The Philosophy of the Upanishads c12.s2.t2.12

c12.s2.t2.12

For yonder world cannot be attained by sacrificial gifts or by asceticism by the man who does not know this. For that state belongs only to him who has this knowledge."⁴ The rejection of work and asceticism, the emphasising of knowledge, and the suppression of all desire, are proofs that this passage has in view emancipation as a union with the âtman. But this union is still represented in harmony with traditional ideas as an ascent to heavenly regions,—as though the âtman were to be sought elsewhere than in ourselves. Thus a few pages further on in the passage S'atap. Br. 10. 6. 3, already translated above,⁵ which teaches that destiny in the other world is determined by the degree of insight (kratu) which men have attained here below; and which then as the deepest insight imparts the knowledge of the âtman, who, filling all space and pervading all the universe, is greater than heaven and earth, and yet smaller than a grain of rice or millet, dwells in the inner self. In conclusion it is said:—"He is my soul (*âtman*); thither to this soul on my departure hence shall I enter in."¹ Who does not feel the inner contradiction of these words, and that if the *âtman* is really my soul, no further entrance into it is needed!