I And Thou

partial actions, and consequently of aH -sensations of
actions grounded only in their particular limitation, is
bound to resemble suffering.
This is the activity of the man who has become a
whole being, an activity that has been termed doing
nothing: nothing separate or partial stirs in the man
any more, thus he makes no intervention in the world ;
it is the whole man, enclosed and at rest in his wholeness,
that is effective—he has become an effective whole.
To have won stability in this state is to be able to go out
to the supreme meeting*
To this end the world of sense does not need to be
laid aside as though it were illusory. There is no illusory
world, there is only the world—which appears to us as
twofold in accordance with our twofold attitude. Only
the barrier of separation has to be destroyed. Further,
no " going beyond sense-experience" is necessary;
for every experience, even the most spiritual, could yield
us only an It. Nor is any recourse necessary to a world
of ideas and values ; for they cannot become presentness
for us. None of these things is necessary. Can it be
said what really is necessary ? —Not in the sense of a
precept. For everything that has ever been devised and
contrived in the time of the human spirit as precept,
alleged preparation, practice, or meditation, has nothing
to do with the primal, simple fact of the meeting.
Whatever the advantages in knowledge or. the wielding
of power for which we have to thank this or that practice,
none of this affects the meeting of which we are speaking;
it all has its place in the world of It and does not lead
one step, does not take the step, out of it. Going out
to the relation cannot be taught in the sense of precepts
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