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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.

-Hermann Hesse

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The World, Govinda My

Hermann Hesse

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

We Fear Death, We Shudder At Life's Instability, We Grieve To See The Flowers Wilt Again And Again, And The Leaves Fall, And In Our Hearts We Know That We, Too, Are Transitory And Will Soon Disappear. When Artists Create Pictures And Thinkers Search For Laws And Formulate Thoughts, It Is In Order To Salvage Something From The Great Dance Of Death, To Make Something Last Longer Than We Do.

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

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.

The River Is Everywhere At The Same Time . . . Everywhere And The Present Only Exists For It, Not The Shadow Of The Past, Nor The Shadow Of The Future.

The River Is Everywhere.

Sentimentality Is A Basking In Feelings That In Reality You Don't Take Seriously Enough To Make The Slightest Sacrifice To Or Ever Translate Into Action.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Every 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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, 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 Knew All Along That Your Sanctioned World Was Only Half The World, And You Tried To Suppress The Other Half The Same Way The Priests And Teachers Do. You Won't Succeed. No One Succeeds In This Once He Has Begun To Think.

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?

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.

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.

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

It Is Not Our Purpose To Become Each Other; It Is To Recognize Each Other, To Learn To See The Other And Honor Him For What He Is: Each The Other's Opposite And Complement.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

...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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Every Man's Story Is Important, Eternal And Sacred. That Is Why Every Man, As Long As He Lives And Fulfills The Will Of Nature, Is Wondrous And Worthy Of Every Consideration.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

Solitude Is Independence.

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

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.

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

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.

In My Brain Were Stored A Thousand Pictures.

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

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.

Your Soul Is The Whole World.

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

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.

The Truth Is Lived, Not Taught.

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

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

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.

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

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.

There Is Truth, My Boy. But The Doctrine You Desire, Absolute, Perfect Dogma That Alone Provides Wisdom, Does Not Exist. Nor Should You Long For A Perfect Doctrine, My Friend. Rather, You Should Long For The Perfection Of Yourself. The Deity Is Within You, Not In Ideas And Books. Truth Is Lived, Not Taught.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I Realize That Some People Will Not Believe That A Child Of Little More Than Ten Years Is Capable Of Having Such Feelings. My Story Is Not Intended For Them. I Am Telling It To Those Who Have A Better Knowledge Of Man. The Adult Who Has Learned To Translate A Part Of His Feelings Into Thoughts Notices The Absence Of These Thoughts In A Child, And Therefore Comes To Believe That The Child Lacks These Experiences, Too. Yet Rarely In My Life Have I Felt And Suffered As Deeply As At That Time.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

You Make Me Happy

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.)

So She Thoroughly Taught Him That One Cannot Take Pleasure Without Giving Pleasure, And That Every Gesture, Every Caress, Every Touch, Every Glance, Every Last Bit Of The Body Has Its Secret, Which Brings Happiness To The Person Who Knows How To Wake It. She Taught Him That After A Celebration Of Love The Lovers Should Not Part Without Admiring Each Other, Without Being Conquered Or Having Conquered, So That Neither Is Bleak Or Glutted Or Has The Bad Feeling Of Being Used Or Misused.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The Tree Does Not Die, It Waits.

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 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

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.

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.

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.

I Shall No Longer Be Instructed By The Yoga Veda Or The Aharva Veda, Or The Ascetics, Or Any Other Doctrine Whatsoever. I Shall Learn From Myself, Be A Pupil Of Myself; I Shall Get To Know Myself, The Mystery Of Siddhartha." He Looked Around As If He Were Seeing The World For The First Time.

The Art Of Love-giving And Taking Become One.

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.

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

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

Abraxas Was The God Who Was Both God And Devil.

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.

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.

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

"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."

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.

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 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?

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.

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

Again And Again

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

For Me, However, That Beloved, Glowing Little Word Happiness Has Become Associated With Everything I Have Felt Since Childhood Upon Hearing The Sound Of The Word Itself.

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

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.

As Every Flower Fades And As All Youth Departs, So Life At Every Stage, So Every Virtue, So Our Grasp Of Truth Blooms In Its Day And May Not Last Forever. Since Life May Summon Us At Every Age, Be Ready, Heart, For Parting, New Endeavour, Be Ready Bravely And Without Remorse To Find New Light That Old Ties Cannot Give. In All Beginnings Dwells A Magic Force For Guarding Us And Helping Us To Live.

Young People Have Many Pleasures And Many Sorrows, Because They Only Have Themselves To Think Of, So Every Wish And Every Notion Assume Importance; Every Pleasure Is Tasted To The Full, But Also Every Sorrow, And Many Who Find That Their Wishes Cannot Be Fulfilled, Immediately Put An End To Their Lives.

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.

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

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

All Higher Humor Begins With Ceasing To Take Oneself Seriously.

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

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.

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

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

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

Deeply, He Felt The Love For The Run-away In His Heart, Like A Wound, And He Felt At The Same Time That This Wound Had Not Been Given To Him In Order To Turn The Knife In It, That It Had To Become A Blossom And Had To Shine. That This Wound Did Not Blossom Yet, Did Not Shine Yet, At This Hour, Made Him Sad. Instead Of The Desired Goal, Which Had Drawn Him Here Following The Runaway Son, There Was Now Emptiness.

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

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.

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!

Every Experience Has Its Element Of Magic.

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

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.

For The Air Of Lonely Men Surrounded Him Now, A Still Atmosphere In Which The World Around Him Slipped Away, Leaving Him Incapable Of Relationship, An Atmosphere Against Which Neither Will Nor Longing Availed. This Was One Of The Significant Earmarks Of His Life.

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.

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.

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.

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 Saw That The Water Continually Flowed And Flowed And Yet It Was Always There; It Was Always The Same And Yet Every Moment It Was New.

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.

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.

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.

There Is No Reality Except The One Contained Within Us.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

It Was Morning; Through The High Window I Saw The Pure, Bright Blue Of The Sky As It Hovered Cheerfully Over The Long Roofs Of The Neighboring Houses. It Too Seemed Full Of Joy, As If It Had Special Plans, And Had Put On Its Finest Clothes For The Occasion.

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.

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

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.

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Algernon Sidney

William Ellery Channing

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