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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.

-Hermann Hesse

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A Soul That Is

Hermann Hesse

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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.

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The Tree Does Not Die, It Waits.

...and Gradually His Face Assumed The Expressions Which Are So Often Found Among Rich People - The Expressions Of Discontent, Of Sickliness, Of Displeasure, Of Idleness, Of Lovelessness. Slowly The Soul Sickness Of The Rich Crept Over Him.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Live For Others

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.

...and The Vessel Was Not Full, His Intellect Was Not Satisfied, His Soul Was Not At Peace, His Heart Was Not Still.

Yes, What We Are Doing Is Probably Mad, And Probably It Is Good And Necessary All The Same. It Is Not A Good Thing When Man Overstrains His Reason And Tries To Reduce To Rational Order Matters That Are Susceptible Of Rational Treatment. Then There Arise Ideals Such As Those Of The Americans Or Of The Bolsheviks. Both Are Extraordinarily Rational, And Both Lead To A Frightful Oppression And Impoverishment Of Life, Because They Simplify It So Crudely. The Likeness Of Man, Once A High Ideal, Is In Process Of Becoming A Machine-made Article. It Is For Madmen Like Us, Perhaps, To Ennoble It Again.

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.

In My Brain Were Stored A Thousand Pictures.

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

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.

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.

Trees Are Sanctuaries. Whoever Knows How To Speak To Them, Whoever Knows How To Listen To Them, Can Learn The Truth. They Do Not Preach Learning And Precepts, They Preach, Undeterred By Particulars, The Ancient Law Of Life.

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.

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?

Here And There In The Ancient Literature We Encounter Legends Of Wise And Mysterious Games That Were Conceived And Played By Scholars, Monks, Or The Courtiers Of Cultured Princes. These Might Take The Form Of Chess Games In Which The Pieces And Squares Had Secret Meanings In Addition To Their Usual Functions.

Oh, If I Had Had A Friend At This Moment, A Friend In An Attic Room, Dreaming By Candlelight And With A Violin Lying Ready At His Hand! How I Should Have Slipped Up To Him In His Quiet Hour, Noiselessly Climbing The Winding Stair To Take Him By Surprise, And Then With Talk And Music We Should Have Held Heavenly Festival Throughout The Night!

If My Life Were Not A Dangerous, Painful Experiment, If I Did Not Constantly Skirt The Abyss And Feel The Void Under My Feet, My Life Would Have No Meaning And I Would Not Have Been Able To Write Anything.

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.

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.

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.

In The Beginning Was The Myth.

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

Rain Soft Rain, Summer Rain Whispers From Bushes, Whispers From Trees. Oh, How Lovely And Full Of Blessing To Dream And Be Satisfied. I Was So Long In The Outer Brightness, I Am Not Used To This Upheaval: Being At Home In My Own Soul, Never To Be Led Elsewhere. I Want Nothing, I Long For Nothing, I Hum Gently The Sounds Of Childhood, And I Reach Home Astounded In The Warm Beauty Of Dreams. Heart, How Torn You Are, How Blessed To Plow Down Blindly, To Think Nothing, To Know Nothing, Only To Breathe, Only To Feel.

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

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

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.

And Some Day There Will Be Nothing Left Of Everything That Has Twisted My Life And Grieved It And Filled Me So Often With Such Anguish. Some Day, With The Last Exhaustion, Peace Will Come And The Motherly Earth Will Gather Me Back Home. It Won't Be The End Of Things, Only A Way Of Being Born Again, A Bathing And A Slumbering Where The Old And The Withered Sink Down, Where The Young And New Begin To Breathe. Then, With Other Thoughts, I Will Walk Along Streets Like These, And Listen To Streams, And Overhear What The Sky Says In The Evening, Over And Over And Over.

Love Is Stronger Than Violence.

Knowledge Can Be Communicated, But Not Wisdom. One Can Find It, Live It, Be Fortified By It, Do Wonders Through It, But One Cannot Communicate And Teach It.

I Shall Begin My Story With An Experience I Had When I Was Ten And Attended Our Small Town's Latin School.

Solitude Is Independence.

Is Not Every Life, Every Work Fine?

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.

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.

Knowledge Can Be Conveyed, But Not Wisdom. It Can Be Found, It Can Be Lived, It Is Possible To Be Carried By It, Miracles Can Be Performed With It, But It Cannot Be Expressed In Words And Taught.

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.

You Have To Try The Impossible To Achieve The Possible

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

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.)

The Cup Was Emptied And Would Never Be Filled Again.

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

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.

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.

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.

It Was All A Lie, It All Stank, Stank Of Lies, It All Gave The Illusion Of Meaning And Happiness And Beauty, And All Of It Was Just Putrefaction That No One Would Admit To. Bitter Was The Taste Of The World. Life Was A Torment.

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.

Thus Gotama [buddha] Walked Toward The Town To Gather Alms, And The Two Samanas Recognized Him Solely By The Perfection Of His Repose, By The Calmness Of His Figure, In Which There Was No Trace Of Seeking, Desiring, Imitating, Or Striving, Only Light And Peace

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

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.

