Long is the road from the pro­pos­i­tion I am to the declar­a­tion You are. Clearly, the declar­a­tion You are makes sense only if the I exists. How can the human I search out the secret of exist­ence? In inner divi­sion and lost­ness, its first hes­it­ant find­ing runs: I am not. When it braces itself and its risen sense of self pre­vails, it says: Only I am. Ripen­ing into a social being, it now asserts: I am and other people are. When it gives thought to other liv­ing creatures as well, it asserts: I am and other people are and beings are. From here it is only one step to cos­mic aware­ness: I am and other people are and other beings are and the world is. Then, when it reaches the bound­ary of nature, it sup­poses: I am and other people are and other beings are and the world is and the world bey­ond is… With the next step this takes shape with­in it as full vis­ion: I am and other people are and other beings are and the world is and the world bey­ond is and God is. Hitherto the insights kept grow­ing, from non-being to the full spec­trum of being, while the last, mys­tic­al insight leaves aside every incid­ent­al factor and con­cen­trates on the essence alone: God is.

This is how man comes to say You are… This is man's verb of being, the rel­at­ive exist­ence of the human being, that is, of depend­ent real­ity. But one import­ant tenet of the secret teach­ings presents the logic­al order in reverse, and derives the exist­ence of depend­ent real­ity from abso­lute real­ity.

Do you believe God unreal? You will become unreal your­self.

But if He exists for you, you your­self are exist­ent too. (Tait­tir­iya Upan­ishad 2.6.1)

With what mean­ing can man say: You are? Fear, dread, respect, aware­ness, won­der, rev­er­ence or love? Some see that in dread of Him the fire burns, in dread of Him the Sun shines, while oth­ers per­ceive the har­mony in the uni­verse, as by the divine will all things hold togeth­er and, through the work­ing of the primary and sec­ond­ary causes of cre­ation, this cos­mos comes into being. Those who med­it­ate on the primev­al source recog­nise the one they adore in the way that befits their own con­tem­pla­tion, and so it is not God who is man­i­fold, but man's approach.

Man in him­self can be under­stood only with dif­fi­culty, or not at all; human exist­ence can be con­ceived only with­in a sys­tem of rela­tions. In rela­tion to some­thing, in the com­pany of someone, in depend­ence on someone, we are human. Man as depend­ent real­ity stands in a rel­at­ive pos­i­tion, rel­at­ive in both senses of the word, that is, his exist­ence is not abso­lute exist­ence, and he is best under­stood through his rela­tions. That is why You are! is the sys­tem of belong­ing and the order of voca­tion for man who is not left to him­self.

Can anoth­er read­ing exist? If man says it, he cries it out to the heav­ens, but what if God says it? Let there be light – and there was light, and like­wise: Let there be man, and there was man, You are!

Who fash­ioned the form of man? Who his gross part and his name? Who his move­ment, and who his intel­li­gence, and his many kinds of con­duct? (12) Who gave man his in-breath, his out-breath, and from which god comes the life-breath that spreads through (his body)? (13) Which one god instilled in man the spir­it of sac­ri­fice? From whom is his truth, and from whom his false­hood? Whence his death, and whence his immor­tal­ity? (14) Who clothes him (in a body)? Who sets the length of his life? Who gives him his strength, and who the swift­ness of his feet? (15) (Ath­arva Veda X, hymn II – The Mar­vel­lous Com­pos­i­tion of Man)

And the answer arrives too: ‘I make the man – the one I love – immeas­ur­ably mighty, I make him wise, a seer, a brah­min!’ (Rig Veda 10.125.5)