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The Commentary "AfJ-eJl"woJl"d" 1 A cross the theories of races and cultures, in our time the old knowledge has been neglected, that the Orient forms a natural oneness, expressed in its values and works; that across its divisions of peoples arises a commonality that separates it from the destiny and creativity of the West in unconditioned clarity. The genetic explanation for it, which is not to be expounded here, has its foundation quite naturally in the diverse conditions not merely in space but also in time, for indeed the spiritually determining epoch of the Orient belongs to a moment of mankind other than that of the West. Here, the oneness of the Orient is only implicitly to be demonstrated in one manifestation, which to be sure is among the most essential of all, in the manifestation of the teaching. In its primordial state, the Eastern spirit! is what all spirit is in the primordial state: magic. This is its being, that it confronts the unrestraint of nature that is rushing with thousandfold menace, with its restraint, the binding that is inherent in magical power. Regulated word, ordered motion, incantation and magic gesture compel the demonic element into rule and order. All primitive technique and all primitive organization are magic; implement and defense, speech and sport, custom and bond arise from magical intention and serve in their primordial time a magical sense out of which their own life only gradually sets itself loose and becomes independent. This setting loose and becoming independent carries itself out much more slowly in the Orient than in the West. In the West, the magical has living duration only in the folk religiosity, in which the 69 70 I and Too undifferentiated wholeness of life has preserved itself; in all other domains, the loosening is fast and complete. In the Orient, it is slow and incomplete; in the products of separation, the magical character adheres even longer. Thus, for example, the art of the Orient still remains in many ways, even after the attainment of artistic freedom and might, in the magical intention, while with that of the West, the attainment of this height confers its own right and its own purpose. Among the three foundational powers in which the indicating spirit of the East (I am here bypassing the forming spirit) constructs itself, and of which the Occident possesses creatively only two-these being called science and law-it is the third, this being called the teaching, that is able to loosen itself most completely from the magical primordial ground. It appears to me that for an understanding of the Orient, it is necessary to draw these foundational powers into every distinction from one another. "Science" comprises all information about an existence,2 earthly and heavenly, which are nowhere and never separated from one another, but rather combine themselves into the world of existence, which is the subject of science. "Law" comprises all commands of an obligation,3 human and godly, which are nowhere and never separated from one another, but rather combine themselves into the world of obligation, which is the subject of law. Science and law belong continually together, so that existence proves itself in obligation, obligation establishes itself in existence. The growing schism between existence and obligation, science and law, which characterizes the spiritual history of the Occident, is foreign to the Orient. With science and law goes the teaching as the third foundational power of the Eastern spirit. The teaching comprises no subjects, it has only one subject, itself : the one that is necessary.4 It stands beyond existence and obligation, information and command; it knows only to say one thing, the needful that is realized in the truthfullife.5 The needful is by no means an existence and accessible to information; it is not found either on Earth or in Heaven, but rather possessed and lived. The truthful life is by no means an obligation and subject to Commentary 71 command; it is not taken over either from man or from God, but rather it can only be fulfilled out of itself and is utterly nothing other than fulfillment. Science stands on the duality of reality and cognition; law stands on the duality of demand and deed;6 the teaching stands on the oneness of the one that is necessary. One can nevertheless transform fundamentally the sense that the words existence and obligation have in science and law, and denote the needful as an existence that is...

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