Great Throughts Treasury

"She stood before him and surrendered herself to him and sky, forest, and brooks 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."

"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."

"She taught him, that lovers must not part from one another after celebrating love, without one admiring the other, without being just as defeated as they have been victorious, so that with none of them should start feeling fed up or bored and get that evil feeling of having abused or having been abused."

"She wanted once more to extract the last sweet drop from this fleeting pleasure."

"She was able to transform itself into every idea from my thoughts, and every idea of my ideas were embodied in the body."

"Should we be mindful of dreams? Joseph asked. Can we interpret them? The Master looked into his eyes and said tersely: We should be mindful of everything, for we can interpret everything."

"Siddhartha considered his circumstances. Thinking did not come easily to him. He didn't really feel like it, but he forced himself."

"Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like a rock through water, without doing anything, without stirring; he is drawn, he lets himself fall. His goal attracts him, because he doesn?t let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal."

"Siddhartha began to understand that it was not happiness and peace that had come to him with his son but, rather, sorrow and worry. But he loved him and preferred the sorrow and worry of love to the happiness and peace he had known without the boy."

"Siddhartha had started to cultivate the seed of discontent within himself. He had started to feel like his father's love, his mother's love, and the love of his friend Govinda wouldn't make him happy forever, wouldn't bring him peace, satisfy him, and be sufficient for all time. He had started to suspect that his illustrious father, his other teachers, and the wise Brahmins had shared the majority and the best of their wisdom with him, that they had already poured their all into his ready vessel without filling the vessel: the mind wasn't satisfied, the soul wasn't quiet, the heart wasn't stilled."

"Siddhartha had one single goal before him -- to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of desire, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. To die away from himself, no longer to be I, to find the peace of an empty heart, to be open to wonder within an egoless mind -- that was his goal. When every bit of ego was overcome and dead, when in his heart all cravings and compulsions had been stilled, then the ultimate must awaken, that innermost essence in one's being that is no longer ego, the great mystery."

"Siddhartha gave his garments to a poor Brahman in the street. He wore nothing more than the loincloth and the earth-colored, unsown cloak. He ate only once a day, and never something cooked. He fasted for fifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight days. The flesh waned from his thighs and cheeks. Feverish dreams flickered from his enlarged eyes, long nails grew slowly on his parched fingers and a dry, shaggy beard grew on his chin. His glance turned to icy when he encountered women; his mouth twitched with contempt, when he walked through a city of nicely dressed people. 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. A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with an emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal. Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my self, the great secret."

"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."

"Siddhartha listened. He was now completely and utterly immersed in his listening, utterly empty, utterly receptive; he felt he had now succeeded in learning how to listen. He had heard all these things often now, these many voices in the river; today it sounded new. Already he could no longer distinguish the many voices, could not distinguish the gay from the weeping, the childish from the virile; they all belonged together, the yearning laments and the wise man?s laughter, the cry of anger and the moans of the dying; they were all one, all of them interlinked and interwoven, bound together in a thousand ways. And all of this together?all the voices, all the goals, all the longing, all the suffering, all the pleasure, everything good and everything bad?all of it together was the world. All of it together was the river of occurrences, the music of life. And when Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to this thousand-voiced song, when he listened neither for the sorrow nor for the laughter, when he did not attach his soul to any one voice and enter into it with his ego but rather heard all of them, heard the whole, the oneness?then the great song of the thousand voices consisted only of a single word: Om, perfection."

"Siddhartha said to himself: I compromise on the Buddha. I have to compromise but it gave me something greater value. Robbed me of my friend who believed in me and has become, now, he believes. It was my shadow and become, now, a shadow of Gautama. However, it brought back Siddhartha, brought back myself."

"Siddhartha saw it hurrying, the river, which consisted of him and his loved ones and of all people, he had ever seen, all of these waves and waters were hurrying, suffering, towards goals, many goals, the waterfall, the lake, the rapids, the sea, and all goals were reached, and every goal was followed by a new one, and the water turned into vapor and rose to the sky, turned into rain and poured down from the sky, turned into a source, and stream, a river, headed forward once again, flowed on once again."

"Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate this very hour, and he stopped suffering."

"Siddhartha's face shone with the same kind of smile. His wound blossomed, his suffering was lit, I had entered its unity."

"Siddhartha spoke with ecstasy; deeply, this enlightenment had delighted him. Oh, was not all suffering time, were not all forms of tormenting oneself and being afraid time, was not everything hard, everything hostile in the world gone and overcome as soon as one had overcome time, as soon as time would have been put out of existence by one's thoughts?"

