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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.

-Hermann Hesse

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There Was Once A

Hermann Hesse

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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.

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

Abraxas Was The God Who Was Both God And Devil.

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

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.

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.

If A Bell Failed To Ring, If A Stove Smoked, If A Wheel On A Machine Stuck, You Knew At Once Where To Look And Did So With Alacrity; You Found The Defect And Knew How To Cure It. But The Thing Within You, The Secret Mainspring That Alone Gave Meaning To Life, The Thing Within Us That Alone Is Living, Alone Is Capable Of Feeling Pleasure And Pain, Of Craving Happiness And Experiencing It- That Was Unknown. You Knew Nothing About That, Nothing At All, And If The Mainspring Failed There Was No Cure. Wasn't It Insane?

In The Beginning Was The Myth.

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

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.

He Saw Merchants Trading, Princes Hunting, Mourners Wailing For Their Dead, Whores Offering Themselves, Physicians Trying To Help The Sick, Priests Determining The Most Suitable Day For Seeding, Lovers Loving, Mothers Nursing Their Children—and All Of This Was Not Worthy Of One Look From His Eye, It All Lied, It All Stank, It All Stank Of Lies, It All Pretended To Be Meaningful And Joyful And Beautiful, And It All Was Just Concealed Putrefaction. The World Tasted Bitter. Life Was Torture

It Is Not For Me To Judge Another Man's Life. I Must Judge, I Must Choose, I Must Spurn, Purely For Myself. For Myself, Alone.

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

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.

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!

His Life Oscillates, As Everyone's Does, Not Merely Between Two Poles, Such As The Body And The Spirit, The Saint And The Sinner, But Between Thousands And Thousands.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

You Have To Try The Impossible To Achieve The Possible

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

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.

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

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.

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

Did All This Make Sense?

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.

Art Is The Contemplation Of The World In A State Of Grace.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

The Sacred Sense Of Beyond, Of Timelessness, Of A World Which Had An Eternal Value And The Substance Of Which Was Divine Had Been Given Back To Me Today By This Friend Of Mine Who Taught Me Dancing.

For Me, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Trees Are Sanctuaries. Whoever Knows How To Speak To Them, Whoever Knows How To Listen To Them, Can Learn The Truth. They Do Not Preach Learning And Precepts, They Preach, Undeterred By Particulars, The Ancient Law Of Life.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

At The First Kiss I Felt Something Melt Inside Me That Hurt In An Exquisite Way. All My Longings, All My Dreams And Sweet Anguish, All The Secrets That Slept Deep Within Me Came Awake, Everything Was Transformed And Enchanted, And Everything Made Sense.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Eternity Is A Mere Moment, Just Long Enough For A Joke.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

"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."

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.

Friendship Is Identification And Difference

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

Man Is Not By Any Means Of Fixed And Enduring Form (this, In Spite Of Suspicions To The Contrary On The Part Of Their Wise Men, Was The Ideal Of The Ancients). He Is Nothing Else Than The Narrow And Perilous Bridge Between Nature And Spirit. His Innermost Destiny Drives Him On To The Spirit And To God. His Innermost Longing Draws Him Back To Nature, The Mother. Between The Two Forces His Life Hangs Tremulous And Irresolute.

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

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.

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.

The Tree Does Not Die, It Waits.

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

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.

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

Lovers Should Not Separate From Each Other After Making Love Without Admiring Each Other, Without Being Conquered As Well As Conquering, So That No Feeling Of Satiation Or Desolation Arises Nor The Horrid Feeling Of Misusing Or Having Been Misused.

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

There Were Now And Then, Though Rarely, The Hours That Brought The Welcome Shock, Pulled Down The Walls And Brought Me Back Again From My Wanderings To The Living Heart Of The World. Sadly And Yet Deeply Moved, I Set Myself To Recall The Last Of These Experiences. It Was At A Concert Of Lovely Old Music. After Two Of Three Notes Of The Piano The Door Was Opened Of A Sudden To The Other World. 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.

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.

I Have Always Been A Great Dreamer; In Dreams I Am More Active Than In My Real Life, And These Shadows Sapped Me Of Health And Energy.

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.

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.

Never Is A Man Wholly A Saint Or A Sinner.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

Despair Is The Result Of Each Earnest Attempt To Go Through Life With Virtue, Justice And Understanding, And To Fulfill Their Requirements. Children Live On One Side Of Despair, The Awakened On The Other Side.

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.

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.

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

Knowledge Can Be Communicated, But Not Wisdom.

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.

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.

The Truth Is Lived, Not Taught.

The River Is Everywhere.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

You Should Not Take Old People Who Are Already Dead Seriously. It Does Them Injustice. We Immortals Do Not Like Things To Be Taken Seriously. We Like Joking. Seriousness, Young Man, Is An Accident Of Time. It Consists, I Don't Mind Telling You In Confidence, In Putting Too High A Value On Time. I, Too, Once Put Too High A Value On Time. For That Reason I Wished To Be A Hundred Years Old. In Eternity, However, There Is No Time, You See. Eternity Is A Mere Moment, Just Long Enough For A Joke.

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.

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.

"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."

Whether You And I And A Few Others Will Renew The World Some Day Remains To Be Seen. But Within Ourselves We Must Renew It Each Day.

In My Brain Were Stored A Thousand Pictures.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What Constitutes A Real, Live Human Being Is More Of A Mystery Than Ever These Days, And Men Each One Of Whom Is A Valuable, Unique Experiment On The Part Of Nature Are Shot Down Wholesale.

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.

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.

Knowledge Can Communicated But Not Wisdom.

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

Is Not Every Life, Every Work Fine?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

There Is A Miracle In Every New Beginning

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

My Real Self Wanders Elsewhere, Far Away, Wanders On And On Invisibly And Has Nothing To Do With My Life.

Rain Soft Rain, Summer Rain Whispers From Bushes, Whispers From Trees. Oh, How Lovely And Full Of Blessing To Dream And Be Satisfied. I Was So Long In The Outer Brightness, I Am Not Used To This Upheaval: Being At Home In My Own Soul, Never To Be Led Elsewhere. I Want Nothing, I Long For Nothing, I Hum Gently The Sounds Of Childhood, And I Reach Home Astounded In The Warm Beauty Of Dreams. Heart, How Torn You Are, How Blessed To Plow Down Blindly, To Think Nothing, To Know Nothing, Only To Breathe, Only To Feel.

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.

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.

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

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.

There Is No Reality Except The One Contained Within Us.

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

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

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

Solitude Is Independence.

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

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.

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.

I Have Had To Experience So Much Stupidity, So Many Vices, So Much Error, So Much Nausea, Disillusionment And Sorrow, Just In Order To Become A Child Again And Begin Anew. I Had To Experience Despair, I Had To Sink To The Greatest Mental Depths, To Thoughts Of Suicide, In Order To Experience Grace.

I 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.

In Any Case, The Most Lively Young People Become The Best Old People, Not Those Who Pretend To Be As Wise As Grandfathers While They Are Still At School.

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

...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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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