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A Game Master Or Teacher Who Was Primarily Concerned With Being Close Enough To The "innermost Meaning" Would Be A Very Bad Teacher. To Be Candid, I Myself, For Example, Have Never In My Life Said A Word To My Pupils About The "meaning" Of Music; If There Is One It Does Not Need My Explanations. On The Other Hand I Have Always Made A Great Point Of Having My Pupils Count Their Eighths And Sixteenths Nicely. Whatever You Become, Teacher, Scholar, Or Musician, Have Respect For The "meaning" But Do Not Imagine That It Can Be Taught.

-Hermann Hesse

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A Game Master Or

Hermann Hesse

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A Game Master Or Teacher Who Was Primarily Concerned With Being Close Enough To The "innermost Meaning" Would Be A Very Bad Teacher. To Be Candid, I Myself, For Example, Have Never In My Life Said A Word To My Pupils About The "meaning" Of Music; If There Is One It Does Not Need My Explanations. On The Other Hand I Have Always Made A Great Point Of Having My Pupils Count Their Eighths And Sixteenths Nicely. Whatever You Become, Teacher, Scholar, Or Musician, Have Respect For The "meaning" But Do Not Imagine That It Can Be Taught.

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They Both Listened Silently To The Water, Which To Them Was Not Just Water, But The Voice Of Life, The Voice Of Being, The Voice Of Perpetual Becoming.

Man Is Not By Any Means Of Fixed And Enduring Form (this, In Spite Of Suspicions To The Contrary On The Part Of Their Wise Men, Was The Ideal Of The Ancients). He Is Nothing Else Than The Narrow And Perilous Bridge Between Nature And Spirit. His Innermost Destiny Drives Him On To The Spirit And To God. His Innermost Longing Draws Him Back To Nature, The Mother. Between The Two Forces His Life Hangs Tremulous And Irresolute.

If A Man Has Nothing To Eat, Fasting Is The Most Intelligent Thing He Can Do.

I Live In My Dreams — That's What You Sense. Other People Live In Dreams, But Not In Their Own. That's The Difference.

Your Soul Is The Whole World.

I Shall No Longer Be Instructed By The Yoga Veda Or The Aharva Veda, Or The Ascetics, Or Any Other Doctrine Whatsoever. I Shall Learn From Myself, Be A Pupil Of Myself; I Shall Get To Know Myself, The Mystery Of Siddhartha." He Looked Around As If He Were Seeing The World For The First Time.

In Every Truth, The Opposite Is Equally True. For Example, A Truth Can Only Be Expressed And Enveloped In Words If It Is Onesided.

Art Is Contemplation Of The World In A State Of Grace And Imaginatively Reflecting That Subjective Understanding.

What We Can And Should Change Is Ourselves: Our Impatience, Our Egoism (including Intellectual Egoism), Our Sense Of Injury, Our Lack Of Love And Forbearance. I Regard Every Other Attempt To Change The World, Even If It Springs From The Best Intentions, As Futile.

I Do Not Consider Myself Less Ignorant Than Most People. I Have Been And Still Am A Seeker, But I Have Ceased To Question Stars And Books. I Have Begun To Listen To The Teachings My Blood Whispers To Me. My Story Is Not A Pleasant One; It Is Neither Sweet Nor Harmonious, As Invented Stories Are; It Has The Taste Of Nonsense And Chaos, Of Madness And Dreams -- Like The Lives Of All Men Who Stop Deceiving Themselves.

...as Every One Of Us Knows, There Are Some Festivals And Games In Which Everything Goes Right, And Every Element Lifts Up, Animates, And Exalts Every Other, Just As There Are Theatrical And Musical Performances Which Without Any Clearly Discernible Cause Seem To Ascend Miraculously To Glorious Climaxes And Intensely Felt Experiences, Whereas Others, Just As Well Prepared, Remain No More Than Decent Tries.

The Deity Is Within You, Not In Ideas And Books. Truth Is Lived, Not Taught.

So She Thoroughly Taught Him That One Cannot Take Pleasure Without Giving Pleasure, And That Every Gesture, Every Caress, Every Touch, Every Glance, Every Last Bit Of The Body Has Its Secret, Which Brings Happiness To The Person Who Knows How To Wake It. She Taught Him That After A Celebration Of Love The Lovers Should Not Part Without Admiring Each Other, Without Being Conquered Or Having Conquered, So That Neither Is Bleak Or Glutted Or Has The Bad Feeling Of Being Used Or Misused.

The Truth Has A Million Faces, But There Is Only One Truth.

When Two Cultures Collide Is The Only Time When True Suffering Exists.

You Are Only Afraid If You Are Not In Harmony With Yourself. People Are Afraid Because They Have Never Owned Up To Themselves.

For A While I Shall Still Be Leaving, Looking Back At You As You Slip Away Into The Magic Islands Of The Mind. But For A While Now All Are Alive, Believing That In A Single Poignant Hour We Did Say All That We Could Ever Say In A Great Flowing Out Of Radiant Power. It Was Like Seeing And Then Going Blind.