"Simultaneously with this sense of well - being and the rising sound of the chords, I seized a surprising breath of happiness, because suddenly I knew what love was. It was not a new feeling, but the clarification, confirmation of an old suspicion, a return to the homeland."

"Since it happened what happens to all: what he was looking for and aspired deepest impulses of his nature - it fell out on his share, but in too large an amount that does not go to the benefit of the people. First it was his dream and happiness, then it became his bitter fate. Killed by power-hungry power - the money, the slave - from slavery, the seeker of pleasure - pleasure. So Steppenwolf died from their independence. He achieved his goal, he became more and more independent, no he could not order, nor to whom he should not have to adapt how it behave is determined only by himself. After all, every strong man certainly achieves what tells him to look for a real impulse of his nature. But among Harry reached freedom suddenly felt that the world is somehow sinister leave him alone, that he, Harry, no longer matters to people and even to himself, that he was slowly suffocating in an increasingly rarefied air of loneliness and isolation. It turned out that to be alone and be independent - it is not his desire, not its purpose, and its fate, its fate as a magical desire conceived and cancellation cannot be that he did not correct for, no matter how spread out his hands in anguish, however express its goodwill and readiness for communication and unity: it is now left alone. However, he did not cause hatred and was not hateful people. On the contrary, he had a lot of friends. Many people liked him. But he found only sympathy and friendliness, he was invited, he gave gifts, wrote lovely letters, but closer to him no one came closer, unity does not arise anywhere, no one wanted and was not able to share with him his life. It is now surrounded by air alone, is the quiet atmosphere, the escape of the medium, is the inability to contact, against which the powerless and the most passionate will. This was one of the most important distinguishing features of his life."

"Since long ago, had acquired the habit of giving every day a long walk, would make the time he did, and these thoughtful walks enjoyed sometimes a singular happiness, a happiness full of melancholy, contempt for the world and myself."

"Sinclair, your love is attracted to me. Once it begins to attract me, I will come. I will not make a gift of myself, I must be won."

"Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realization, 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."

"Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself: But what is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach you? And he found: It was the self, the purpose and essence of which I sought to learn. It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it. Truly, nothing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha! And there is nothing in this world I know less about than about me, about Siddhartha!"

"Smile, sit and walk this way, too, thus free, thus venerable, thus concealed, thus open, thus child-like and mysterious. Truly, only a person who has succeeded in reaching the innermost part of his self would glance and walk this way."

"So fall around an autumn tree leaves, he feels it, rain pours off him, or sun or frost and pulls him inside life itself to the utmost and most hidden back. He does not die. He's waiting."

"Slowly the disease of the soul, which rich people have, grabbed hold of him."

"Smiling, Siddhartha felt happiness at the friendship and friendliness of the ferryman. He is like Govinda, he thought, smiling. All the people I meet upon my way are like Govinda. All of them are grateful, though they themselves have cause to expect gratitude. All of them are deferential, all are eager to be a friend, to obey and think little. People are children."

"So I care about you, or inquire about you and want you to know how you are inside you. I scared you're skittish. There are things that scare people. Where can pull this? No need to fear anyone. If you fear anybody, then that's because you let this man have power over you. For example, you did something bad, the other knows this thing and so it is that has power over you. Get it? It is clear, right?"

"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."

"So his whole life was an example that love of one's neighbor is not possible without love of oneself, and that self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism and in the long run breeds the same cruel isolation and despair."

"So I think, O Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation through teachings. To nobody, O Illustrious One, can you communicate in words and teaching what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment. That is why I am going on my way?not to seek another and better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave all doctrines and all teachers and to reach my goal alone?or die"

"So when a man dilating the first step to self or imaginary unity to a duality, man becomes almost a genius, or at least it is a rare exception and interesting. In reality, no I nor even the most naive, not unity but is a universe of diversity extraordinary, a small sky dotted with stars, chaos shape, steps and moods of manners inherited and possibilities."

"So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But 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."

"Sometimes we told each other our dreams. Pistorius knew interpretation. I remember now one of them, who found a singular explanation. I had dreamed of flying, but not by power, but thrown through the air by a violent impulse that did not own. The sensation of this flight, delicious at first, would soon be changed into fear when she saw me fired to dizzying heights. But then I discovered with satisfaction that could regulate the ascent and descent, holding and letting out his breath. To this Pistorius said: The impulse that makes you fly is our great common human heritage to all. It is the feeling of our relationship with the roots of strength. But we are afraid to abandon him. It's so dangerous! So almost all willingly they renounce flying and prefer to walk, as good bourgeois, by his sidewalk, supported by the legal precepts. You are not. You still flying bravely. And suddenly you discover something wonderful; He warns that gradually taking over the momentum and that next to the great general force that drags him there is another tiny and subtle force of its own: a body and a rudder. Without it one would wander randomly through the air, as happens, for example, the crazies. These are deeper than the bourgeois glimpses sidewalk; but do not have a key, they lack a rudder that allows them to set the course, and floating adrift in space."