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.

Each Man Had Only One Genuine Vocation To Find The Way To Himself.

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.

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.

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

Everyone Can Perform Magic, Everyone Can Reach His Goals, If He Is Able To Think, If He Is Able To Wait, If He Is Able To Fast.

You Can Ride, You Can Travel With A Friend Of Your Own; The Final Step You Must Take Alone. No Wisdom Is Better Than This When Known: That Every Hard Thing Is Done Alone.

The Opposite Of Every Truth Is Just As True.

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.

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?

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.

Love Can Be Begged, Bought, Or Received As A Gift, One Can Find It In The Street, But One Cannot Steal It.

We Must Become So Alone, So Utterly Alone, That We Withdraw Into Our Innermost Self. It Is A Way Of Bitter Suffering. But Then Our Solitude Is Overcome, We Are No Longer Alone, For We Find That Our Innermost Self Is The Spirit, That It Is God, The Indivisible. And Suddenly We Find Ourselves In The Midst Of The World, Yet Undisturbed By Its Multiplicity, For Our Innermost Soul We Know Ourselves To Be One With All Being.

In Each Individual The Spirit Is Made Flesh, In Each One The Whole Of Creation Suffers, In Each One A Savior Is Crucified.

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

Every Politician In The World Is All For Revolution, Reason, And Disarmament-but Only In Enemy Countries, Not In His Own.

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

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.

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.

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

Among The Letters My Readers Write Me, There Is A Certain Category Which Is Continuously Growing, And Which I See As A Symptom Of The Increasing Intellectualization Of The Relationship Between Readers And Literature.

When A Tree Is Cut Down And Reveals Its Naked Death-wound To The Sun, One Can Read Its Whole History In The Luminous, Inscribed Disk Of Its Trunk: In The Rings Of Its Years, Its Scars, All The Struggle, All The Suffering, All The Sickness, All The Happiness And Prosperity Stand Truly Written, The Narrow Years And The Luxurious Years, The Attacks Withstood, The Storms Endured.

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.

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.

Like One Who Has Eaten And Drunk Too Much And Vomits Painfully And Then Feels Better, So Did The Restless Man Wish He Could Rid Himself With One Terrific Heave Of These Pleasures, Of These Habits Of This Entirely Senseless Life.

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.

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

Gratitude Is Not A Virtue I Believe In, And To Me It Seems Hypocritical To Expect It From A Child.

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

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

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

Words Can Not Express The Joy Of New Life.

A Mere Nothing Suffices — And The Lightning Strikes.

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.

I Do Want More. I Am Not Content With Being Happy. I Was Not Made For It. It Is Not My Destiny. My Destiny Is The Opposite.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

You Should Not Take Old People Who Are Already Dead Seriously. It Does Them Injustice. We Immortals Do Not Like Things To Be Taken Seriously. We Like Joking. Seriousness, Young Man, Is An Accident Of Time. It Consists, I Don't Mind Telling You In Confidence, In Putting Too High A Value On Time. I, Too, Once Put Too High A Value On Time. For That Reason I Wished To Be A Hundred Years Old. In Eternity, However, There Is No Time, You See. Eternity Is A Mere Moment, Just Long Enough For A Joke.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Solitude Is Independence. It Had Been My Wish And With The Years I Had Attained It. It Was Cold. Oh, Cold Enough! But It Was Also Still, Wonderfully Still And Vast Like The Cold Stillness Of Space In Which The Stars Revolve.

Every Phenomenon On Earth Is Symbolic, And Each Symbol Is An Open Gate Through Which The Soul, If It Is Ready, Can Enter Into The Inner Part Of The World, Where You And I And Day And Night Are All One.

Meaning And Reality Were Not Hidden Somewhere Behind Things, They Were In Them, In All Of Them.

Happiness Is Love, Nothing Else.

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

Everyone Can Reach His Goal, If He Can Think, Wait And Fast.

The Art Of Love-giving And Taking Become One.

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

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.

You Must Find Your Dream...but No Dream Lasts Forever, Each Dream Is Followed By Another, And One Should Not Cling To Any Particular Dream.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Opinions Mean Nothing; They May Be Beautiful Or Ugly, Clever Or Foolish, Anyone Can Embrace Or Reject Them.

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

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.

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.

One Of The Aphorisms Occurred To Me Now And I Wrote It Under The Picture: "fate And Temperament Are Two Words For One And The Same Concept." That Was Clear To Me Now.

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.

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.

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

This Happiness Consisted Of Nothing Else But The Harmony Of The Few Things Around Me With My Own Existence, A Feeling Of Contentment And Well-being That Needed No Changes And No Intensification.

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.

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.

Lovers Should Not Separate From Each Other After Making Love Without Admiring Each Other, Without Being Conquered As Well As Conquering, So That No Feeling Of Satiation Or Desolation Arises Nor The Horrid Feeling Of Misusing Or Having Been Misused.

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.

