I And Thou

It is said that man experiences his world. What
does that mean ?

Man travels over the surface of things and experiences
them. He extracts knowledge about their constitution
from them: he wins an experience from them. He
experiences what belongs to the things.

But the world is not presented to man by experiences
alone. These present him only with a world composed
of It and He and She and It again.

I experience something.—If we add " inner" to
" outer " experiences, nothing in the situation is changed.
We are merely following the uneternal division that
springs from the lust of the human race to whittle
away the secret of death. Inner things or outer things,
what tore they but things and things !

I experience something.—If we add "secret" to
'* open" experiences, nothing in the situation is changed.
How self-confident is that wisdom which perceives a
closed compartment in things, reserved for the initiate
and manipulated only with the key. 0 secrecy without
a secret 1 0 accumulation of information! It, always It!

The man who experiences has no part/ in the world.
For it is " in him " and not between hinr and the world
that the experience arises.
The world has no part in the experience. It permits
itself to be experienced, but has no concern in the matter.
For it does nothing to the experience, and the experience
does nothing to it.
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