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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.

-Hermann Hesse

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When A Writer Receives

Hermann Hesse

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

In My Brain Were Stored A Thousand Pictures.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Things Are Going Downhill With You!' He Said To Himself, And Laughed About It, And As He Was Saying It, He Happened To Glance At The River, And He Also Saw The River Going Downhill, Always Moving On Downhill, And Singing And Being Happy Through It All.

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.

He Had Thrown Himself Away, He Had Lost Interest In Everything, And Life, Falling In With His Feelings, Had Demanded Nothing Of Him. He Had Lived As An Outsider, An Idler And Onlooker, Well Liked In His Young Manhood, Alone In His Illness And Advancing Years. Seized With Weariness, He Sat Down On The Wall, And The River Murmured Darkly In His Thoughts.

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.

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

Again And Again

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The Way To Innocence, To The Uncreated And To God Leads On, Not Back, Not Back To The Wolf Or To The Child, But Ever Further Into Sin, Ever Deeper Into Human Life.

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.

What He Had Not Learned, However, Was This: To Find Contentment In Himself And His Own Life

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

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.

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

I Want To Learn From Myself, Want To Be My Student, Want To Get To Know Myself, The Secret Of Siddhartha.

...and Gradually His Face Assumed The Expressions Which Are So Often Found Among Rich People - The Expressions Of Discontent, Of Sickliness, Of Displeasure, Of Idleness, Of Lovelessness. Slowly The Soul Sickness Of The Rich Crept Over Him.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Every Experience Has Its Element Of Magic.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

All Interpretation, All Psychology, All Attempts To Make Things Comprehensible, Require The Medium Of Theories, Mythologies, And Lies.

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.

Solitude Is Independence.

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!

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?

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

The River Is Everywhere.

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.

The Cup Was Emptied And Would Never Be Filled Again.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Only The Ideas That We Really Live Have Any Value.

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

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

My Resolve To Die Was Not The Whim Of An Hour. It Was The Ripe, Sound Fruit That Had Slowly Grown To Full Size, Lightly Rocked By The Winds Of Fate Whose Next Breath Would Bring It To The Ground.

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

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.

One Of The Aphorisms Occurred To Me Now And I Wrote It Under The Picture: "fate And Temperament Are Two Words For One And The Same Concept." That Was Clear To Me Now.

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.

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.

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.

A Home Isn't Just A Roof Over Our Heads. A Home Is A Place Where We Feel Loved And Where We Love Others. It's A Place We Belong. Love Is What Makes A Home, Not The Contents Inside The House Or The Number On The Door. It's The People Waiting For Us Across The Threshold, The People Who Will Take Us In Their Arms After A Ad Day And Kiss Us Good Night And Good Morning Everyday For The Rest Of Our Lives.

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

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 Do Want More. I Am Not Content With Being Happy. I Was Not Made For It. It Is Not My Destiny. My Destiny Is The Opposite.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

In Fear I Hurried This Way And That. I Had The Taste Of Blood And Chocolate In My Mouth, The One As Hateful As The Other.

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?

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 Tree Does Not Die, It Waits.

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

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

All Higher Humor Begins With Ceasing To Take Oneself Seriously.

What We Can And Should Change Is Ourselves: Our Impatience, Our Egoism (including Intellectual Egoism), Our Sense Of Injury, Our Lack Of Love And Forbearance. I Regard Every Other Attempt To Change The World, Even If It Springs From The Best Intentions, As Futile.

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.

Your Soul Is The Whole World.

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.

The Opposite Of Every Truth Is Just As True.

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

Look: We Hate Nothing That Exists, Not Even Death, Suffering And Dying, Does Not Horrify Our Souls, As Long As We Learn More Deeply To Love.

You 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.

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

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.

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

...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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Knowledge Can Communicated But Not Wisdom.

Every Sin Already Carries Grace Within In, All Small Children Are Potential Old Men, All Sucklings Have Death Within Them, All Dying People - Eternal Life. The Buddha Exists In The Robber And Dice Player; The Robber Exists In The Brahmin.

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

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

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

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

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

This Happiness Consisted Of Nothing Else But The Harmony Of The Few Things Around Me With My Own Existence, A Feeling Of Contentment And Well-being That Needed No Changes And No Intensification.

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

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

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

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.

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.

The Highest Art... Sets Down Its Creations And Trusts In Their Magic, Without Fear Of Not Being Understood.

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.

Faith Is Stronger Than So-called Reality.

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

Abraxas Was The God Who Was Both God And Devil.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

For What I Always Hated And Detested And Cursed Above All Things Was This Contentment, This Healthiness And Comfort, This Carefully Preserved Optimism Of The Middle Classes, This Fat And Prosperous Brood Of Mediocrity.

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.

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 Cannot Tell My Story Without Reaching A Long Way Back.

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.

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

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

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.

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

A Soul That Is Ruined In The Bud Will Frequently Return To The Springtime Of Its Beginning And Its Promise-filled Childhood, As Though It Could Discover New Hopes There And Retie The Broken Threads Of Life. The Shoots Grow Rapidly And Eagerly, But It Is Only A Sham Life That Will Never Be A Genuine Tree.

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.

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.

For Me, Trees Have Always Been The Most Penetrating Preachers.

Longing For Home

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

Love Is Stronger Than Violence.

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.

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

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.

Never Is A Man Wholly A Saint Or A Sinner.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Art Of Love-giving And Taking Become One.

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.

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

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

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

I Have Known It For A Long Time But I Have Only Just Experienced It. Now I Know It Not Only With My Intellect, But With My Eyes, With My Heart, With My Stomach.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Words Can Not Express The Joy Of New Life.

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.

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

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!

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