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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.

-Hermann Hesse

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She Stood Before Him

Hermann Hesse

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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.

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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.

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.

No, A True Seeker, One Who Truly Wished To Find, Could Accept No Doctrine. But The Man Who Has Found What He Sought, Such A Man Could Approve Of Every Doctrine, Each And Every One, Every Path, Every Goal; Nothing Separated Him Any Longer From All Those Thousands Of Others Who Lived In The Eternal, Who Breathed The Divine.

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

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

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.

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

You Make Me Happy

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 A Night-moth Were To Concentrate Its Will On Flying To A Star Or Some Equally Unattainable Object, It Wouldn't Succeed. Only, It Wouldn't Even Try In The First Place. A Moth Confines Its Search To What Has Sense And Value For It, What It Needs, What Is Indispensable To Its Life... If I Imagined That I Wanted Under All Circumstances To Get To The North Pole, Then To Achieve It I Would Have To Desire It Strongly Enough That My Whole Being Was Ruled By It. But If I Were To Decide To Will That The Pastor Should Stop Wearing His Glasses, It Would Be Useless. That Would Be Making A Game Of It.

To Study History Means Submitting To Chaos And Nevertheless Retaining Faith In Order And Meaning.

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.

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

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

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?

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

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

Were Not The Gods Forms Created Like Me And You, Mortal, Transient?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The River Is Everywhere.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

You Show The World As A Complete, Unbroken Chain, An Eternal Chain, Linked Together By Cause And Effect.

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

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.

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.

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

Did All This Make Sense?

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

...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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You Are Only Afriad If You Are Not In Harmony With Yourself. People Are Afraid Because They Have Never Owned Up To Themselves. A Whole Society Composed Of Men Afraid Of The Unknown Within Them!

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

She Stood Before Him And Surrendered Herself To Him And Sky, Forest, And Brook All Came Toward Him In New And Resplendent Colors, Belonged To Him, And Spoke To Him In His Own Language. And Instead Of Merely Winning A Woman He Embraced The Entire World And Every Star In Heaven Glowed Within Him And Sparkled With Joy In His Soul. He Had Loved And Had Found Himself. But Most People Love To Lose Themselves.

I 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Faith Is Stronger Than So-called Reality.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

It Was The First Rent In The Holy Image Of My Father, It Was The First Fissure In The Columns That Had Upheld My Childhood, Which Every Individual Must Destroy Before He Can Become Himself.

...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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Never Is A Man Wholly A Saint Or A Sinner.

The Deity Is Within You, Not In Ideas And Books. Truth Is Lived, Not Taught.

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.

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

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

"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."

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.

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.

Not In His Speech, Not In His Thoughts, I See His Greatness, Only In His Actions, In His Life.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

We Kill When We Close Our Eyes To Poverty, Affliction, Or Infamy. We Kill When, Because It Is Easier, We Countenance, Or Pretend To Approve Of Atrophied Social, Political, Educational, And Religious Institutions, Instead Of Resolutely Combating Them.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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?

Abraxas Was The God Who Was Both God And Devil.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

At One Time I Had Given Much Thought To Why Men Were So Very Rarely Capable Of Living For An Ideal. Now I Saw That Many, No, All Men Were Capable Of Dying For One.

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

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

Again And Again

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

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.

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

He Looked Around, As If He Was Seeing The World For The First Time. Beautiful Was The World, Colorful Was The World, Strange And Mysterious Was The World! Here Was Blue, Here Was Yellow, Here Was Green, The Sky And The River Flowed, The Forest And The Mountains Were Rigid, All Of It Was Beautiful, All Of It Was Mysterious And Magical, And In Its Midst Was He, Siddhartha, The Awakening One, On The Path To Himself.

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

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.

The Tree Does Not Die, It Waits.

That Is Where My Dearest And Brightest Dreams Have Ranged — To Hear For The Duration Of A Heartbeat The Universe And The Totality Of Life In Its Mysterious, Innate Harmony.

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.

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.

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.

A Person Is Never Entirely Holy Or Entirely Sinful.

I Will Not Pretend To Justify This Espionage I Carried On, And I Will Say Openly That All These Signs Of A Life Full Of Intellectual Curiosity, But Thoroughly Slovenly And Disorderly At The Same Time, Inspired Me At First With Aversion And Mistrust. I Am Not Only A Middle-class Man, Living A Regular Life, Fond Of Work And Punctuality; I Am Also An Abstainer And A Nonsmoker, And These Bottles In Haller's Room Pleased Me Even Less Than The Rest Of His Artistic Disorder.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Om Is The Bow, The Arrow Is Soul.

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

"you Do Not Really Love Me — You Love Nobody. Is That Not True?" "maybe," Said Siddhartha Wearily. "i Am Like You. You Cannot Love Either, Otherwise How Could You Practice Love As An Art? Perhaps People Like Us Cannot Love. Ordinary People Can — That Is Their Secret."

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

You Know Quite Well, Deep Within You, That There Is Only A Single Magic, A Single Power, A Single Salvation...and That Is Called Loving. Well, Then, Love Your Suffering. Do Not Resist It, Do Not Flee From It. It Is Your Aversion That Hurts, Nothing Else.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Siddhartha Has One Single Goal-to Become Empty, To Become Empty Of Thirst, Desire, Dreams, Pleasure And Sorrow-to Let The Self Die. No Longer To Be Self, To Experience The Peace Of An Emptied Heart, To Experience Pure Thought-that Was His Goal.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

All This Had Always Been And He Had Never Seen It; He Was Never Present. Now He Was Present And Belonged To It. Through His Eyes He Saw Light And Shadows; Through His Mind He Was Aware Of Moon And Stars.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

A Tree Has Something To Say To Us: Be Still! Be Still! Look At Me!... Home Is Within You, Or Home Is Nowhere 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?

Love Is Stronger Than Violence.

I Learned Through My Body And Soul That It Was Necessary For Me To Sin, That I Needed Lust, That I Had To Strive For Property And Experience Nausea And The Depths Of Despair In Order To Learn Not To Resist Them, In Order To Learn To Love The World.

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.

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Willard Van Orman Quine

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