did not know clearly what they
believed. Their great discovery was that man's spirit was not
particular and mortal, but part of the immortal universal. Whether
this universal was a being alive and a personal _[=a]tm[=a]_, or
whether this personal being was but a transient form of impersonal,
imperishable being;[31] and whether the union with being, _brahma_,
would result in a survival of individual consciousness,--these are
evidently points they were not agreed upon, and, in all probability,
no one of the sages was certain in regard to them. Crass
identifications of the vital principle with breath, as one with ether,
which is twice emphasized as one of the two immortal things, were
provisionally accepted. Then breath and immortal spirit were made one.
Matter had energy from the beginning, _brahma_; or was chaos, _asat_,
without being. But when _asat_ becomes _sat_, that _sat_ becomes
_brahma_, energized being, and to _asat_ there is no return. In
eschatology the real (spirit, or self) part of man (ego) either
rejoices forever as a conscious part of the conscious world-self, or
exists immortal in _brahma_--imperishable being, conceived as more or
less conscious.[32]

The teachers recognize the limitations of understanding: "The gods are
in Indra, Indra is in the Father-god, the Father-god (the Spirit) is
in _brahma_"--"But in what is _brahma?_" And the answer is, "Ask not
too much" (_Brihad. [=A]ran. Up_. 3. 6).

These problems will be those of the future formal philosophy. Even the
Upanishads do not furnish a philosophy altogether new. Their doctrine
of _karma_ their identification of particular ego and universal ego,
is not original. The 'breaths,' the 'nine doors,' the 'three
qualities,' the _purusha_ as identical with ego, are older even than
the Br[=a]hmanas (Scherman, _loc. cit_. p. 62).

It is not a new philosophy, it is a new religion that the Upanishads
offer.[33] This is no religion of rites and ceremonies, although the
cult is retained as helpful in disciplining and teaching; it is a
religion for sorrowing humanity. It is a religion that comforts the
afflicted, and gives to the soul 'that peace which the world cannot
give.' In the sectarian Upanishads this bliss of religion is ever
present. "Through knowing Him who is more subtile than subtile, who is
creator of everything, who has many forms, who embraces everything,
the Blessed Lord--one attains to peace without end" (_Cvet_. 4.
14-15). These teachers,