his
Self, and bring it to an end with this Self? There is nothing that
justifies us in saying that this Self had a beginning, and will therefore
have an end. The ego had a beginning, the _persona_, the temporal mask
that unfolds itself in this life, but not the Self that wears the mask.
When therefore my Horseherd says, "After death we are just as much a
nullity as before our birth," I say, _quoderat demonstrandum_ is still to
be proved. What does he mean by _we_? If we were nothing before birth,
that is, if we never had been at all, what would that be that is born?
Being born does not mean becoming something out of nothing. What is born
or produced was there, before it was born or produced, before it came into
the light of the world. All creation out of nothing is a pure chimera for
us. Have we ever the feeling or experience that we had a beginning here
on earth, or have we entirely forgotten the most remarkable thing in our
life, viz., its beginning? Have we ever seen a beginning? Can we even
think of an absolute beginning? In order to have had our beginning on
earth, there must have been something that begins, be it a cell or be it
the Self. All that we call ego, personality, character, etc., has unfolded
itself on earth, is earthly, but not the Self. If we now on earth were
content with the pure Self, if in all those that we love, we loved the
eternal Self and not only the appearance, what then is more natural than
that it should be so in the next world, that the continuity of existence
cannot be severed, that the Self should find itself again, even though in
new and unexpected forms? When therefore my friend makes the bold
assertion: "After our death we are again as much a nullity as before our
birth," I say, "Yes, if we take nullity in the Hegelian sense." Otherwise
I say the direct contrary to this: "After our death we are again as little
a nullity as before our birth. What we shall be we cannot know; but that
we shall be, follows from this, that the Self or the divine within us can
neither have a beginning nor an end." That is what the ancients meant in
saying that death was to be best understood from the time before birth.
But we must not think that each single ego lays claim only to a part of
the Self, for then the Self would be divided, limited, and finite. No, the
entire Self bears us, just as the entire light illumines all, every grain
of sand and every star, but for that reason does not belong exclusively to