And thus the soul pities God and feels itself pitied by Him; loves
Him and feels itself loved by Him, sheltering its misery in the bosom of
the eternal and infinite misery, which, in eternalizing itself and
infinitizing itself, is the supreme happiness itself.
God is, then, the personalization of the All; He is the eternal and
infinite Consciousness of the Universe--Consciousness taken captive by
matter and struggling to free himself from it. We personalize the All
in order to save ourselves from Nothingness; and the only mystery really
mysterious is the mystery of suffering.
Suffering is the path of consciousness, and by it living beings arrive
at the possession of self-consciousness. For to possess consciousness of
oneself, to possess personality, is to know oneself and to feel oneself
distinct from other beings, and this feeling of distinction is only
reached through an act of collision, through suffering more or less
severe, through the sense of one's own limits. Consciousness of oneself
is simply consciousness of one's own limitation. I feel myself when I
feel that I am not others; to know and to feel the extent of my being is
to know at what point I cease to be, the point beyond which I no longer
am.
And how do we know that we exist if we do not suffer, little or much?
How can we turn upon ourselves, acquire reflective consciousness, save
by suffering? When we enjoy ourselves we forget ourselves, forget that
we exist; we pass over into another, an alien being, we alienate
ourselves.
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