Eckhart, the great perfecter of this European
religion, deliberately and in direct contradiction to the dogma of his
time, placed man above the "highest angels," whom he considered subject
to limitations; "man," he argues, "thanks to his freedom, is able to
reach a goal to which no angel could aspire. For he is always new,
infinitely exalted above the limitations of the angels and all finite
reason." Of the relationship between the soul and God he says; "The soul
of the righteous man shall be with God, his equal and compeer, no more
and no less." The Upanishads, on the other hand, maintain that the core
of the world is not to be found in the soul of the individual but in
Brahma, the universal soul, outside whom there is no reality. "The
individual soul is but a phantasm of the universal soul, as the
reflection of the sun in the water is but a phantasm of the sun." The
sole purpose of the world is the extinction of individual consciousness,
its absorption in Brahma, the end of all suffering: "When feeling has
ceased, pain must cease, too, and the world be delivered.
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