Celebrating Uniqueness - Hermann Hesse

I revere trees when they live in tribes and families, in forests
and groves.  And even more I revere them when they stand alone.
They are like lonely persons.  In their highest boughs the world
rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they don't lose themselves there,
they struggle with all the force of their lives for only one thing:
to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their
own form, to represent themselves.

A tree says:  The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took
with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique
the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar
on my bark.  I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my
smallest special detail.

Hermann Hesse
Notes and Sketches

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Tree Refection in pond color inverted..

~

NOTE: For my Follow.it followers
there was a typo error
in the 4th line down which should
have read:
"but they don't lose themselves there..."
I was unable to edit it on your follow.it copy.
Sorry about that :)

 

Find Your Radiance - Hermann Hesse

Each man has only one genuine vocation -
to find the way to himself,
to discover his own destiny,
and live it out wholly and resolutely
within himself.
Everything else [is] only a
would-be-existence,
an attempt at evasion,
a flight back to the ideals of
the masses: conformity, a
fear of one's own inwardness.

Hermann Hesse

~

Your work is to discover your work
and then with all your heart
give yourself to it...

The Buddha

from: Living in Balance
Joel and Michelle Levey

~

We're all just walking each other "Home."

Ram Dass

~

Photo Art - Mystic Meandering
 Radiance Vortex
2024

 

The Cosmic Spirit Lifts Us - Hermann Hesse

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.

Hermann Hesse
translation by Richard and Clare Winston

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The innermost self - Hermann Hesse

I seek to reach the innermost part of myself...

One thing no longer existed for him, the wish to have teachers
and to listen to teachings.

He 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.

No thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this
my very own self, this mystery of one being one and being
separated...  And there is nothing I know less about... I know
nothing about myself!  I searched Atman, I searched Brahman,
I was willing to dissect myself and pull off all of its layers, to
find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life
the divine part, the ultimate part.  But I have lost myself in the
process.  I do not want to kill and dissect myself any longer, to
find a secret behind the ruins.

I want to get to know myself, the secret of Sidartha.

[The beauty of this world] was no longer the veil of Maya, was
no longer a pointless coincidental diversity of mere appearance,
despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman, who scorns diversity
who seeks unity, but the beauty was also in Sidartha, the singular
and the divine lived hidden - the purpose and the essential
properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in 
them, in everything...

From: Sidartha
Herman Hesse

~

I do not believe in "spiritual paths."
The purpose of spiritual paths is to
enmesh you in the world of knowledge,
while Reality resides prior to it.

All spiritual paths lead to unreality,
Discard all paths...

Nisargadatta Maharaj

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Voices of the River - Hermann Hesse

Christopher Robin came down from the Forest to the Bridge,
feeling all sunny and careless, and just as if twice nineteen
didn't matter a bit, as it didn't on such a happy afternoon, and
he thought that if he stood on the bottom rail of the bridge, and
leant over, and watched the river slipping slowly away beneath
him, then he would suddenly know everything that there was
to be known.

- From Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

Siddartha came to the same realization - that the river offers
access to all knowledge, at least all that is important.  You have
to tune into the river first though. You can't think of it as an
impediment.

It slips slowly by underneath you.  If you tune into it, believe it
might be able to tell you something, it offers unity with all voices,
all goals, all yearnings, sorrows, pleasures, good and evil, the 
laughter of the wise as well as the groan of the dying.

