Then the macrocosm absorbs me. But the
macrocosm is not me. It is something which I, the microcosm, am not.
So that there is something which is unknown to me and which nevertheless
exists. I am finite, and my understanding has limits. The universe is
bigger than I shall ever see, in mind or spirit. There is that which
is not me.
If I say 'The planet Mars is inhabited,' I do not know what I mean by
'inhabited', with reference to the planet Mars. I can only mean that
that world is not my world. I can only know there is that which is not
me. I am the microcosm, but the macrocosm is that also which I am not.
The old woman on the terrace in the sun did not know this. She was
herself the core and centre to the world, the sun, and the single
firmament. She knew that I was an inhabitant of lands which she had
never seen. But what of that! There were parts of her own body which she
had never seen, which physiologically she could never see. They were
none the less her own because she had never seen them. The lands she had
not seen were corporate parts of her own living body, the knowledge she
had not attained was only the hidden knowledge of her own self.
Pages:
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45