The Philosophy of the Upanishads c7.s3.16

c7.s3.16

As surely however as, to adopt the significant teaching of Schopenhauer, the will and not the intellect is the centre of a man's nature, so surely must the pre-eminence be assigned to Christianity, in that its demand for a renewal of the will is peculiarly vital and essential. But as certainly as man is not mere will, but intellect besides, so certainly will that Christian renewal of the will make itself manifest on the other side as a renewal of knowledge, just as the Upanishads teach. "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" is the requirement of the Bible. But on what grounds is this demand to be based, since feeling is in myself alone and not in another? "Because," the Veda here adds in explanation, "thy neighbour is in truth thy very self, and what separates you from him is mere illusion." As in this case, so at every point of the system. The New Testament and the Upanishads, these two noblest products of the religious consciousness of mankind, are found when we sound their deeper meaning to be nowhere in irreconcilable contradiction, but in a manner the most attractive serve to elucidate and complete one another.