I Was Out Of My Bed In One Second, Trembling With Excitement, And I Dashed To The Door And Into The Adjoining Room, Where I Could Watch The Streets Below From The Windows.

One Of The Disadwantages Of School And Learning, He Thought Dreamily, Was That The Mind Seemed To Have The Tendency Too See And Represent All Things As Though They Were Flat And Had Only Two Dimensions. This, Somehow, Seemed To Render All Matters Of Intellect Shallow And Worthless.

You Are Only Afriad If You Are Not In Harmony With Yourself. People Are Afraid Because They Have Never Owned Up To Themselves. A Whole Society Composed Of Men Afraid Of The Unknown Within Them!

Sentimentality Is A Basking In Feelings That In Reality You Don't Take Seriously Enough To Make The Slightest Sacrifice To Or Ever Translate Into Action.

That Is Where My Dearest And Brightest Dreams Have Ranged — To Hear For The Duration Of A Heartbeat The Universe And The Totality Of Life In Its Mysterious, Innate Harmony.

He Saw That The Water Continually Flowed And Flowed And Yet It Was Always There; It Was Always The Same And Yet Every Moment It Was New.

The River Is Everywhere At The Same Time . . . Everywhere And The Present Only Exists For It, Not The Shadow Of The Past, Nor The Shadow Of The Future.

You've Never Lived What You Are Thinking, And That Isn't Good. Only The Ideas We Actually Live Are Of Any Value.

...every Ego So Far From Being A Unity Is In The Highest Degree A Manifold World, A Constellated Heaven, A Chaos Of Forms, Of States And Stages, Of Inheritances And Potentialities. It Appears To Be A Necessity As Imperative As Eating And Breathing For Everyone To Be Forced To Regard This Chaos As A Unity And To Speak Of His Ego As Though Is Was A One-fold And Clearly Detached And Fixed Phenomenon. Even The Best Of Us Shares This Delusion.

I Am Much Inclined To Live From My Rucksack, And Let My Trousers Fray As They Like.

Often It Is The Most Deserving People Who Cannot Help Loving Those Who Destroy Them.

Faith Is Stronger Than So-called Reality.

Human Life Is Reduced To Real Suffering, To Hell, Only When Two Ages, Two Cultures And Religions Overlap.

Happiness Is A How; Not A What. A Talent, Not An Object.

You Make Me Happy

Not In His Speech, Not In His Thoughts, I See His Greatness, Only In His Actions, In His Life.

People With Courage And Character Always Seem Sinister To The Rest.

You Must Find Your Dream, Then The Way Becomes Easy.

Love Your Suffering. Do Not Resist It, Do Not Flee From It. It Is Only Your Aversion To It That Hurts, Nothing Else.

What Should I Possibly Have To Tell You, Oh Venerable One? Perhaps That You're Searching Far Too Much? That In All That Searching, You Don't Find The Time For Finding?

Each Man Carries The Vestiges Of His Birth; The Slime And Eggshells Of His Primeval Past With Him To The End Of His Days. Some Never Become Human, Remaining Frog, Lizard, Ant. Some Are Human Above The Waist, Fish Below.

But Your Questions, Which Are Unanswerable Without Exception, All Spring From The Same Erroneous Thinking.

Good That You Ask. You Should Always Ask, Always Have Doubts.

There Are Always A Few Such People Who Demand The Utmost Of Life And Yet Cannot Come To Terms With Its Stupidity And Crudeness.

Wisdom Is Not Communicable. The Wisdom Which A Wise Man Tries To Communicate Always Sounds Foolish.

Young People Have Many Pleasures And Many Sorrows, Because They Only Have Themselves To Think Of, So Every Wish And Every Notion Assume Importance; Every Pleasure Is Tasted To The Full, But Also Every Sorrow, And Many Who Find That Their Wishes Cannot Be Fulfilled, Immediately Put An End To Their Lives.

To Achieve The Possible, We Must Attempt The Impossible Again And Again.

Again And Again

It Is Not Our Purpose To Become Each Other; It Is To Recognize Each Other, To Learn To See The Other And Honor Him For What He Is: Each The Other's Opposite And Complement.

Everything That Was Not Suffered To The End And Finally Concluded, Recurred, And The Same Sorrows Were Undergone.

What Isn't Part Of Ourselves Doesn't Disturb Us.

The Reason Why I Do Not Know Anything About Myself, The Reason Why Siddhartha Has Remained Alien And Unknown To Myself Is Due To One Thing, To One Single Thing--i Was Afraid Of Myself, I Was Fleeing From Myself. I Was Seeking Atman, I Was Seeking Brahman, I Was Determined To Dismember Myself And Tear Away Its Layers Of Husk In Order To Find In Its Unknown Innermost Recess The Kernel At The Heart Of Those Layers, The Atman, Life, The Divine Principle, The Ultimate. But In So Doing, I Was Losing Myself.

All The Books Of The World Full Of Thoughts And Poems Are Nothing In Comparison To A Minute Of Sobbing, When Feeling Surges In Waves, The Soul Feels Itself Profoundly And Finds Itself. Tears Are The Melting Ice Of Snow. All Angels Are Close To The Crying Person.

