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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.

-Hermann Hesse

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He Lost His Self

Hermann Hesse

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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.

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When The Suffering Becomes Acute Enough, One Goes Forward.

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.

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.

Solitude Is Independence.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 The Beginning Was The Myth. God, In His Search For Self-expression, Invested The Souls Of Hindus, Greeks, And Germans With Poetic Shapes And Continues To Invest Each Child's Soul With Poetry Every Day.

The Best Weapons Against The Infamies Of Life Are Courage, Wilfulness And Patience. Courage Strenthens, Wilfulness Is Fun And Patience Provides Tranquility.

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.

Knowledge Can Communicated But Not Wisdom.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In My Brain Were Stored A Thousand Pictures.

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

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

...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 Natural Form Is Latent Within Us, Originates In The Soul Whose Essence Is Eternity, Whose Essence We Cannot Know But Which Most Often Intimates Itself To Us As The Power To Love And Create.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

All Higher Humor Begins With Ceasing To Take Oneself Seriously.

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.

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

I 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

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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 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.

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

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For Mountain And Stream, Tree And Leaf, Root And Blossom, Every Form In Nature Is Echoed In Us And Originates In The Soul Whose Being Is Eternity And Is Hidden From Us But None The Less Gives Itself To Us For The Most Part In The Power Of Love And Creation.

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.

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!

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

You Make Me Happy

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

One Day I Would Be A Better Hand At The Game. One Day I Would Learn How To Laugh. Pablo Was Waiting For Me, And Mozart Too.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Only Within Yourself Exists That Other Reality For Which You Long.

And Whether This Happiness Lasted A Hundred Seconds Or Ten Minutes, It Was So Far Removed From Time That It Resembled Every Other Genuine Happiness As Completely As One Fluttering Blue Lycaenid Butterfly Resembles Another.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Live For Others

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

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.

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

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

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?

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

The True Profession Of A Man Is To Find His Way To Himself.

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.

This Day Will Never Come Again And Anyone Who Fails To Eat And Drink And Taste And Smell It Will Never Have It Offered To Him Again In All Eternity. The Sun Will Never Shine As It Does Today...but You Must Play Your Part And Sing A Song, One Of Your Best.

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.

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.

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.

Abraxas Was The God Who Was Both God And Devil.

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.

The Call Of Death Is A Call Of Love. Death Can Be Sweet If We Answer It In The Affirmative, If We Accept It As One Of The Great Eternal Forms Of Life And Transformation.

Yes, I Am Going Into The Woods; I Am Going Into The Unity Of All Things.

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

In The Beginning Was The Myth.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Words Can Not Express The Joy Of New 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.

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

He Was Taught By The River. Incessantly, He Learned From It. Most Of All, He Learned From It To Listen, To Pay Close Attention With A Quiet Heart, With A Waiting, Opened Soul, Without Passion, Without A Wish, Without Judgement, Without An Opinion.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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!

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.

Friendship Is Identification And Difference

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

Again And Again

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.

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.

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.

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.

Knowledge Can Be Communicated, But Not Wisdom.

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

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.

Only The Ideas That We Really Live Have Any Value.

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.

But Of All The Water's Secrets, He Saw Today Only A Single One-one That Struck His Soul. He Saw That This Water Flowed And Flowed, It Was Constantly Flowing, And Yet It Was Always There; It Was Always Eternally The Same And Yet New At Every Moment! Oh, To Be Able To Grasp This, To Understand This!

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

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

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

Every Experience Has Its Element Of Magic.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

The Opposite Of Every Truth Is Just As True.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

Some Of Us Think Holding On Makes Us Strong; But Sometimes It Is Letting Go.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

You Say Yes To The Sunlight And Pure Fantasies, So You Have To Say Yes To The Filth And The Nausea. Everything Is Within You, Gold And Mud, Happiness And Pain, The Laughter Of Childhood And The Apprehension Of Death. Say Yes To Everything, Shirk Nothing.

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.

I Have Begun To Listen To The Teachings My Blood Whispers To Me.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

I Felt Knowledge And The Unity Of The World Circulate In Me Like My Own Blood.

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

When All The Self Was Conquered And Dead, When All Passions And Desires Were Silent, Then The Last Must Awaken, The Innermost Of Being That Is No Longer Self - The Great Secret!

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.

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

Happiness Is Love, Nothing Else.

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.

The Art Of Love-giving And Taking Become One.

Those Who Cannot Think Or Take Responsibility For Themselves Need, And Clamor For, A Leader.

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Tatiana Maslany

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