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 unde