Seriousness Is An Accident Of Time. It Consists Of Putting Too High A Value On Time. In Eternity There Is No Time. Eternity Is A Moment, Just Long Enough For A Joke

She Stood Before Him And Surrendered Herself To Him And Sky, Forest, And Brook All Came Toward Him In New And Resplendent Colors, Belonged To Him, And Spoke To Him In His Own Language. And Instead Of Merely Winning A Woman He Embraced The Entire World And Every Star In Heaven Glowed Within Him And Sparkled With Joy In His Soul. He Had Loved And Had Found Himself. But Most People Love To Lose Themselves.

No, I'm Not Religious, I'm Sorry To Say. But I Was Once And Shall Be Again. There Is No Time Now To Be Religious." "no Time. Does It Need Time To Be Religious?" "oh, Yes. To Be Religious You Must Have Time And, Even More, Independence Of Time. You Can't Be Religious In Earnest And At The Same Time Live In Actual Things And Still Take Them Seriously, Time And Money And The Odéon Bar And All That.

When We Have Learned How To Listen To Trees, Then The Brevity And The Quickness And The Childlike Hastiness Of Our Thoughts Achieve An Incomparable Joy. Whoever Has Learned How To Listen To Trees No Longer Wants To Be A Tree. He Wants To Be Nothing Except What He Is. That Is Home. That Is Happiness.

He Had Thrown Himself Away, He Had Lost Interest In Everything, And Life, Falling In With His Feelings, Had Demanded Nothing Of Him. He Had Lived As An Outsider, An Idler And Onlooker, Well Liked In His Young Manhood, Alone In His Illness And Advancing Years. Seized With Weariness, He Sat Down On The Wall, And The River Murmured Darkly In His Thoughts.

Madness, In A Higher Sense, Is The Beginning Of All Wisdom

When A Writer Receives Praise Or Blame, When He Arouses Sympathy Or Is Ridiculed, When He Is Loved Or Rejected, It Is Not On The Strength Of His Thoughts And Dreams As A Whole, But Only Of That Infinitesimal Part Which Has Been Able To Make Its Way Through The Narrow Channel Of Language And The Equally Narrow Channel Of The Reader's Understanding.

Nothing Was, Nothing Will Be, Everything Has Reality And Presence

Love Must Neither Beg Nor Demand. Love Must Be Strong Enough To Find Certainty Within Itself. It Then Cease To Be Moved And Becomes The Mover.

Most People...are Like A Falling Leaf That Drifts And Turns In The Air, Flutters, And Falls To The Ground. But A Few Others Are Like Stars Which Travel One Defined Path: No Wind Reaches Them, They Have Within Themselves Their Guide And Path.

It Taught Him How To Listen -- How To Listen With A Quiet Heart And A Waiting Soul, Open Soul, Without Passion, Without Desire, Without Judgment, Without Opinion.

And Here Is A Doctrine At Which You Will Laugh. It Seems To Me, Govinda, That Love Is The Most Important Thing In The World.

A Thousand Times I Was Ready To Regret And Take Back My Rash Statement - Yet It Had Been The Truth.

You Know Quite Well, Deep Within You, That There Is Only A Single Magic, A Single Power, A Single Salvation...and That Is Called Loving. Well, Then, Love Your Suffering. Do Not Resist It, Do Not Flee From It. It Is Your Aversion That Hurts, Nothing Else.

To Recognize Causes Is To Think, And Through Thought Alone Feelings Become Knowledge And Are Not Lost, But Become Real And Begin To Mature.

The Way To Innocence, To The Uncreated And To God Leads On, Not Back, Not Back To The Wolf Or To The Child, But Ever Further Into Sin, Ever Deeper Into Human Life.

Nothing Is Harder, Yet Nothing Is More Necessary, Than To Speak Of Certain Things Whose Existence Is Neither Demonstrable Nor Probable. The Very Fact That Serious And Conscientious Men Treat Them As Existing Things Brings Them A Step Closer To Existence And To The Possibility Of Being Born.

At The First Kiss I Felt Something Melt Inside Me That Hurt In An Exquisite Way. All My Longings, All My Dreams And Sweet Anguish, All The Secrets That Slept Deep Within Me Came Awake, Everything Was Transformed And Enchanted, And Everything Made Sense.

I Have Transported Many, Thousands; And To All Of Them, My River Has Been Nothing But An Obstacle On Their Travels. They Travelled To Seek Money And Business, And For Weddings, And On Pilgrimages, And The River Was Obstructing Their Path, And The Ferryman's Job Was To Get Them Quickly Across That Obstacle. But For Some Among Thousands, A Few, Four Or Five, The River Has Stopped Being An Obstacle, They Have Heard Its Voice, They Have Listened To It, And The River Has Become Sacred To Them, As It Has Become Sacred To Me.

One Can Beg, Buy, Be Presented With And Find Love In The Streets, But It Can Never Be Stolen.

Our Mind Is Capable Of Passing Beyond The Dividing Line We Have Drawn For It. Beyond The Pairs Of Opposites Of Which The World Consists, Other, New Insights Begin.

