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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.

-Hermann Hesse

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A Girl Had Bidden

Hermann Hesse

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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.

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You Wouldn't Consider All The Bipeds You Pass On The Street Human Beings Simply Because They Walk Upright And Carry Their Young In Their Bellies Nine Months! It Is Obvious How Many Of Them Are Fish Or Sheep, Worms Or Angels, How Many Are Ants, How Many Are Bees!

If What Matters In A Person's Existence Is To Accept The Inevitable Consciously, To Taste The Good And Bad To The Full And To Make For Oneself A More Individual, Unaccidental And Inward Destiny Alongside One's External Fate, Then My Life Has Been Neither Empty Nor Worthless.

. . . Gentleness Is Stronger Than Severity, Water Is Stronger Than Rock, Love Is Stronger Than Force.

Oh, Love Isn't There To Make Us Happy. I Believe It Exists To Show Us How Much We Can Endure.

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

Love Must Not Entreat,' She Added, 'or Demand. Love Must Have The Strength To Become Certain Within Itself. Then It Ceases Merely To Be Attracted And Begins To Attract.

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

What A Wonderful Sleep It Had Been! Never Had Sleep So Refreshed Him, So Renewed Him, So Rejuvenated Him! Perhaps He Had Really Died, Perhaps He Had Been Drowned And Was Reborn In Another Form. No, He Recognized Himself, He Recognized His Hands And Feet, The Place Where He Lay And The Self In His Breast, Siddhartha, Self-willed, Individualistic. But This Siddhartha Was Somewhat Changed, Renewed. He Had Slept Wonderfully. He Was Remarkably Awake, Happy And Curious.

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

How Could I Fail To Be A Lone Wolf, And An Uncouth Hermit, As I Did Not Share One Of Its Aims Nor Understand One Of Its Pleasures?

You Knew All Along That Your Sanctioned World Was Only Half The World, And You Tried To Suppress The Other Half The Same Way The Priests And Teachers Do. You Won't Succeed. No One Succeeds In This Once He Has Begun To Think.

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

You're Quite Right There," He Said. "i Have Practiced Abstinence Myself For Years, And Had My Time Of Fasting, Too, But Now I Find Myself Once More Beneath The Sign Of Aquarius, A Dark And Humid Constellation.

Was It Not His Self, His Small, Fearful And Proud Self, With Which He Had Wrestled For So Many Years, But Which Had Always Conquered Him Again, Which Appeared Each Time Again And Again, Which Robbed Him Of Happiness And Filled Him With Fear?

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

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.

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

What For Me Is Bliss And Life And Ecstasy And Exaltation, The World In General Seeks At Most In Imagination; In Life It Finds It Absurd.

Everything Becomes A Little Different As Soon As It Is Spoken Out Loud.

Life Is Always Frightful. We Cannot Help It And We Are Responsible All The Same. One's Born And At Once One Is Guilty.

Until 1914 I Loved To Travel; I Often Went To Italy And Once Spent A Few Months In India. Since Then I Have Almost Entirely Abandoned Travelling, And I Have Not Been Outside Of Switzerland For Over Ten Years.

In Any Case, The Most Lively Young People Become The Best Old People, Not Those Who Pretend To Be As Wise As Grandfathers While They Are Still At School.

Whether You And I And A Few Others Will Renew The World Some Day Remains To Be Seen. But Within Ourselves We Must Renew It Each Day.

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.

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

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

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.

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

You Make Me Happy

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

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

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

Any Attempt To Replace A Personal Conscience By A Collective Conscience Does Violence To The Individual And Is The First Step Toward Totalitarianism.

I Am In Truth The Steppenwolf That I Often Call Myself; That Beast Astray That Finds Neither Home Nor Joy Nor Nourishment In A World That Is Strange And Incomprehensible To Him.

Did All This Make Sense?

Each Man's Life Represents A Road Toward Himself, An Attempt At Such A Road, The Intimation Of A Path. No Man Has Ever Been Entirely And Completely Himself.

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

You Treat World History As A Mathematician Does Mathematics, In Which Nothing But Laws And Formulas Exist, No Reality, No Good And Evil, No Time, No Yesterday, No Tomorrow, Nothing But An Eternal, Shallow, Mathematical Present.

