Within and Without Posted by Peter Cameron Rowland on January 15, 1998 at 02:08:42:
TITLE: Within and Without
DEFINITION: Short story
CREATOR: Hermann Hesse
MAIN CATEGORY: consciousness
ALTERNATIVE CATEGORIES: belief
RELATIONSHIP TO THE CORE WAVE: What is the distinction between within and without
MAIN QUOTE: "Nothing is without, nothing is within. You know the religious meaning of this: God is everywhere. He is in the spirit, and also in nature. All is divine, because God is all. Formerly this was called pantheism. Then the philosophic meaning: we are used to divorcing the within from the without in our thinking, but this is not necessary. Our spiriat is capable of withdrawing behind the limits we have set for it, into the beyond. Beyond the pair of antitheses of which our world consists a new and different knowledge begins . . .
HIGHLIGHT QUOTES: "Nothing is without, nothing is within. You know the religious meaning of this:
God is everywhere. He is in the spirit, and also in nature. All is divine, because
God is all. Formerly this was called pantheism. Then the philosophic meaning: we
are used to divorcing the within from the without in our thinking, but this is not
necessary. Our spirit is capable of withdrawing behind the limits we have set for
it, into the beyond. Beyond the pair of antitheses of which our world consists a
new and different knowledge begins . . .
Frederick is a no- nonsense kind of guy. "Twice two is four" he used to say. "This I believe; and man
must do his thinking on the basis of this truth."
So he said and so he thought until his friend Erwin gave him the hideous superstitious idol. Seeing it
drove him mad, reminding him of the illogic of outmoded magical thinking. When the idol was broken
by his maid he felt relieved until he wondered and thought about it until he realized. . .""Yes, now you
are within me!"
" . . .Behold, this is magic: to
interchange the without and the within . .
. not by compulsion, not in anguish, as
you have done it, but freely, voluntarily.
Summon up the past, summon the
future: both are in you! Until today you
have been the slave of the within. Learn
to be its master. That is magic."
HIGHLIGHT: I understand my own thought processes better as I am irritated and amused by Frederick's torture. In it I see my own mental folly. Just as Frederick has his revelation, so do I, time and again, as I flux from being aware to not.
DEEPER: What happened before the big bang?