owledge come as it were into still
greater darkness" (_Ic[=a]_, 9). Here, what is not real knowledge
means good works, sacrifice, etc. But the sacrifice is not discarded.
To those people capable only of attaining to rectitude, sacrifices,
and belief in gods there is given some bliss hereafter; but to him
that is risen above this, who knows the ego (Spirit) and real being,
such bliss is no bliss. His bliss is union with the Spirit.

This is the completion of Upanishad philosophy. Before it is a stage
where bliss alone, not absorption, is taught.[19] But what is the ego,
spirit or self (_[=a]tm[=a]_)? First of all it is conscious; next it
is not the Person, for the Person is produced by the _[=a]tm[=a]_.
Since this Person is the type of the personal god, it is evident that
the ego is regarded as lying back of personality. Nevertheless, the
teachers sometimes stop with the latter. The developed view is that
the immortality of the personal creator is commensurate only with that
of the world which he creates. It is for this reason that in the
Mundaka (1. 2. 10) it is said that fools regard fulfillment of desire
in heavenly happiness as the best thing; for although they have their
'reward in the top of heaven, yet, when the elevation caused by their
good works ends, as it will end, when the buoyant power of good works
is exhausted, then they drop down to earth again. Hence, to worship
the creator as the _[=a]tm[=a]_ is indeed productive of temporary
pleasure, but no more. "If a man worship another divinity,
_devat[=a]_, with the idea that he and the god are different, he does
not know" (_Brihad [=A]ran. Up_. 1. 4. 10). "Without passion and
without parts" is the _brahma (Mund_. 2. 2. 9). The further doctrine,
therefore, that all except _brahma_ 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