Art Is The Contemplation Of The World In A State Of Grace.

The Art Of Love-giving And Taking Become One.

All Higher Humor Begins With Ceasing To Take Oneself Seriously.

Within You There Is A Stillness And Sanctuary To Which You Can Retreat At Any Time And Be Yourself

So You Can't Dance? Not At All? Not Even One Step? How Can You Say That You've Taken Any Trouble To Live When You Won't Even Dance?

The Day Had Gone By Just As Days Go By. I Had Killed It In Accordance With My Primitive And Retiring Way Of Life.

There Is, So I Believe, In The Essence Of Everything, Something That We Cannot Call Learning. There Is, My Friend, Only A Knowledge-that Is Everywhere, That Is Atman, That Is In Me And You And In Every Creature, And I Am Beginning To Believe That This Knowledge Has No Worse Enemy Than The Man Of Knowledge, Than Learning.

I Will Not Pretend To Justify This Espionage I Carried On, And I Will Say Openly That All These Signs Of A Life Full Of Intellectual Curiosity, But Thoroughly Slovenly And Disorderly At The Same Time, Inspired Me At First With Aversion And Mistrust. I Am Not Only A Middle-class Man, Living A Regular Life, Fond Of Work And Punctuality; I Am Also An Abstainer And A Nonsmoker, And These Bottles In Haller's Room Pleased Me Even Less Than The Rest Of His Artistic Disorder.

We Are Not Going In Circles, We Are Going Upwards. The Path Is A Spiral; We Have Already Climbed Many Steps.

"for Even The Most Childish Intoxication With Progress Will Soon Be Forced To Recognize That Writing And Books Have A Function That Is Eternal. It Will Become Evident That Formulations In Words And The Handling On Of These Formulations Through Writing Are Not Only Important Aids But Actually The Only Means By Which Humanity Can Have A History And Continuing Consciousness Of Itself."

To Be Able To Throw One's Self Away For The Sake Of A Moment, To Be Able To Sacrifice Years For A Woman's Smile - That Is Happiness.

Passion Is Always A Mystery And Unaccountable, And Unfortunately There Is No Doubt That Life Does Not Spare Its Purest Children; Often It Is Just The Most Deserving People Who Cannot Help Loving Those That Destroy Them.

Every Experience Has Its Element Of Magic.

You Will Become Tired, Siddhartha." "i Will Become Tired." "you Will Fall Asleep, Siddhartha." "i Will Not Fall Asleep." "you Will Die, Siddhartha." "i Will Die.

Seeking Means: To Have A Goal; But Finding Means: To Be Free, To Be Receptive, To Have No Goal.

He Saw Mankind Going Through Life In A Childlike Manner... Which He Loved But Also Despised.... He Saw Them Toiling, Saw Them Suffering, And Becoming Gray For The Sake Of Things Which Seemed To Him To Be Entirely Unworthy Of This Price, For Money, For Little Pleasures, For Being Slightly Honoured.

Was That Really Love? I Saw All These Passionate People Reel About And Drift Haphazardly As If Driven By A Storm, The Man Filled With Desire Today, Satiated On The Morrow, Loving Fiercely And Discarding Brutally, Sure Of No Affection And Happy In No Love.

It Was The First Rent In The Holy Image Of My Father, It Was The First Fissure In The Columns That Had Upheld My Childhood, Which Every Individual Must Destroy Before He Can Become Himself.

You Should Never Be Afraid Of People... Such Fear Can Destroy Us Completely. You've Simply Got To Get Rid Of It, If You Want To Turn Into Someone Decent. You Understand That, Don't You?

So You Find Yourself Surrounded By Death And Horror In The World, And You Escape It Into Lust. But Lust Has No Duration; It Leaves You Again In The Desert.

Finding Yourself

There Is Truth, My Boy. But The Doctrine You Desire, Absolute, Perfect Dogma That Alone Provides Wisdom, Does Not Exist. Nor Should You Long For A Perfect Doctrine, My Friend. Rather, You Should Long For The Perfection Of Yourself. The Deity Is Within You, Not In Ideas And Books. Truth Is Lived, Not Taught.

Love Is Like Death. It Is Fulfillment And An Evening After Which Nothing More May Follow.

To Nobody Can You Communicate In Words And Teachings, What Happened To You In Your Hour Of Enlightenment.

Siddhartha Has One Single Goal-to Become Empty, To Become Empty Of Thirst, Desire, Dreams, Pleasure And Sorrow-to Let The Self Die. No Longer To Be Self, To Experience The Peace Of An Emptied Heart, To Experience Pure Thought-that Was His Goal.

Things Are Going Downhill With You!' He Said To Himself, And Laughed About It, And As He Was Saying It, He Happened To Glance At The River, And He Also Saw The River Going Downhill, Always Moving On Downhill, And Singing And Being Happy Through It All.

The World, As It Is Now, Wants To Die, Wants To Perish — And It Will.

Once You Are Able To Make Your Request In Such A Way That You Will Be Quite Certain Of Its Fulfillment, Then The Fulfillment Will Come.