Gaze Into The Fire, Into The Clouds, And As Soon As The Inner Voices Begin To Speak... Surrender To Them. Don't Ask First Whether It's Permitted, Or Would Please Your Teachers Or Father Or Some God. You Will Ruin Yourself If You Do That.

Every Path Leads Homeward, Every Step Is Birth, Every Step Is Death, Every Grave Is Mother.

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.

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.

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.

Youth Ends When Egotism Does; Maturity Begins When One Lives For Others.

Live For Others

I Had Grown A Thin Mustache, I Was A Full-grown Man, And Yet I Was Completely Helpless And Without A Goal In Life.

Without Words, Without Writing And Without Books There Would Be No History, There Could Be No Concept Of Humanity.

We Kill At Every Step, Not Only In Wars, Riots And Executions. We Kill When We Close Our Eyes To Poverty, Suffering And Shame.in The Same Way All Disrespect For Life, All Hard-heartedness,all Indifference, All Contempt Is Nothing Else Than Killing.

All Higher Humor Begins With Ceasing To Take Oneself Seriously.

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

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

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.

Each Man's Life Represents A Road Toward Himself.

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

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.

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.

Each Man Had Only One Genuine Vocation - To Find The Way To Himself....his Task Was To Discover His Own Destiny - Not An Arbitrary One - And To Live It Out Wholly And Resolutely Within Himself. Everything Else Was Only A Would-be Existence, An Attempt At Evasion, A Flight Back To The Ideals Of The Masses, Conformity And Fear Of One's Own Inwardness.

I Have No Right To Call Myself One Who Knows. I Was One Who Seeks, And I Still Am, But I No Longer Seek In The Stars Or In Books; I'm Beginning To Hear The Teachings Of My Blood Pulsing Within Me. My Story Isn't Pleasant, It's Not Sweet And Harmonious Like The Invented Stories; It Tastes Of Folly And Bewilderment, Of Madness And Dream, Like The Life Of All People Who No Longer Want To Lie To Themselves.

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.

I Realize That Some People Will Not Believe That A Child Of Little More Than Ten Years Is Capable Of Having Such Feelings. My Story Is Not Intended For Them. I Am Telling It To Those Who Have A Better Knowledge Of Man. The Adult Who Has Learned To Translate A Part Of His Feelings Into Thoughts Notices The Absence Of These Thoughts In A Child, And Therefore Comes To Believe That The Child Lacks These Experiences, Too. Yet Rarely In My Life Have I Felt And Suffered As Deeply As At That Time.

When You Like Someone, You Like Them In Spite Of Their Faults. When You Love Someone, You Love Them With Their Faults.

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

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

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.

Love Is Stronger Than Violence.

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.

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.

It Is Not For Me To Judge Another Man's Life. I Must Judge, I Must Choose, I Must Spurn, Purely For Myself. For Myself, Alone.

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.

How Absurd These Words Are, Such As Beast And Beast Of Prey. One Should Not Speak Of Animals In That Way. They May Be Terrible Sometimes, But They're Much More Right Than Men...they're Never In Any Embarrassment. They Always Know What To Do And How To Behave Themselves. They Don't Flatter And They Don't Intrude. They Don't Pretend. They Are As They Are, Like Stones Or Flowers Or Stars In The Sky.

A Home Isn't Just A Roof Over Our Heads. A Home Is A Place Where We Feel Loved And Where We Love Others. It's A Place We Belong. Love Is What Makes A Home, Not The Contents Inside The House Or The Number On The Door. It's The People Waiting For Us Across The Threshold, The People Who Will Take Us In Their Arms After A Ad Day And Kiss Us Good Night And Good Morning Everyday For The Rest Of Our Lives.

My Real Self Wanders Elsewhere, Far Away, Wanders On And On Invisibly And Has Nothing To Do With My Life.

If Time Is Not Real, Then The Dividing Line Between This World And Eternity, Between Suffering And Bliss, Between Good And Evil, Is Also An Illusion.

A House Without Books Is A Poor House, Even If Beautiful Rugs Are Covering Its Floors And Precious Wallpapers And Pictures Cover Its Walls

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

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

But It's A Poor Fellow Who Can't Take His Pleasure Without Asking Other People's Permission.

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.

I Began To Understand That Suffering And Disappointments And Melancholy Are There Not To Vex Us Or Cheapen Us Or Deprive Us Of Our Dignity But To Mature And Transfigure Us.

