Thou art that. Unamuno, Life 3.9

Unamuno takes another crack at two things that obsess him: the self, and its proper relationship to the world. For him, creating the self is ultimately more fundamental to life even than truth, goodness, or beauty. And the sacrifice of self seems like a waste, even when it is offered to these things, or to other selves that are mortal (notably descendants). Is there a way to solve his dilemma? Perhaps not. Or at least, not on the terms he would prefer.


Yo soy el centro de mi universo, el centro del universo, y en mis angustias supremas grito con Michelet: «¡Mi yo, que me arrebatan mi yo!» ¿De qué le sirve al hombre ganar el mundo todo si pierde su alma? (Mat. XVI, 26.) ¿Egoísmo decís? Nada hay más universal que lo individual, pues lo que es de cada uno lo es de todos. Cada hombre vale más que la humanidad entera, ni sirve sacrificar cada uno a todos, sino en cuanto todos se sacrifiquen a cada uno. Eso que llamáis egoísmo, es el principio de la gravedad psíquica, el postulado necesario. «¡Ama a tu prójimo como a ti mismo!», se nos dijo presuponiendo que cada cual se ame a sí mismo; y no se nos dijo: ¡ámate! Y, sin embargo, no sabemos amarnos.

Quitad la propia persistencia, y meditad lo que os dicen. ¡Sacrifícate por tus hijos! Y te sacrificas por ellos, porque son tuyos, parte y prolongación de ti, y ellos a su vez se sacrificarán por los suyos, y éstos por los de ellos, y así irá, sin término, un sacrificio estéril del que nadie se aprovecha. Vine al mundo a hacer mi yo, y ¿qué será de nuestros yos todos? ¡Vive para la Verdad, el Bien, la Belleza! Ya veremos la suprema vanidad y la suprema insinceridad de esta posición hipócrita.

«¡Eso eres tú!» —me dicen con los Upanischadas—. Y yo les digo: sí, yo soy eso, cuando eso es yo y todo es mío y mía la totalidad de las cosas. Y como mía la quiero y amo al prójimo porque vive en mí y como parte de mi conciencia, porque es como yo, es mío.

¡Oh, quién pudiera prolongar este dulce momento y dormirse en él y en él eternizarse! ¡Ahora y aquí, a esta luz discreta y difusa, en este remanso de quietud, cuando está aplacada la tormenta del corazón y no me llegan los ecos del mundo! ¡Duerme el deseo insaciable y ni aun sueña; el hábito, el santo hábito reina en mi eternidad; han muerto con los recuerdos los desengaños, y con las esperanzas, los temores!


I am the center of my own universe, the universe that I know, and in my last anguish I cry out with Michelet (): "My 'I'! They are destroying it!" What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world if he lose his soul? (Matthew 26.26). This is selfishness, you say? There is nothing more universal than the individual, for what pertains to each pertains to all. Each person is worth more than all humanity, so that it is not proper to sacrifice each to the group of all, but that all should sacrifice themselves for each individual. That which you call selfishness here is the fundamental principle of psychic gravity, a necessary postulate. "Love thy neighbor as thyself!" was uttered to us on the assumption that each of us already loves the self. We were not told, "Love thyself!" But we don't know how to do it, still.

Stop whatever you are doing and think about what they tell you. "Sacrifice yourself for your children!" And you sacrifice yourself for them because they are yours, part and prolongation of yourself, and they in turn will sacrifice themselves for their children, and these for theirs, and thus it will go on, without enda sterile sacrifice from which nobody takes benefit. I came into the world to make myself, the self that is mine, and what is to become of all ourselves, the selves that are ours? "Live for Truth, for Goodness, for Beauty!" We shall soon see the supreme vanity and insincerity of this hypocritical position.

"Thou art that!" folk tell me, quoting the Upanishads (). And I reply to them: "Yes, I am that when that is I, and all is mine, so that I encompass the totality of things. And as that totality belongs to me, I love it. I also love my neighbor, for he lives in me as part of my consciousness. Like me, he too is mine."

Oh! If only someone could prolong this sweet moment, falling asleep in it and passing therein to eternity! Here and now, in its light so mild and soft, in the grasp of its refreshing rest, how the storm of my heart is calmed: the echoes of the world do not even reach me! Insatiable desire sleeps, without dreams. Habit, my holy custom, rules over mine eternity. My disillusions die with the memories that held them, and my fears perish with my hopes!

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() Perhaps the French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874), though I cannot find the origin of the quote.

() The refrain tat tvam asi (तत्त्वमसि) appears in the Chandogya Upanishad (composed before Buddhism, some time c. 800-600 BCE) as part of a teaching of the sage Uddalaka, delivered to his son Svetaketu. There it appears to explain the sage's contention that we are not properly any single sum of our material parts, that the self exists apart from anything we can know or control perfectly or finally.