In Fear I Hurried This Way And That. I Had The Taste Of Blood And Chocolate In My Mouth, The One As Hateful As The Other.

Lucid And Quiet His Voice Hovered Above The Listeners, Like A Light, Like A Starry Sky.

The River Is Everywhere.

To Study History Means Submitting To Chaos And Nevertheless Retaining Faith In Order And Meaning.

Faith And Doubt Go Hand In Hand, They Are Complementaries. One Who Never Doubts Will Never Truly Believe.

No, A True Seeker, One Who Truly Wished To Find, Could Accept No Doctrine. But The Man Who Has Found What He Sought, Such A Man Could Approve Of Every Doctrine, Each And Every One, Every Path, Every Goal; Nothing Separated Him Any Longer From All Those Thousands Of Others Who Lived In The Eternal, Who Breathed The Divine.

All It Has Experienced, Tasted, Suffered: The Course Of Years, Generations Of Animals, Oppression, Recovery, Friendship Of Sun And - Wind Will Pour Forth Each Day In The Song Of Its Rustling Foliage, In The Friendly Gesture Of Its Gently Swaying Crown, In The Delicate Sweet Scent Of Resinous Sap Moistening The Sleep-glued Buds, And The Eternal Game Of Lights And Shadows It Plays With Itself, Content.

What You Call Passion Is Not Spiritual Force, But Friction Between The Soul And The Outside World.

Because The World Is So Full Of Death And Horror, I Try Again And Again To Console My Heart And Pick The Flowers That Grow In The Midst Of Hell.

The Judge Who Sits Over The Murderer And Looks Into His Face, And At One Moment Recognizes All The Emotions And Potentialities And Possibilities Of The Murderer In His Own Soul And Hears The Murderer's Voice As His Own, Is At The Next Moment One And Indivisible As The Judge, And Scuttles Back Into The Shell Of His Cultivated Self And Does His Duty And Condemns The Murderer To Death.

Om Is The Bow, The Arrow Is Soul.

Each Of Us Is Merely One Human Being, Merely An Experiment, A Way Station. But Each Of Us Should Be On The Way Toward Perfection, Should Be Striving To Reach The Center, Not The Periphery.

One Must Find The Source Within One's Own Self, One Must Possess It. Everything Else Was Seeking -- A Detour, An Error.

That's The Way It Is When You Love. It Makes You Suffer, And I Have Suffered Much In The Years Since. But It Matters Little That You Suffer, So Long As You Feel Alive With A Sense Of The Close Bond That Connects All Living Things, So Long As Love Does Not Die!

One Cannot Apologize For Something Fundamental, And A Child Feels And Knows This As Well And As Deeply As Any Sage.

All I Really Wanted Was To Try And Live The Life That Was Spontaneously Welling Up Within Me. Why Was That So Very Difficult?

He Saw All These Forms And Faces In A Thousand Relationships Become Newly Born. Each One Was Mortal, A Passionate, Painful Example Of All That Is Transitory. Yet None Of Them Died, They Only Changed, Were Always Reborn, Continually Had A New Face: Only Time Stood Between One Face And Another.

I Realize Today That Nothing In The World Is More Distasteful To A Man Than To Take The Path That Leads To Himself.

A Game Master Or Teacher Who Was Primarily Concerned With Being Close Enough To The "innermost Meaning" Would Be A Very Bad Teacher. To Be Candid, I Myself, For Example, Have Never In My Life Said A Word To My Pupils About The "meaning" Of Music; If There Is One It Does Not Need My Explanations. On The Other Hand I Have Always Made A Great Point Of Having My Pupils Count Their Eighths And Sixteenths Nicely. Whatever You Become, Teacher, Scholar, Or Musician, Have Respect For The "meaning" But Do Not Imagine That It Can Be Taught.

Fortunately, Like Most Children, I Had Learned What Is Most Valuable, Most Indispensable For Life Before School Years Began, Taught By Apple Trees, By Rain And Sun, River And Woods.

Seeking Means: To Have A Goal; But Finding Means: To Be Free, To Be Receptive, To Have No Goal. You, O Worthy One, Are Perhaps Indeed A Seeker, For In Striving Towards Your Goal, You Do Not See Many Things That Are Under Your Nose.

The Diabolical Thing About Melancholy Is Not That It Makes You Ill But That It Makes You Conceited And Shortsighted; Yes Almost Arrogant. You Lapse Into Bad Taste, Thinking Of Yourself As Heine's Atlas, Whose Shoulders Support All The World's Puzzles And Agonies, As If Thousands, Lost In The Same Maze, Did Not Endure The Same Agonies.

Writing Is Good, Thinking Is Better. Cleverness Is Good, Patience Is Better.

That Life Is Difficult, I Have Often Bitterly Realized.

Life Is Difficult

At One Time I Had Given Much Thought To Why Men Were So Very Rarely Capable Of Living For An Ideal. Now I Saw That Many, No, All Men Were Capable Of Dying For One.

Theory Is Knowledge That Doesn't Work. Practice Is When Everything Works And You Don't Know Why.

