The last important point in the teaching of the Upanishads we have to touch upon is the relation of the jivas, the individual souls to the highest Self. The special views regarding that point held by /S/a@nkara and Ramanuja, as have been stated before. Confronting their theories with the texts of the Upanishads we must, I think, admit without hesitation, that /S/a@nkara's doctrine faithfully represents the prevailing teaching of the Upanishads in one important point at least, viz. therein that the soul or Self of the sage--whatever its original relation to Brahman may be--is in the end completely merged and indistinguishably lost in the universal Self. A distinction, repeatedly alluded to before, has indeed to be kept in view here also. Certain texts of the Upanishads describe the soul's going upwards, on the path of the gods, to the world of Brahman, where it dwells for unnumbered years, i.e. for ever. Those texts, as a type of which we may take, the passage Kaushit. Up. I--the fundamental text of the Ramanujas concerning the soul's fate after death--belong to an earlier stage of philosophic development; they manifestly ascribe to the soul a continued individual existence. But mixed with texts of this class there are others in which the final absolute identification of the individual Self with the universal Self is indicated in terms of unmistakable plainness. 'He who knows Brahman and becomes Brahman;' 'he who knows Brahman becomes all this;' 'as the flowing rivers disappear in the sea losing their name and form, thus a wise man goes to the divine person.' And if we look to the whole, to the prevailing spirit of the Upanishads, we may call the doctrine embodied in passages of the latter nature the doctrine of the Upanishads. It is, moreover, supported by the frequently and clearly stated theory of the individual souls being merged in Brahman in the state of deep dreamless sleep. It is much more difficult to indicate the precise teaching of the Upanishads concerning the original relation of the individual soul to the highest Self, although there can be no doubt that it has to be viewed as proceeding from the latter, and somehow forming a part of it. Negatively we are entitled to say that the doctrine, according to which the soul is merely brahma bhrantam or brahma mayopadhikam, is in no way countenanced by the majority of the passages bearing on the question. If the emission of the elements, described in the Chandogya and referred to above, is a real process--of which we saw no reason to doubt--the jiva atman with which the highest Self enters into the emitted elements is equally real, a true part or emanation of Brahman itself.