God Does Not Send Us Despair In Order To Kill Us; He Sends It In Order To Awaken Us To New Life.

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.

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.

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

That Is Why We Were Drawn To One Another And Why We Are Brother And Sister. I Am Going To Teach You To Dance And Play And Smile, And Still Not Be Happy. And You Are Going To Teach Me To Think And To Know And Yet Not Be Happy. Do You Know That We Are Both Children Of The Devil?

A Longing To Wander Tears My Heart When I Hear Trees Rustling In The Wind At Evening...

He Lost His Self A Thousand Times And For Days On End He Dwelt In Non-being. But Although The Paths Took Him Away From Self, In The End They Always Led Back To It. Although Siddhartha Fled From The Self A Thousand Times, Dwelt In Nothing, Dwelt In Animal And Stone, The Return Was Inevitable; The Hour Was Inevitable When He Would Again Find Himself In Sunshine Or In Moonlight, In Shadow Or In Rain, And Was Again Self And Siddhartha, Again Felt The Torment Of The Onerous Life Cycle.

I Have Always Thirsted For Knowledge, I Have Always Been Full Of Questions.

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

What Is Meditation?... It Is Fleeing From The Self, It Is A Short Escape Of The Agony Of Being A Self, It Is A Short Numbing Of The Senses Against The Pain And The Pointlessness Of Life. The Same Escape, The Same Short Numbing Is What The Driver Of An Ox-cart Finds In The Inn, Drinking A Few Bowls Of Rice Wine Or Fermented Coconut-milk.

It May Be Important To Great Thinkers To Examine The World, To Explain And Despise It. But I Think It Is Only Important To Love The World, Not To Despise It, Not For Us To Hate Each Other, But To Be Able To Regard The World And Ourselves And All Beings With Love, Admiration And Respect.

A Soul That Is Ruined In The Bud Will Frequently Return To The Springtime Of Its Beginning And Its Promise-filled Childhood, As Though It Could Discover New Hopes There And Retie The Broken Threads Of Life. The Shoots Grow Rapidly And Eagerly, But It Is Only A Sham Life That Will Never Be A Genuine Tree.

Everything That Is Thought And Expressed In Words Is One-sided, Only Half The Truth; It All Lacks Totality, Completeness, Unity. When The Illustrious Buddha Taught About The World, He Had To Divide It Into Samsara And Nirvana, Illusion And Truth, Into Suffering And Salvation. One Cannot Do Otherwise, There Is No Other Method For Those Who Teach. But The World Itself, Being In And Around Us, Is Never One-sided. Never Is A Man Or A Deed Wholly Samsara Or Wholly Nirvana; Never Is A Man Wholly A Saint Or A Sinner. This Only Seems So Because We Suffer The Illusion That Time Is Something Real.

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!

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

His Way Had Therefore Come Full Circle, Or Rather Had Taken The Form Of An Ellipse Or A Spiral, Following As Ever No Straight Unbroken Line, For The Rectilinear Belongs Only To Geometry And Not To Nature And Life.

The Old Man Slowly Raised Himself From The Piano Stool, Fixed Those Cheerful Blue Eyes Piercingly And At The Same Time With Unimaginable Friendliness Upon Him, And Said: "making Music Together Is The Best Way For Two People To Become Friends. There Is None Easier. That Is A Fine Thing. I Hope You And I Shall Remain Friends. Perhaps You Too Will Learn How To Make Fugues, Joseph.

Every Age, Every Culture, Every Custom And Tradition Has Its Own Character, Its Own Weakness And Its Own Strength, Its Beauties And Cruelties; It Accepts Certain Sufferings As Matters Of Course, Puts Up Patiently With Certain Evils. Human Life Is Reduced To Real Suffering, To Hell, Only When Two Ages, Two Cultures And Religions Overlap

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

When Someone Is Seeking, It Happens Quite Easily That He Only Sees The Thing That He Is Seeking; That He Is Unable To Find Anything, Unable To Absorb Anything, Because He Is Only Thinking Of The Thing He Is Seeking, Because He Has A Goal, Because He Is Obsessed With His Goal. 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.