Man Designs For Himself A Garden With A Hundred Kinds Of Trees, A Thousand Kinds Of Flowers, A Hundred Kinds Of Fruit And Vegetables. Suppose, Then, That The Gardener Of This Garden Knew No Other Distinction Between Edible And Inedible, Nine-tenths Of This Garden Would Be Useless To Him. He Would Pull Up The Most Enchanting Flowers And Hew Down The Noblest Trees And Even Regard Them With A Loathing And Envious Eye. This Is What The Steppenwolf Does With The Thousand Flowers Of His Soul. What Does Not Stand Classified As Either Man Or Wolf He Does Not See At All.

A Tree Has Something To Say To Us: Be Still! Be Still! Look At Me!... Home Is Within You, Or Home Is Nowhere At All.

He Has Robbed Me, Yet He Has Given Me Something Of Greater Value . . . He Has Given To Me Myself.

Alas, Siddhartha, I See You Suffering, But You're Suffering A Pain At Which One Would Like To Laugh, At Which You'll Soon Laugh For Yourself.

All This Had Always Been And He Had Never Seen It; He Was Never Present. Now He Was Present And Belonged To It. Through His Eyes He Saw Light And Shadows; Through His Mind He Was Aware Of Moon And Stars.

If I Know What Love Is, It Is Because Of You.

But One Thing This Doctrine, So Clean, So Venerable, Does Not Contain: It Does Nto Contain The Secret Of What The Sublime One Himself Experienced, He Alone Among The Hundreds Of Thousands. This Is Why I Am Continuing My Wanderings Not To Seek Another, Better Doctrine, Because I Know There Is None, But To Leave Behind All The Teachings And All Teachers, And Either Attain My Goal Alone Or Die.

Every Sin Already Carries Grace Within In, All Small Children Are Potential Old Men, All Sucklings Have Death Within Them, All Dying People - Eternal Life. The Buddha Exists In The Robber And Dice Player; The Robber Exists In The Brahmin.

Every Man's Story Is Important, Eternal And Sacred. That Is Why Every Man, As Long As He Lives And Fulfills The Will Of Nature, Is Wondrous And Worthy Of Every Consideration.

A Girl Had Bidden Me Eat And Drink And Sleep, And Had Shown Me Friendship And Had Laughed At Me And Had Called Me A Silly Little Boy. And This Wonderful Friend Had Talked To Me Of The Saints And Shown Me That Even When I Had Outdone Myself In Absurdity I Was Not Alone.

...haller's Sickness Of The Soul, As I Now Know, Is Not The Eccentricity Of A Single Individual, But The Sickness Of The Times Themselves, The Neurosis Of That Generation To Which Haller Belongs, A Sickness, It Seems, That By No Means Attacks The Weak And Worthless Only But, Rather, Precisely Those Who Are Strongest In Spirit And Richest In Gifts.

All The Women Of This Fevered Night, All That I Had Danced With, All Whom I Had Kindled Or Who Have Kindled Me, All Whom I Had Courted, All Who Had Clung To Me With Longing, All Whom I Had Followed With Enraptured Eyes Were Melted Together And Had Become One, The One Whom I Held In My Arms.

The World Was So Beautiful When Regarded Like This, Without Searching, So Simply, In Such A Childlike Way. Moons And Stas Were Beautiful, Beautiful Were Bank And Stream, Forest And Rocks, Goat And Gold-bug, Flower And Butterfly. So Lovely, So Delightful To Go Through The World This Way, So Like A Child, Awake, Open To What Is Near, Without Distrust.

Beautiful Was This World, Looking At It Thus, Without Searching, Thus Simply, Thus Childlike.

Each Man's Life Represents A Road Toward Himself.

For Me, However, That Beloved, Glowing Little Word Happiness Has Become Associated With Everything I Have Felt Since Childhood Upon Hearing The Sound Of The Word Itself.

I Cannot Tell My Story Without Reaching A Long Way Back.

Wisdom Is Nothing But A Preparation Of The Soul, A Capacity, A Secret Art Of Thinking, Feeling And Breathing Thoughts Of Unity At Every Moment Of Life.

An Enlightened Man Had But One Duty - To Seek The Way To Himself, To Reach Inner Certainty, To Grope His Way Forward, No Matter Where It Led.

Our Friendship Has No Other Purpose, No Other Reason, Than To Show You How Utterly Unlike Me You Are.

The Bourgeois Today Burns As Heretics And Hangs As Criminals Those To Whom He Erects Monuments Tomorrow.

Without A Mother, One Cannot Love. Without A Mother, One Cannot Die.

You Show The World As A Complete, Unbroken Chain, An Eternal Chain, Linked Together By Cause And Effect.

The Mind Is International And Supra-national ... It Ought To Serve Not War And Annihilation, But Peace And Reconciliation.

But Peace, Too, Is A Living Thing And Like All Life It Must Wax And Wane, Accommodate, Withstand Trials, And Undergo Changes.

You Are Willing To Die, You Coward, But Not To Live.

