By description, even though carried on to all eternity, I attain
nothing but the cognizing again and again of a certain occurrence as
such, even under altered conditions, and in a state of disguise. But
this act of recognition has nothing whatever to do with a genuine
knowledge. I may meet a man year after year on the street, recognize
him in every imaginable costume, be able to describe him with the
fullest detail, all without knowing the man himself. And, to adapt this
similitude to the Buddha-thought: Even if some day this man of himself
should make himself known and say to me, “My name is so-and-so; I am
such-and-such a person,” this would still mean nothing but an extension
of the process of description. Really to know and comprehend means to
know the energies at work in things. These, however, can be got at
only in one single case: there where the individual comprehends them,
_i.e._ in himself, in consciousness. Every other kind of intercourse
betwixt me and the external world is all of it, positively all, nothing
but a reaction. I can describe but I cannot explain, though I set
myself to it never so scientifically. Though the intercourse betwixt
myself and another be never so intimate the two _I_-worlds are for ever
divided, the one from the other. Self-luminous and illuminating only
oneself, each goes his own way through the beginningless infinitudes--a
terrible thought when grasped in all its fullness. But it is verily so:
actuality _is_ terrible, and whoso fails to recognize it as such does
not know it.