It Is Remarkable, All That Men Can Swallow. For A Good Ten Minutes I Read A Newspaper. I Allowed The Spirit Of An Irresponsible Man Who Chews And Munches Another's Words In His Mouth, And Gives Them Out Again Undigested, To Enter Into Me Through My Eyes.

Your Soul Is The Whole World.

The Sacred Sense Of Beyond, Of Timelessness, Of A World Which Had An Eternal Value And The Substance Of Which Was Divine Had Been Given Back To Me Today By This Friend Of Mine Who Taught Me Dancing.

The Many-voiced Song Of The River Echoed Softly. Siddhartha Looked Into The River And Saw Many Pictures In The Flowing Water. The River's Voice Was Sorrowful. It Sang With Yearning And Sadness, Flowing Towards Its Goal ... Siddhartha Was Now Listening Intently...to This Song Of A Thousand Voices ... Then The Great Song Of A Thousand Voices Consisted Of One Word: Om - Perfection ... From That Hour Siddhartha Ceased To Fight Against His Destiny.

In Germany I Have Been Acknowledged Again Since The Fall Of Hitler, But My Works, Partly Suppressed By The Nazis And Partly Destroyed By The War; Have Not Yet Been Republished There.

The Marvel Of The Bhagavad-gita Is Its Truly Beautiful Revelation Of Life's Wisdom Which Enables Philosophy To Blossom Into Religion.

How Beautiful The World Was When One Looked At It, Without Searching... Just Looked, Simply And Innocently.

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.

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

The Bourgeois Treasures Nothing More Highly Than The Self.... And So At The Cost Of Intensity He Achieves His Own Preservation Andsecurity. His Harvest Is A Quiet Mind Which He Prefers To Being Possessed By God, As He Prefers Comfort To Pleasure, Convenience To Liberty, And A Pleasant Temperature To That Deathly Inner Consuming Fire.

His Life Oscillates, As Everyone's Does, Not Merely Between Two Poles, Such As The Body And The Spirit, The Saint And The Sinner, But Between Thousands And Thousands.

How Foolish To Wear Oneself Out In Vain Longing For Warmth! Solitude Is Independence.

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

I, Also, Would Like To Look And Smile, Sit And Walk Like That, So Free, So Worthy, So Restrained, So Candid, So Childlike And Mysterious. A Man Only Looks And Walks Like That When He Has Conquered His Self. I Also Will Conquer My Self.

I Am A Star In The Firmament That Observe The World, Despises The World And Consumed In Its Heat. I Am The Sea By Night In A Storm The Sea Shouting That Accumulates New Sins And To The Ancient Makes Recompense. I Am Exiled From Your World Of Pride Polite, By Pride Defrauded, I Am The King Without Crown. I Am The Passion Without Words Without Stones Of The Hearth, Without Weapons In The War, Is My Same Force That Make Me Sick

What I Am In Search Of Is Not So Much The Gratification Of A Curiosity Or A Passion For Worldly Life, But Something Far Less Conditional. I Do Not Wish To Go Out Into The World With An Insurance Policy In My Pocket Guaranteeing My Return In The Event Of A Disappointment, Like Some Cautious Traveller Who Would Be Content With A Brief Glimpse Of The World. On The Contrary, I Desire That There Should Be Hazards, Difficulties And Dangers To Face; I Am Hungry For Reality, For Tasks And Deeds, And Also For Privation And Suffering.

In The Beginning Was The Myth.

The World Is Not Imperfect Or Slowly Evolving Along A Long Path To Perfection. No, It Is Perfect At Every Moment; Every Sin Already Carries Grace Within It, All Small Children Are Potential Old Men, All Sucklings Have Death Within Them, All Dying People — Eternal Life.

The River Is Everywhere.

Knowledge Can Communicated But Not Wisdom.

For What I Always Hated And Detested And Cursed Above All Things Was This Contentment, This Healthiness And Comfort, This Carefully Preserved Optimism Of The Middle Classes, This Fat And Prosperous Brood Of Mediocrity.

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

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.

I Have Had To Experience So Much Stupidity, So Many Vices, So Much Error, So Much Nausea, Disillusionment And Sorrow, Just In Order To Become A Child Again And Begin Anew. I Had To Experience Despair, I Had To Sink To The Greatest Mental Depths, To Thoughts Of Suicide, In Order To Experience Grace.