"Stages: As every flower fades and as all youth departs, so life at every stage, so every virtue, so our grasp of truth, blooms in its day and may not last forever. Since life may summon us at every age be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor, be ready bravely and without remorse to find new light that old ties cannot give. In all beginnings dwells a magic force for guarding us and helping us to live. Serenely let us move to distant places and let no sentiments of home detain us. The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us but lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces. If we accept a home of our own making, familiar habit makes for indolence. We must prepare for parting and leave-taking or else remain the slaves of permanence. Even the hour of our death may send us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces, and life may summon us to newer races. So be it, heart: bid farewell without end."

"Straight lines evidently belonged only to geometry, not to nature and life."

"Struck by this thought suddenly paused in his slow walk meditative, and as soon as this thought I jumped off another, which was: That I do not know anything about me, me that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown, this depends on a fundamental cause, one: I was afraid of me, I took the flight ahead of myself! Atman was looking for, Brahma was looking for, and I wanted to break up and barking my Self, to find in its unknown depth the core of all the barks, the Atman, life, the divine, the absolute. But even I, meanwhile, I was lost myself. Siddhartha opened his eyes and looked around, a smile lit up his face, and a deep feeling, like awakening from long dreams, I walked up to the toes. And as soon as they set off again, running quickly, like a man who knows what he has to do."

"So, you see, you will have to learn to listen to more of the radio music of life. It'll do you good. You are uncommonly poor in gifts, a poor blockhead, but by degrees you will come to grasp what is required of you. You have got to learn to laugh. That will be required of you. You must apprehend the humor of life, its gallows-humor. But of course you are ready for everything in the world except what will be required of you. You are ready to stab girls to death. You are ready to be executed with all solemnity. You would be ready, no doubt, to mortify and scourge yourself for centuries together. Wouldn't you? It is time to come to your senses...You are to live and to learn to laugh. You are to learn to listen to the cursed radio music of life and to reverence the spirit behind it and to laugh at its distortions. So there you are. More will not be asked of you"

"Solitude is independence. It had been my wish and with the years I have attained it."

"Solitude is independence, her I wanted and for years has sought to carve. It was cold, oh yes, but it was the quiet, wonderfully quiet and big like a cold silent room in which revolve around the stars."

"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."

"Solitude is independence: I had desired and I'd gained over many years. It was cold, this is, but it was also quiet, wonderfully quiet and large as the cold and silent space in which revolve the stars."

"Some day you will think of what I am going to say to you now: our friendship has no other purpose, no other reason, than to show you how utterly unlike me you are."

"Suddenly he thought he saw a trait of soul-less habit in her dear coarse face, something mechanical and un-mysterious in her friendly smile, something unworthy of him. His gesture froze in mid-air; the smile froze on his face. Was he still in love with her, did he really still desire her? No, he had been there too often. All too often he had seen this selfsame smile and smiled back without a prompting from his heart. What had still been all right yesterday was suddenly no longer possible today."

"Suddenly street and city became transformed, had the unfamiliar face that familiar things take on when our heart has taken leave of them. He looked back at the door of the house: it had become the door to a strange house that was now closed to him."

"Suffering (no matter how curious it seems to you) is the object by which we exist, for it is the only thing that allows us to know that we live, and the memory of our past sufferings is indispensable to us as a guarantee and demonstration of our permanent identity"

"Suffering was life, full of suffering was the world."

"Struggling, despairing, Klein fought with his demon. All the new understanding and sense of redemption this fateful time had yielded had surged, in the course of this past day, to such a wave of thought and clarity that he had felt he would remain forever on the crest even while he was beginning to drop down. Now he was in the trough again, still fighting, still secretly hoping, but gravely injured. For one brief, glowing day he had succeeded in practicing the simple art known to every blade of grass. For one scant day he had loved himself, felt himself to be unified and whole, not split into hostile parts; he had loved himself and the world and God in himself, and everywhere he went he had met nothing but love, approval, and joy. If a robber had attacked him yesterday, or a policeman had arrested him, that too would have been approval, harmony, the smile of fate. And now, in the midst of happiness, he had reversed course and was cutting himself down again. He sat in judgment on himself while his deepest self knew that all judgment was wrong and foolish. The world, which for the span of one day had been crystal clear and wholly filled with divinity, once more presented a harsh and painful face; every object had its own meaning and every meaning contradicted every other."