It is All One

“It is all one whether I posit the universe in myself or myself in the universe.”
- Novalis

“We dream of travelling through the universe - but is not the universe within ourselves?
The depths of our spirit are unknown to us - the mysterious way leads inwards. Eternity with its worlds  - the past and the future - is in ourselves or nowhere.”
- Novalis, Miscellaneous Observations, Novalis, Philosophical Writings, translated by Margaret Mahony Stoljar

“The first step is introspection— exclusive contemplation of the self. But whoever stops there goes only half the way. The second step must be genuine observation outward—spontaneous, sober observation of the external world.” 
—Novalis, 1800

Woman before the Rising Sun (Woman before the Setting Sun), Caspar David Friedrich. 1818-20

The Veil of Self

According to Plutarch, the Egyptian temple of the goddess Neith bore the inscription:

I am All That Has Been, That Is, and That Will Be. 

No mortal has yet been able to lift the veil that covers Me.

There was one who arrived there.
He lifted the veil of the goddess.
But what did he see?
Wonder above wonder,
he saw himself.

Georg Philip Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis), 18th century.

Things

Oil painting by Jeffrey T Larson

"Everywhere we seek the Absolute, and always we find only things."

-Novalis
"Every beloved object is the center point of a paradise."

-Novalis

The Self is not a thing.

The Self is not an object,

The Self is pure Subject,
yet it is also things that are loved.
If anything in the world of things is the object of love,
it is the Self.

"I"-land

"I am a rock, I am an island."
- Simon and Garfunkle

"To no one, who has broken off, and made himself an island, will insight rise of itself, not even with toilsome effort. Only to children, or childlike people, who know not what they do, can this happen."

-Novalis

Selbsttodtung

"The true philosophical Act is annihilation of self (Selbsttodtung); this is the real beginning of all Philosophy; all requisites for being a Disciple of Philosophy point hither. This Act alone corresponds to all the conditions and characteristics of transcendental conduct."

-Novalis (Friedrich Von Hardenberg)

"Ego is absolutely superficial like a bubble. It is just like a balloon, which can burst just like that. And it should go. It should go so that you should rise. It should disappear so that your attention rises in your Spirit. And that you see the whole world as a part of that Spirit that you are."

-Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Selbsttodtung does not mean suicide; it is the dissolution of an illusory self produced by ego and superego. There is nothing violent or even destructive about this act, because that which is annihilated is already non-existent.

Novalis on the Universal Self

Robert Fludd, The Great Chain of Being

"We dream of travels throughout the universe:
is not the universe within us?
We do not know the depths of our spirit.
The mysterious path leads within.
In us, or nowhere, lies eternity with its worlds,
the past and the future."

"I was still blind, but twinkling stars did dance
Throughout my being's limitless expanse,
Nothing had yet drawn close,
only at distant stages I found myself,
a mere suggestion sensed in past and future ages."

"The first step is to look within,
the discriminating contemplation of the self.
He who remains at this point only half develops.
The second step must be a telling look without,
independent, sustained contemplation of the external world."

[the Self and Universe are one and the same.
Contemplation of world is contemplation of Self;
However, one must first realise the Self through inner contemplation ]

"There is but one temple in the Universe
and that is the Body of Man."

Non-ownership of Creativity

“The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist.”
- Novalis (Friedrich Von Hardenberg)

Novalis transformed Fichte’s Nicht-Ich ("not I") to a Du ("you"), an equal subject to the Ich ("I"). This was the starting point for his Liebesreligion ("religion of love").

Perhaps the reason artists live to paint is because they feel that the Self,
in the form of Art, is - in a way - painting them, rather than the other way around.