rstanding;
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 oL 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 obtain _brahma_ his desires must be weak, his knowledge
strong; but sacrifice is not to be put away as useless. The
disciplinary teaching of the sacrifice is a necessary preparation for
highest wisdom. It is here that the Upanishads, which otherwise are to
a great extent on the highway to Buddhism, practically contrast with
it. Buddhism ignores the sacrifice and the stadia in a priest's life.
The Upanishads retain them, but only to throw them over at the end
when one has learned not to need them. Philosophically there is no
place for th