taki Upanishad, taken with the meaning put into it by the commentators, the wise man goes to a very different sort of brahma—­one where he is met by nymphs, and rejoices in a kind of heaven.  This brahma is of two sorts, absolute and conditioned; but it is ultimately defined as ‘breath.’  Whenever it is convenient, ‘breath’ is regarded by the commentators as ego, ‘spirit’; but one can scarcely escape the conviction that in many passages ‘breath’ was meant by the speaker to be taken at its face value.  It is the vital power.  With this vital power (breath or spirit) one in dreamless sleep unites.  Indra has nothing higher to say than that he is breath (spirit), conscious and immortal.  Eventually the soul after death comes to Indra, or gains the bright heaven.  But here too the doctrine of the dying out of the gods is known (as in T[=a]tt. 3. 10. 4).  Cosmogonically all here springs from water (1. 4, 6, 7; 2. 1, 12; 3. 1, 2; 4. 20).