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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.

-Hermann Hesse

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They Both Listened Silently

Hermann Hesse

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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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

During Deep Meditation It Is Possible To Dispel Time, To See Simultaneously All The Past, Present, And Future, And Then Everything Is Good, Everything Is Perfect, Everything Is Brahman.

When 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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

Man Is An Onion Made Up Of A Hundred Integuments, A Texture Made Up Of Many Threads. The Ancient Asiatics Knew This Well Enough, And In The Buddhist Yoga An Exact Technique Was Devised For Unmasking The Illusion Of The Personality. The Human Merry-go-round Sees Many Changes: The Illusion That Cost India The Efforts Of Thousands Of Years To Unmask Is The Same Illusion That The West Has Labored Just As Hard To Maintain And Strengthen.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

A Mere Nothing Suffices — And The Lightning Strikes.

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.

Was That Really Love? I Saw All These Passionate People Reel About And Drift Haphazardly As If Driven By A Storm, The Man Filled With Desire Today, Satiated On The Morrow, Loving Fiercely And Discarding Brutally, Sure Of No Affection And Happy In No Love.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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.

It May Be Important To Great Thinkers To Examine The World, To Explain And Despise It. But I Think It Is Only Important To Love The World, Not To Despise It, Not For Us To Hate Each Other, But To Be Able To Regard The World And Ourselves And All Beings With Love, Admiration And Respect.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Words Do Not Express Thoughts Very Well. They Always Become A Little Different Immediately After They Are Expressed, A Little Distorted, A Little Foolish.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.)

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

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

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.

Every Experience Has Its Element Of Magic.

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

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

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

Alas, Siddhartha, I See You Suffering, But You're Suffering A Pain At Which One Would Like To Laugh, At Which You'll Soon Laugh For Yourself.

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.

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

You Make Me Happy

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

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

Again And Again

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There Is No Reality Except The One Contained Within Us.

Life Is Waiting Everywhere, The Future Is Flowering Everywhere, But We Only See A Small Part Of It And Step On Much Of It With Our Feet

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Old Man Slowly Raised Himself From The Piano Stool, Fixed Those Cheerful Blue Eyes Piercingly And At The Same Time With Unimaginable Friendliness Upon Him, And Said: "making Music Together Is The Best Way For Two People To Become Friends. There Is None Easier. That Is A Fine Thing. I Hope You And I Shall Remain Friends. Perhaps You Too Will Learn How To Make Fugues, Joseph.

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.

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.

I Live In My Dreams — That's What You Sense. Other People Live In Dreams, But Not In Their Own. That's The Difference.

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!

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

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

Abraxas Was The God Who Was Both God And Devil.

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

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

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

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.

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

Friendship Is Identification And Difference

When A Tree Is Cut Down And Reveals Its Naked Death-wound To The Sun, One Can Read Its Whole History In The Luminous, Inscribed Disk Of Its Trunk: In The Rings Of Its Years, Its Scars, All The Struggle, All The Suffering, All The Sickness, All The Happiness And Prosperity Stand Truly Written, The Narrow Years And The Luxurious Years, The Attacks Withstood, The Storms Endured.

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

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.

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

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

If You Hate A Person, You Hate Something In Him That Is Part Of Yourself. What Isn't Part Of Ourselves Doesn't Disturb Us.

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.

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

You Wouldn't Consider All The Bipeds You Pass On The Street Human Beings Simply Because They Walk Upright And Carry Their Young In Their Bellies Nine Months! It Is Obvious How Many Of Them Are Fish Or Sheep, Worms Or Angels, How Many Are Ants, How Many Are Bees!

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Have Always Thirsted For Knowledge, I Have Always Been Full Of Questions.

...as Every One Of Us Knows, There Are Some Festivals And Games In Which Everything Goes Right, And Every Element Lifts Up, Animates, And Exalts Every Other, Just As There Are Theatrical And Musical Performances Which Without Any Clearly Discernible Cause Seem To Ascend Miraculously To Glorious Climaxes And Intensely Felt Experiences, Whereas Others, Just As Well Prepared, Remain No More Than Decent Tries.

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.

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.

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

Om Is The Bow, The Arrow Is Soul.

To Be Able To Throw One's Self Away For The Sake Of A Moment, To Be Able To Sacrifice Years For A Woman's Smile - That Is Happiness.

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

All Higher Humor Begins With Ceasing To Take Oneself Seriously.

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

Every Path Leads Homeward, Every Step Is Birth, Every Step Is Death, Every Grave Is Mother.

Perhaps People Like Us Cannot Love. Ordinary People Can - That Is Their Secret.

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

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

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.

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.

Only The Ideas That We Really Live Have Any Value.

In My Brain Were Stored A Thousand Pictures.

The Art Of Love-giving And Taking Become One.

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.

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.

It Was Still Quiet In The House, And Not A Sound Was Heard From Outside, Either. Were It Not For This Silence, My Reverie Would Probably Have Been Disrupted By Reminders Of Daily Duties, Of Getting Up And Going To School.

The Bourgeois Treasures Nothing More Highly Than The Self.... And So At The Cost Of Intensity He Achieves His Own Preservation Andsecurity. His Harvest Is A Quiet Mind Which He Prefers To Being Possessed By God, As He Prefers Comfort To Pleasure, Convenience To Liberty, And A Pleasant Temperature To That Deathly Inner Consuming Fire.

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.

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 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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

If I Were Poet Now, I Would Not Resist The Temptation To Trace My Life Back Through The Delicate Shadows Of My Childhood To The Precious And Sheltered Sources Of My Earliest Memories. But These Possessions Are Far Too Dear And Sacred For The Person I Now Am To Spoil For Myself. All There Is To Say Of My Childhood Is That It Was Good And Happy. I Was Given The Freedom To Discover My Own Inclinations 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.

"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."

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.

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.

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

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.

Each Man's Life Represents A Road Toward Himself.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Painting Is Marvelous; It Makes You Happier And More Patient. Afterwards You Do Not Have Black Fingers As With Writing, But Blue And Red Ones.

Is Not Every Life, Every Work Fine?

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

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.

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

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

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 World Is Not Imperfect Or Slowly Evolving Along A Long Path To Perfection. No, It Is Perfect At Every Moment; Every Sin Already Carries Grace Within It, All Small Children Are Potential Old Men, All Sucklings Have Death Within Them, All Dying People — Eternal Life.

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.

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

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.

The Opposite Of Every Truth Is Just As True.

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.

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.

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?

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.

All The Books Of The World Full Of Thoughts And Poems Are Nothing In Comparison To A Minute Of Sobbing, When Feeling Surges In Waves, The Soul Feels Itself Profoundly And Finds Itself. Tears Are The Melting Ice Of Snow. All Angels Are Close To The Crying Person.

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

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

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.

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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