Each Man's Life Represents A Road Toward Himself, An Attempt At Such A Road, The Intimation Of A Path... But Each Of Us - Experiments Of The Depths - Strives Toward His Own Destiny. We Can Understand One Another; But Each Of Us Is Able To Interpret Himself To Himself Alone.

Never Is A Man Wholly A Saint Or A Sinner.

During Deep Meditation It Is Possible To Dispel Time, To See Simultaneously All The Past, Present, And Future, And Then Everything Is Good, Everything Is Perfect, Everything Is Brahman.

If A Bell Failed To Ring, If A Stove Smoked, If A Wheel On A Machine Stuck, You Knew At Once Where To Look And Did So With Alacrity; You Found The Defect And Knew How To Cure It. But The Thing Within You, The Secret Mainspring That Alone Gave Meaning To Life, The Thing Within Us That Alone Is Living, Alone Is Capable Of Feeling Pleasure And Pain, Of Craving Happiness And Experiencing It- That Was Unknown. You Knew Nothing About That, Nothing At All, And If The Mainspring Failed There Was No Cure. Wasn't It Insane?

And All The Voices, All The Goals, All The Yearnings, All The Sorrows, All The Pleasures, All The Good And Evil, All Of Them Together Was The World. All Of Them Together Was The Stream Of Events, The Music Of Life.

Love Of God Is Not Always The Same As Love Of Good.

Everyone Gives What He Has. The Soldier Gives Strength, The Merchant Goods, The Teacher Instruction, The Farmer Rice, The Fisherman Fish.

The Only Reality Is The One We Have Inside Us. What Makes Most People’s Lives So Artificial And Unworthy Is That They Falsely Regard Outside Images As Reality And They Never Allow Their Own Inner World To Speak.

I Wanted Only To Live In Accord With The Promptings Which Came From My True Self. Why Was That So Very Difficult?

The World Was Beautiful When Looked At In This Way-without Any Seeking, So Simple, So Childlike.

Whither Will My Path Yet Lead Me? This Path Is Stupid, It Goes In Spirals, Perhaps In Circles, But Whichever Way It Goes, I Will Follow It.

Everything Is Necessary, Everything Needs Only My Agreement, My Assent, My Loving Understanding; Then All Is Well With Me And Nothing Can Harm Me.

I Called The World Of Phenomena An Illusion, I Called My Eyes And My Tongue An Accident, Valueless Phenomena. No, That Is All Over; I Have Awakened, I Have Really Awakened And I Have Just Been Born Today.

I Can Think. I Can Wait. I Can Fast.

Toward Seven O'clock Every Morning, I Leave My Study And Step Out On The Bright Terrace; The Sun Already Burns Resplendent Between The Shadows Of The Fig Tree, Makes The Low Wall Of Coarse Granite Warm To The Touch. Here My Tools Lie Ready And Waiting, Each One An Intimate, An Ally: The Round Basket For Weeds: The Zappetta, The Small Hoe With A Short Haft . . . There's A Rake Here As Well, At At Times A Mattock And Spade, Or Two Watering Cans Filled With Water Warmed By The Sun. With My Basket And Small Hoe In Hand, Facing The Sun, I Go Out For My Morning Walk.

Romantic Souvenirs Had A Way Of Attaching Themselves To One When One Wanted To Move On, But They Were Not To Be Taken Seriously.

Slowly Blossomed, Slowly Ripened In Siddhartha The Realisation, The Knowledge, What Wisdom Actually Was, What The Goal Of His Long Search Was. It Was Nothing But A Readiness Of The Soul, An Ability, A Secret Art, To Think Every Moment, While Living His Life, The Thought Of Oneness, To Be Able To Feel And Inhale The Oneness.

With A Secret Smile, Not Unlike That Of A Healthy Child,he Walked Along, Peacefully, Quietly. He Wore His Gown And Walked Along Exactly Like The Other Monks, But His Face And His Step, His Peaceful Downward Glance, His Peaceful Downward-hanging Hand, And Every Finger Of His Hand Spoke Of Peace, Spoke Of Completeness, Sought Nothing, Imitated Nothing, Reflected A Continuous Quiet, An Unfading Light, An Invulnerable Peace.

Those Who Direct The Maximum Force Of Their Desires Toward The Center, Toward True Being, Toward Perfection, Seem Quieter Than The Passionate Souls Because The Flame Of Their Fervor Cannot Always Be Seen.

People Know, Or Dimly Feel, That If Thinking Is Not Kept Pure And Keen, And If Respect For The World Of Mind Is No Longer Operative, Ships And Automobiles Will Soon Cease To Run Right, The Engineer's Slide Rule And The Computations Of Banks And Stock Exchanges Will Forfeit Validity And Authority, And Chaos Will Ensue.

Knowledge Can Communicated But Not Wisdom.

What Is The Holding Of Breath? It Is A Flight From The Self, It Is A Temporary Escape From The Torment Of Self. It Is A Temporary Palliative Against The Pain And Folly Of Life.

We Have To Stumble Through So Much Dirt And Humbug Before We Reach Home. And We Have No One To Guide Us. Our Only Guide Is Our Homesickness.

