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ardent
ascetics.
‘What is meditation? What is leaving one’s body? What is fasting? What is holding one’s breath? It is fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life.
so I’m starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the desire to know it, than learning.’
‘He who ponderingly, of a purified spirit, loses himself in the meditation of Atman, unexpressable by words is his blissfulness of his heart.’
If I merely were one of your disciples, oh venerable one, I’d fear that it might happen to me that only seemingly, only deceptively my self would be calm and be redeemed, but that in truth it would live on and grow, for then I had replaced my self with the teachings, my duty to follow you, my love for you, and the community of the monks!’
‘How deaf and stupid have I been!’ he thought, walking swiftly along. ‘When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter by letter.
Siddhartha, thus you should also learn this: love can be obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the street, but it cannot be stolen.
His goal attracts him, because he doesn’t let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal. This is what Siddhartha has learned among the Samanas. This is what fools call magic
and of which they think it would be effected by means of the daemons. Nothing is effected by daemons, there are no daemons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach one’s goals, if one is able to think, if one is able to wait, if one is able to fast.’
‘Writing is good, thinking is better. Being smart is good, being patient is better.’
He always seems to be merely playing with our business-affairs, they never fully become a part of him, they never rule over him, he is never afraid of failure, he is never upset by a loss.’
Most of all, he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion, without a wish, without judgement, without an opinion.
‘When someone is searching,’ said Siddhartha, ‘then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means having a goal. But finding means being free, being open, having no goal.
wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness.’