All Birth Means Separation From The All, The Confinement Within Limitation, The Separation From God, The Pangs Of Being Born Ever Anew. The Return Into The All, The Dissolution Of Painful Individuation, The Reunion With God Means The Expansion Of The Soul Until It Is Able Once More To Embrace The All.

When Someone Seeks," Said Siddhartha, "then It Easily Happens That His Eyes See Only The Thing That He Seeks, And He Is Able To Find Nothing, To Take In Nothing Because He Always Thinks Only About The Thing He Is Seeking, Because He Has One Goal, Because He Is Obsessed With His Goal. Seeking Means: Having A Goal. But Finding Means: Being Free, Being Open, Having No Goal.

I Have Known It For A Long Time But I Have Only Just Experienced It. Now I Know It Not Only With My Intellect, But With My Eyes, With My Heart, With My Stomach.

Should We Be Mindful Of Dreams?" Joseph Asked. "can We Interpret Them?" The Master Looked Into His Eyes And Said Tersely: "we Should Be Mindful Of Everything, For We Can Interpret Everything.

To Die Is To Go Into The Collective Unconscious, To Lose Oneself In Order To Be Transformed Into Form, Pure Form.

Collective Unconscious

Whether It Is Good Or Evil, Whether Life In Itself Is Pain Or Pleasure, Whether It Is Uncertain-that It May Perhaps Be This Is Not Important-but The Unity Of The World, The Coherence Of All Events, The Embracing Of The Big And The Small From The Same Stream, From The Same Law Of Cause, Of Becoming And Dying.

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.

A Father Can Pass On His Nose And Eyes And Even His Intelligence To His Child, But Not His Soul. In Every Human Being The Soul Is New

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

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

Man Is An Onion Made Up Of A Hundred Integuments, A Texture Made Up Of Many Threads. The Ancient Asiatics Knew This Well Enough, And In The Buddhist Yoga An Exact Technique Was Devised For Unmasking The Illusion Of The Personality. The Human Merry-go-round Sees Many Changes: The Illusion That Cost India The Efforts Of Thousands Of Years To Unmask Is The Same Illusion That The West Has Labored Just As Hard To Maintain And Strengthen.

There Is No Reality Except The One Contained Within Us.

Your Soul Is The Whole World.

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

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.

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

Wisdom Cannot Be Imparted. Wisdom That A Wise Man Attempts To Impart Always Sounds Like Foolishness To Someone Else.

I Have Been And Still Am A Seeker, But I Have Ceased To Question Stars And Books; I Have Begun To Listen To The Teaching My Blood Whispers To Me.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

They Slept Profoundly, Desperately, Greedily, As Though For The Last Time, As Though They Had Been Condemned To Stay Awake Forever And Had To Drink In All The Sleep In The World During These Last Hours.

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.

We Create Gods And Struggle With Them, And They Bless Us.

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

A Wild Longing For Strong Emotions And Sensations Seethes In Me, A Rage Against This Toneless, Flat, Normal And Sterile Life. I Have A Mad Impulse To Smash Something, A Warehouse Perhaps, Or A Cathedral, Or Myself, To Committ Outrages.

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

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.

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 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.

Every Experience Has Its Element Of Magic.

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

The Greatest Threat To Our World And Its Peace Comes From Those Who Want War, Who Prepare For It, And Who, By Holding Out Vague Promises Of Future Peace Or By Instilling Fear Of Foreign Aggression, Try To Make Us Accomplices To Their Plans.

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!

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

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.

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

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.

For Me, Trees Have Always Been The Most Penetrating Preachers.

Longing For Home

If You Hate A Person, You Hate Something In Him That Is Part Of Yourself. What Isn't Part Of Ourselves Doesn't Disturb Us.

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.

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.

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

You Make Me Happy

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.

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

All Life Was A Breath Exhaled By God. All Dying Was A Breath Inhaled By God.

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.

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.

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

I Sped Through Heaven And Saw God At Work. I Suffered Holy Pains. I Dropped All My Defenses And Was Afraid Of Nothing In The World. I Accepted All Things And To All Things I Gave Up My Heart.

He Saw Merchants Trading, Princes Hunting, Mourners Wailing For Their Dead, Whores Offering Themselves, Physicians Trying To Help The Sick, Priests Determining The Most Suitable Day For Seeding, Lovers Loving, Mothers Nursing Their Children—and All Of This Was Not Worthy Of One Look From His Eye, It All Lied, It All Stank, It All Stank Of Lies, It All Pretended To Be Meaningful And Joyful And Beautiful, And It All Was Just Concealed Putrefaction. The World Tasted Bitter. Life Was Torture

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

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.

When We Are Stricken And Cannot Bear Our Lives Any Longer, Then A Tree Has Something To Say To Us: Be Still! Be Still! Look At Me! Life Is Not Easy, Life Is Not Difficult. Those Are Childish Thoughts. . . . Home Is Neither Here Nor There. Home Is Within You, Or Home Is Nowhere At All.

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

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.

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.

Knowledge Can Communicated But Not Wisdom.

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.

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.

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.

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