My Resolve To Die Was Not The Whim Of An Hour. It Was The Ripe, Sound Fruit That Had Slowly Grown To Full Size, Lightly Rocked By The Winds Of Fate Whose Next Breath Would Bring It To The Ground.

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

A Man Who Is Ill-adjusted To The World Is Always On The Verge Of Finding Himself. One Who Is Adjusted To The World Never Finds Himself, But Gets To Be A Cabinet Minister.

That Life Is Difficult, I Have Often Bitterly Realized.

Life Is Difficult

And What Is Called History At School, And All We Learn By Heart There About Heroes And Geniuses And Great Deeds And Fine Emotions, Is All Nothing But A Swindle Invented By The Schoolmasters For Educational Reasons To Keep Children Occupied For A Given Number Of Years. It Has Always Been So And Always Will Be.

No Permanence Is Ours, We Are A Wave That Flows To Fit Whatever Form It Finds.

The Art Of Love-giving And Taking Become One.

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.

Truly, Nothing In The World Has So Occupied My Thoughts As This I, This Riddle, The Fact I Am Alive, That I Am Separated And Isolated From All Others, That I Am Siddhartha! And About Nothing In The World Do I Know Less About Than Me, About Siddhartha!

If I Were Poet Now, I Would Not Resist The Temptation To Trace My Life Back Through The Delicate Shadows Of My Childhood To The Precious And Sheltered Sources Of My Earliest Memories. But These Possessions Are Far Too Dear And Sacred For The Person I Now Am To Spoil For Myself. All There Is To Say Of My Childhood Is That It Was Good And Happy. I Was Given The Freedom To Discover My Own Inclinations And Talents, To Fashion My Inmost Pleasures And Sorrows Myself And To Regard The Future Not As An Alien Higher Power But As The Hope And Product Of My Own Strength.

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

Making Music Together Is The Best Way For Two People To Become Friends.

For The First Time In My Life I Tasted Death, And Death Tasted Bitter, For Death Is Birth, Is Fear And Dread Of Some Terrible Renewal.

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.

Most Men Will Not Swim Before They Are Able To.' Is Not That Witty? Naturally, They Won't Swim! They Are Born For The Solid Earth, Not For The Water. And Naturally They Won't Think. They Are Made For Life, Not For Thought. Yes, And He Who Thinks, What's More, He Who Makes Thought His Business, He May Go Far In It, But He Has Bartered The Solid Earth For The Water All The Same, And One Day He Will Drown.

The World, Govinda My Friend, Is Not Imperfect, Not To Be Seen As On A Slow Path Toward Perfection: No, It Is Perfect In Every Moment, All Transgression Already Bears Grace Within Itself, All Little Children Already Have The Aged In Themselves, All The Sucklings Death, All The Dying Eternal Life.

Despair Is The Result Of Each Earnest Attempt To Go Through Life With Virtue, Justice And Understanding, And To Fulfill Their Requirements. Children Live On One Side Of Despair, The Awakened On The Other Side.

The Truth Is Lived, Not Taught.

Let Me Say No More. Words Do No Justice To The Hidden Meaning. Everything Immediately Becomes Slightly Different When It Is Expressed In Words, A Little Bit Distorted, A Little Foolish...it Is Perfectly Fine With Me That What For One Man Is Precious Wisdom For Another Sounds Like Foolery.

One Never Reaches Home, But Wherever Friendly Paths Intersect The Whole World Looks Like Home For A Time.

Once It Happened, As I Lay Awake At Night, That I Suddenly Spoke In Verses, In Verses So Beautiful And Strange That I Did Not Venture To Think Of Writing Them Down, And Then In The Morning They Vanished; And Yet They Lay Hidden Within Me Like The Hard Kernel Within An Old Brittle Husk.

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

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.

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.

Happiness Is Love, Nothing Else.

Painting Is Marvelous; It Makes You Happier And More Patient. Afterwards You Do Not Have Black Fingers As With Writing, But Blue And Red Ones.

The Bird Fights Its Way Out Of The Egg. The Egg Is The World. Who Would Be Born Must First Destroy A World. The Bird Flies To God. The God's Name Is Abraxas.

Who Travels Far Will Often See Things Far Removed From What Was Believed As Truth.

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.

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.