To Hold Our Tongues When Everyone Is Gossiping, To Smile Without Hostility At People And Institutions, To Compensate For The Shortage Of Love In The World With More Love In Small, Private Matters; To Be More Faithful In Our Work, To Show Greater Patience, To Forgo The Cheap Revenge Obtainable From Mockery And Criticism: All These Are Things We Can Do.

It Is A Pity That You Students Aren't Fully Aware Of The Luxury And Abundance In Which You Live.

Deeply, He Felt The Love For The Run-away In His Heart, Like A Wound, And He Felt At The Same Time That This Wound Had Not Been Given To Him In Order To Turn The Knife In It, That It Had To Become A Blossom And Had To Shine. That This Wound Did Not Blossom Yet, Did Not Shine Yet, At This Hour, Made Him Sad. Instead Of The Desired Goal, Which Had Drawn Him Here Following The Runaway Son, There Was Now Emptiness.

Words Do Not Express Thoughts Very Well. They Always Become A Little Different Immediately After They Are Expressed, A Little Distorted, A Little Foolish.

Every Healthy Person Must Have A Goal In Life And That Life Must Have Content.

Look: We Hate Nothing That Exists, Not Even Death, Suffering And Dying, Does Not Horrify Our Souls, As Long As We Learn More Deeply To Love.

I Want To Learn From Myself, Want To Be My Student, Want To Get To Know Myself, The Secret Of Siddhartha.

Every Man Is More Than Just Himself; He Also Represents The Unique, The Very Special And Always Significant And Remarkable Point At Which The World's Phenomena Intersect, Only Once In This Way, And Never Again.

Every Important Cultural Gesture Comes Down To A Morality, A Model For Human Behavior Concentrated Into A Gesture.

It Is Good To Taste For Yourself Everything You Need To Know. That Worldly Pleasures And Wealth Are Not Good Things, I Learned Even As A Child. I Knew It For A Long Time, But Only Now Have I Experienced It.

What Could I Say To You That Would Be Of Value, Except That Perhaps You Seek Too Much, That As A Result Of Your Seeking You Cannot Find.

When The Suffering Becomes Acute Enough, One Goes Forward.

He Had Loved And He Had Found Himself. Most People Love To Lose Themselves.

It Was Still Quiet In The House, And Not A Sound Was Heard From Outside, Either. Were It Not For This Silence, My Reverie Would Probably Have Been Disrupted By Reminders Of Daily Duties, Of Getting Up And Going To School.

There Is, So I Believe, In The Essence Of Everything, Something That We Cannot Call Learning. There Is, My Friend, Only A Knowledge - That Is Everywhere.

A Tree Says: My Strength Is Trust. I Know Nothing About My Fathers, I Know Nothing About The Thousand Children That Every Year Spring Out Of Me. I Live Out The Secret Of My Seed To The Very End, And I Care For Nothing Else. I Trust That God Is In Me. I Trust That My Labor Is Holy. Out Of This Trust I Live.

She Stood A Moment Before My Eyes, Clearly And Painfully, Loved And Deeply Woven Into My Destiny; Then Fell Away Again In A Deep Oblivion, At A Half Regretted Distance.

That Seems To Be The Way Of Things. Everyone Takes, Everyone Gives. Life Is Like That.

Love Is Stronger Than Violence.

Chaos Demands To Be Recognized And Experienced Before Letting Itself Be Converted Into A New Order.

It Was Lovely, And Tempting, To Exert Power Over Men And To Shine Before Others, But Power Also Had Its Perditions And Perils.

We Kill When We Close Our Eyes To Poverty, Affliction, Or Infamy. We Kill When, Because It Is Easier, We Countenance, Or Pretend To Approve Of Atrophied Social, Political, Educational, And Religious Institutions, Instead Of Resolutely Combating Them.

What Constitutes A Real, Live Human Being Is More Of A Mystery Than Ever These Days, And Men Each One Of Whom Is A Valuable, Unique Experiment On The Part Of Nature Are Shot Down Wholesale.

For Me, Trees Have Always Been The Most Penetrating Preachers. I Revere Them When They Live In Tribes And Families, In Forests And Groves.

My Goal Is This: Always To Put Myself In The Place In Which I Am Best Able To Serve, Wherever My Gifts And Qualities Find The Best Soil To Grow, The Widest Field Of Action. There Is No Other Goal.

Beauty Does Not Bring Happiness To The One Who Possesses It, But To The One Who Loves And Admires It.

... Let Us Recall The Well-known Statement Of A University Professor In The Republic Of The Massagetes: 'not The Faculty But His Excellency The General Can Properly Determine The Sum Of Two And Two.'

University Professors

All Suicides Have The Responsibility Of Fighting Against The Temptation Of Suicide. Every One Of Them Knows Very Well In Some Corner Of His Soul That Suicide, Though A Way Out, Is Rather A Mean And Shabby One, And That It Is Nobler And Finer To Be Conquered By Life Than To Fall By One's Own Hand.

I Have No Desire To Walk On Water," Said Siddhartha. "let The Old Shamans Satisfy Themselves With Such Skills".

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