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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.

-Hermann Hesse

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Most People...are Like A

Hermann Hesse

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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.

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

Your Soul Is The Whole World.

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

The Opposite Of Every Truth Is Just As True.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

There Was Once A Man, Harry, Called The Steppenwolf. He Went On Two Legs, Wore Clothes And Was A Human Being, But Nevertheless He Was In Reality A Wolf Of The Steppes. He Had Learned A Good Deal Of All That People Of A Good Intelligence Can, And Was A Fairly Clever Fellow. What He Had Not Learned, However, Was This: To Find Contentment In Himself And His Own Life.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

There Is No Reality Except The One Contained Within Us. That Is Why So Many People Live Such An Unreal Life. They Take The Images Outside Them For Reality And Never Allow The World Within To Assert Itself.

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.

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

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

...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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I Call That Man Awake Who, With Conscious Knowledge And Understanding, Can Perceive The Deep Unreasoning Powers In His Soul, His Whole Innermost Strength, Desire And Weakness, And Knows How To Reckon With Himself.

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

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 Realization That My Problem Was One That Concerned All Men, A Problem Of Living And Thinking, Suddenly Swept Over Me And I Was Overwhelmed By Fear And Respect As I Suddenly Saw And Felt How Deeply My Own Personal Life And Opinions Were Immersed In The Eternal Stream Of Great Ideas. Though It Offered Some Confirmation And Gratification, The Realization Was Not Really A Joyful One. It Was Hard And Had A Harsh Taste Because It Implied Responsibility And No Longer Being Allowed To Be A Child; It Meant Standing On One’s Own Feet.

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

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.

To Such Men The Desperate And Horrible Thought Has Come That Perhaps The Whole Of Human Life Is But A Bad Joke, A Violent And Ill-fated Abortion Of The Primal Mother, A Savage And Dismal Catastophe Of Nature.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Was Given The Freedom To Discover My Own Inclination 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.

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

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

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?

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Tree Does Not Die, It Waits.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Whoever Wants Music Instead Of Noise, Joy Instead Of Pleasure, Soul Instead Of Gold, Creative Work Instead Of Business, Passion Instead Of Foolery, Finds No Home In This Trivial World Of Ours.

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.

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

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.

When Trying To Remember My Share In The Glow Of The Eternal Present, In The Smile Of God, I Return To My Childhood, Too, For That Is Where The Most Significant Discoveries Turn Up.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Solitude Is Independence.

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.

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!

Have You Also Learned That Secret From The River; That There Is No Such Thing As Time?" That The River Is Everywhere At The Same Time, At The Source And At The Mouth, At The Waterfall, At The Ferry, At The Current, In The Ocean And In The Mountains, Everywhere And That The Present Only Exists For It, Not The Shadow Of The Past Nor The Shadow Of The Future.

A Mere Nothing Suffices — And The Lightning Strikes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

You Make Me Happy

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I Have Always Believed, And I Still Believe, That Whatever Good Or Bad Fortune May Come Our Way We Can Always Give It Meaning And Transform It Into Something Of Value.

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.

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

I Suddenly Saw How Sad And Artificial My Life Had Been During This Period, For The Loves, Friends, Habits And Pleasures Of These Years Were Discarded Like Badly Fitting Clothes. I Parted From Them Without Pain And All That Remained Was To Wonder That I Could Have Endured Them So Long.

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!

Om Is The Bow, The Arrow Is Soul.

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

Knowledge Can Communicated But Not Wisdom.

The Cup Was Emptied And Would Never Be Filled Again.

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

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

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.

The River Is Everywhere.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

That Life Is Difficult, I Have Often Bitterly Realized.

Life Is Difficult

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

A Person Is Never Entirely Holy Or Entirely Sinful.

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

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

There Is No Reality Except The One Contained Within Us.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Each Man's Life Represents A Road Toward Himself.

I Hope Death Will Be A Great Happiness, A Happiness As Great As That Of Love, Fulfilled Love

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

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.

Among Mathematicians, Even In Those Days, The Reputation Of Being A Good Glass Bead Game Player Meant A Great Deal; It Was Equivalent To Being A Very Good Mathematician.

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?

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

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

Every Experience Has Its Element Of Magic.

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

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 Is Stronger Than So-called Reality.

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

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!

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Words Can Not Express The Joy Of New Life.

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.

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

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

The Truth Is Lived, Not Taught.

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

In 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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