The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s6.43

v2.c40.s6.43

But an important conclusion follows inevitably from the view that the inner power in all is the absolute: he causes the man whom he will lead on high from these worlds to do good works, and he causes the man whom he will lead downwards to do evil works.⁴ The gods are also determined by him: the grass cannot be burned by Agni, nor swept away by Vāyu, apart from the will of the Brahman. This idea is found repeatedly in the Upaniṣads, and is contrasted with the position of the spirit, which leaves the world after having known the soul and the true desires, and whose part then in all worlds is the life of freedom: he who departs without knowing the soul has in all worlds a life of constraint. The recognition of the freedom of the self is due to the recognition of the fact that the self is the real actor, and that, therefore, the constraint, to which it seems to be subject, is the constraint which it itself exercises on itself: as the Maitrāyaṇīya Upaniṣad⁵ has it, ‘He fetters himself by himself, as a bird by its nest.’