I And Thou

perceive nothing but unbelief and self-will, establishing
of a purpose and devising of a means. Without sacrifice
and without grace, without meeting and without present-
ness, he has as his world a mediated world cluttered with
purposes. His world cannot be anything else, and its
name is fate. Thus with all his sovereignty he is wholly
and inextricably entangled in the unreal. He knows
this whenever he turns his thoughts to himself; that
is why he directs the best part of his spirituality to
averting or at least to veiling his thoughts.

But these thoughts about apostacy, about the I
emptied of reality and the real 7, thoughts of letting
himself sink and take root in the soil called despair by
men, soil out of which arise self-destruction and rebirth,
would be the beginning of reversal.

Once upon a time, tells the Brahmana of the hundred
paths, gods and demons were at strife. The demons
said,: " To whom can we bring our offerings ? " They
set them all in their own mouths. But the gods set the
gifts in one another's mouths. Then Prajapati, the
primal spirit, gave himself to the gods.

—It is understandable that the world of It, given
over to itself, that is, not brought into contact with and
melted down by the Thou as it conies into being, takes
on the alien form of an incubus. But how is it that (as
you say) the I of man is emptied of reality ? Surely,
whether living in or out of relation, the I is assured of
itself through its self-consciousness, that strong golden
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