Lecture VI

But what lies in the words “Man, know thyself!” expresses something quite different. It really says: Man! look around you at the world; the world is full of riddles, full of mystery, and man's slightest movement points in the widest sense to cosmic mysteries.—Now one can indicate precisely where all these riddles are solved. There is quite a short formula for the indication. We can say: All the riddles of the world are solved in man—again in the very widest sense. Man himself, moving as a living being through the world—he is the solution of the world-riddle! Let him gaze at the sun and experience one of the cosmic mysteries. Let him look into his own being and know: Within thyself lies the solution of this cosmic mystery. “Man, know thyself and thou knowest the world I.”