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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.

-Hermann Hesse

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Each Of Us Is

Hermann Hesse

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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.

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

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.

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!

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

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.)

When We Hate A Person, What We Hate In His Image Is Something Inside Ourselves. Whatever Isn't Inside Us Can't Excite Us.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

All Interpretation, All Psychology, All Attempts To Make Things Comprehensible, Require The Medium Of Theories, Mythologies, And Lies.

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.

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.

The Voices Of All Creatures Are In The Voices Of The River.

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

Longing For Home

Remember This: One Can Be A Strict Logician Or Grammarian And At The Same Time Full Of Imagination And Music.

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.

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?

...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.

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

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.

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

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

The River Taught Us How To Listen With A Silent Heart, With A Waiting Open Soul.

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.

Therefore, I See Whatever Exists As Good, Death Is To Me Like Life, Sin Like Holiness, Wisdom Like Foolishness, Everything Has To Be As It Is, Everything Only Requires My Consent, Only My Willingness, My Loving Agreement, To Be Good For Me, To Do Nothing But Work For My Benefit, To Be Unable To Ever Harm Me.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

All Men Of Goodwill Have This In Common - That Our Works Put Us To Shame.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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. That Is Why Every Man's Story Is Important, Eternal, Sacred; That Is Why Every Man, As Long As He Lives And Fulfills The Will Of Nature, Is Wondrous, And Worthy Of Consideration. In Each Individual The Spirit Has Become Flesh, In Each Man The Creation Suffers, Within Each One A Redeemer Is Nailed To The Cross.

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.

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

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.

Dreams And Restless Thoughts Came Flowing To Him From The River, From The Twinkling Stars At Night, From The Sun's Melting Rays. Dreams And A Restlessness Of The Soul Came To Him.

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

Learn What Is To Be Taken Seriously And Laugh At The Rest.

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

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?

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

Happiness Is Love, Nothing Else.

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.

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

There Is No Reality Except The One Contained Within Us.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

When I Have Neither Pleasure Nor Pain And Have Been Breathing For A While The Lukewarm Insipid Air Of These So-called Good And Tolerable Days, I Feel So Bad In My Childish Soul That I Smash My Rusty Lyre Of Thanksgiving In The Face Of The Slumbering God Of Contentment And Would Rather Feel The Most Devilish Pain Burn In Me Than This Warmth Of A Well-heated Room. - Harry Haller

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.

The Human Attitude Of Which Classical Music Is The Expression Is Always The Same; It Is Always Based On The Same Kind Of Insight Into Life And Strives For The Same Kind Of Victory Over Blind Change. Classical Music As Gesture Signifies Knowledge Of The Tragedy Of The Human Condition, Affirmation Of Human Destiny, Courage, Cheerful Serenity.

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.

...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.

"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."

Abraxas Was The God Who Was Both God And Devil.

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

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.

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.

A Person Is Never Entirely Holy Or Entirely Sinful.

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.

If Man Has Nothing To Eat, Fasting Is The Most Intelligent Thing He Can Do. If, For Instance, Siddhartha Had Not Learned To Fast, He Would Have Had To Seek Some Kind Of Work Today, Either With You, Or Elsewhere, For Hunger Would Have Driven Him. But As It Is, Siddhartha Can Wait Calmly. He Is Not Impatient, He Is Not In Need, He Can Ward Off Hunger For A Long Time And Laugh At It. Therefore, Fasting Is Useful, Sir.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

Words Can Not Express The Joy Of New Life.

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.

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.

In The Beginning Was The Myth.

All Higher Humor Begins With Ceasing To Take Oneself Seriously.

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

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.

Nevertheless, Whether In Occurrences Lasting Days, Hours Or Mere Minutes At A Time, I Have Experienced Happiness Often, And Have Had Brief Encounters With It In My Later Years, Even In Old Age.

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

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.

Faith Is Stronger Than So-called Reality.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Only Within Yourself Exists The Other Reality For Which You Long. I Can Give You Nothing That Has Not Already Its Being Within Yourself. I Can Throw Open To You No Picture Gallery But Your Own Soul.

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.

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

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.

Man's Life Seems To Me Like A Long, Weary Night That Would Be Intolerable If There Were Not Occasionally Flashes Of Light, The Sudden Brightness Of Which Is So Comforting And Wonderful, That The Moments Of Their Appearance Cancel Out And Justify The Years Of Darkness.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

When Dealing With The Insane, The Best Method Is To Pretend To Be Sane.

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

...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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 He Had Not Learned, However, Was This: To Find Contentment In Himself And His Own Life

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

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 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

The Opposite Of Every Truth Is Just As True.

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.

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?

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

I Will No Longer Mutilate And Destroy Myself In Order To Find A Secret Behind The Ruins.

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

Live For Others

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.

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

That Life Is Difficult, I Have Often Bitterly Realized.

Life Is Difficult

The Man Of Power Is Ruined By Power, The Man Of Money By Money, The Submissive Man By Subservience, The Pleasure Seeker By Pleasure.

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

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.

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

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?

Within Us There Is Someone Who Knows Everything, Wills Everything, Does Everything Better Than We Ourselves.

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.

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.

...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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Loneliness Is The Way By Which Destiny Endeavors To Lead Man To Himself.

The River Has Taught Me To Listen; You Will Learn From It, Too. The River Knows Everything; One Can Learn Everything From It. You Have Already Learned From The River That It Is Good To Strive Downwards, To Sink, To Seek The Depths.

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.

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

A Magic Dwells In Each Beginning, Protecting Us, Telling Us How To Live.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Knowledge Can Communicated But Not Wisdom.

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.

You Have No Doubt Guessed Long Since That The Conquest Of Time And The Escape From Reality, Or However Else It May Be That You Choose To Describe Your Longing, Means Simply The Wish To Be Relieved Of Your So-called Personality. That Is The Prison Where You Lie.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

Age Is A State Of Mind. Youth And Age Exist Only Among The Ordinary People. All The More Talented And Exceptional Of Us; Are Sometimes Old, Just As We Are Sometimes Happy, And Sometimes Sad.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Did All This Make Sense?

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