The Highest Art... Sets Down Its Creations And Trusts In Their Magic, Without Fear Of Not Being Understood.

Those Who Are Too Lazy And Comfortable To Think For Themselves And Be Their Own Judges Obey The Laws. Others Sense Their Own Laws Within Them.

... 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

He Had Thought More Than Other Men, And In Matters Of The Intellect He Had That Calm Objectivity, That Certainty Of Thought And Knowledge, Such As Only Really Intellectual Men Have, Who Have No Axe To Grind, Who Never Wish To Shine, Or To Talk Others Down, Or To Appear Always In The Right.

Every Experience Has Its Element Of Magic.

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.

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.

...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.

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

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.

When The Suffering Becomes Acute Enough, One Goes Forward.

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.

Happiness Is Love, Nothing Else. A Man Who Is Capable Of Love Is Happy.

We Fear Death, We Shudder At Life's Instability, We Grieve To See The Flowers Wilt Again And Again, And The Leaves Fall, And In Our Hearts We Know That We, Too, Are Transitory And Will Soon Disappear. When Artists Create Pictures And Thinkers Search For Laws And Formulate Thoughts, It Is In Order To Salvage Something From The Great Dance Of Death, To Make Something Last Longer Than We Do.

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.

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.

Never Is A Man Wholly A Saint Or A Sinner.

I Am Fond Of Music I Think Because It Is So Amoral. Everything Else Is Moral And I Am After Something That Isn't. I Have Always Found Moralizing Intolerable.

I Believe That I Am Not Responsible For The Meaningfulness Or Meaninglessness Of Life, But That I Am Responsible For What I Do With The Life I've Got.

Meaning Of Life

The Opposite Of Every Truth Is Just As True.

Knowledge Can Be Communicated, But Not Wisdom.

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.

The Bourgeois Prefers Comfort To Pleasure, Convenience To Liberty, And A Pleasant Temperature To The Deathly Inner Consuming Fire.

As A Body Everyone Is Single, As A Soul Never.

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

For The Air Of Lonely Men Surrounded Him Now, A Still Atmosphere In Which The World Around Him Slipped Away, Leaving Him Incapable Of Relationship, An Atmosphere Against Which Neither Will Nor Longing Availed. This Was One Of The Significant Earmarks Of His Life.

So Wie Die Verruecktheit In Einem Hoeheren Sinn, Der Anfang Aller Weisheit Ist, So Ist Die Schizophrenie Der Anfang Aller Kunst, Aller Phantasie. (as Insanity In A Higher Sense, Is The Beginning Of All Wisdom, So Is Schizophrenia The Beginning Of All Art, All Fantasy.)

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

People With Courage And Character Always Seem Sinister To The Rest. It Was A Scandal That A Breed Of Fearless And Sinister People Ran Around Freely, So They Attached A Nickname And A Myth To These People To Get Even With Them, To Make Up For The Many Times They Had Felt Afraid.

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.

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.

I Believe That The Struggle Against Death, The Unconditional And Self-willed Determination To Live, Is The Mode Of Power Behind The Lives And Activities Of All Outstanding Men.

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

You Learned People And Artists Have, No Doubt, All Sorts Of Superior Things In Your Heads; But You're Human Beings Like The Rest Of Us, And We, Too, Have Our Dreams And Fancies.

There Is No Reality Except The One Contained Within Us.

Siddhartha Stopped Fighting His Fate This Very Hour, And He Stopped Suffering.

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.

At That Time Two Opposing Concepts Of The Game Called Forth Commentary And Discussion. The Foremost Players Distinguished Two Principal Types Of Game, The Formal And The Psychological.

Life Is Waiting Everywhere, The Future Is Flowering Everywhere, But We Only See A Small Part Of It And Step On Much Of It With Our Feet

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?

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.

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.

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.

For Me, Trees Have Always Been The Most Penetrating Preachers. I Revere Them When They Live In Tribes And Families, In Forests And Groves. And Even More I Revere Them When They Stand Alone. They Are Like Lonely Persons. Not Like Hermits Who Have Stolen Away Out Of Some Weakness, But Like Great, Solitary Men, Like Beethoven And Nietzsche.

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.

There Is A Miracle In Every New Beginning

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?

Our God's Name Is Abraxas And He Is God And Satan And He Contains Both The Luminous And The Dark World.

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.

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