If you listen to the river long enough, if you stand on the bottom
rung and tune in, the river offers unity in all things.

~~~

Siddartha listened.  He was so listening intently, completely
absorbed, quite empty, taking in everything.  He felt that he
had now completely learned the art of listening.  He had often
heard all this before, all these numerous voices in the river, but
today they sounded different.  He could no longer distinguish
the different voices - the merry voice from the weeping voice,
the childish voice from the manly voice.  They all belonged to
each other: the lament of those who yearn, the laughter of the
wise, the cry of indignation and the groan of the dying.  They
were all interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand
ways.  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.  When Siddartha listened attentively
to this river, to this song of a thousand voices; when he did not
listen to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul
to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but heard
them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand
voices consisted of one word: OM - perfection.

"Do you hear?" asked Vasudeva's glance once again.

Vasudeva's smile was radiant; it hovered brightly in all the
wrinkles of his old face, as the OM hovered over all the voices
of the river.  His smile was radiant as he looked at this friend,
and now the same smile appeared on Siddartha's face.  His
wound was healing, his pain was dispersing; his Self had
merged into unity.

From that hour Siddartha ceased to fight against his destiny.
There shone on his face the serenity of knowledge, of one who
is no longer confronted with conflict of desires,
who is in harmony with the stream of events, with the stream
 of life, full of sympathy and compassion, surrendering himself
 to the stream, belonging to the unity of all things.

Hermann Hesse  
From Siddartha

With thanks to Rod MacIver
at Heron Dance Art Studio

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Living in The Dream - Herman Hesse

Art by Alaire Bird
 

The things we see, Pistorius softly said, are the same things
that are within us.  There is no reality except the one contained
within us.  That is why so many people live in such an unreal
life.  They take the images outside them for reality and never
allow the world within to assert itself.  You can be happy that
way.  But once you know the other interpretation you no longer
have the choice of following the crowd.  Sinclair, the majority's
path is an easy one, ours is difficult.

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.  Each
of us has to find out for himself what is permitted and what is
forbidden... Forbidden for him. It's possible for one never to
transgress a single law and still be a bastard.  And vice versa.

I live in  my dreams - that's what you sense.
Other people live in dreams, but not in their own.
That's the difference.

Hermann Hesse
excerpts from Damian

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

 

Be What You Are - Hermann Hesse

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer,
then a tree has something to say to us:
Be still!  Be still!  Look at me!  Life is not easy,
life is not difficult.  Home is neither here nor there.
Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees
rustling in the wind at evening.  If one listens to them
silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel,
its meaning.  It is not so much a matter of escaping
from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so.
It is a longing for home, for new metaphors for life.
It leads home.  Every path leads homeward, every step
is birth, every step is death...

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 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...

Hermann Hesse

from: Trees: Reflections and Poems

via - The Beauty We Love

~

To put it simply, let that mysterious grace move in your
spirit as it will and follow wherever it leads you.  Let it
be the active doer and you the passive receiver.  Do not
meddle with it, but let it be...  Your part is to be as wood
to a carpenter or a home to a dweller.  Remain blind
during this time cutting away all desire to know, for
knowledge is a hindrance here.  Be content to feel this
mysterious grace sweetly awaken in the depths of your
spirit.  Forget everything...

The Cloud of Unknowing

When it is one-sided - Hermann Hesse

I have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard
as a joke or foolishness...

It says: The opposite of every truth is just as true!

That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into
words when it is one-sided.  Everything is one-sided which can
be thought with thoughts and said with words, it's all one-sided,
all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness.

When the exalted "Gotama" [Gautama] spoke in his teachings
of the world, he had to divide it into "Sansara" [Samsara] and
Nirvana, into deception and truth, into suffering, [and freedom
from suffering, into "enlightened"and "unenlightened"].  It cannot
 be done differently, there is no way for him who wants to teach.

But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us,
is never one-sided.

A person or an act is never entirely "Sansara" [Samsara] or
entirely Nirvana, a person is never entirely holy or entirely
sinful.  It does really seem like this, because we are subject to
deception and the confines of time, which causes us to adhere
to one fixed belief and does not account for the fullness of truth.
Every entity carries in it the potential for its opposite and so the
world is considered complete.  And so we must love the world
in its completeness...

...love, oh Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing
of all.

Hermann Hesse
From: Siddartha

via - The Beauty We Love

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - Yin-Yang Mandala

To be kind - Hermann Hesse & Maslow

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 show
greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge
attainable from mockery and criticism:
all these things we can do.

Hermann Hesse

~

Let people realize clearly that every time they threaten
someone or humiliate or unnecessarily hurt or dominate
or reject another human being, they become forces for
the creation of pathology, even if these be small forces.
Let them recognize that every person who is kind, helpful,
decent, affectionate, and warm, is a therapeutic force...

Abraham Maslow

~

Compassion is knowing that
you are part of everyone,
and everyone is part of you - is you.
When seeing this there is no longer judgment,
just a deeper understanding and respect
for our humanity -
a deepening of compassion.

Mystic Meandering
Meditative writings
c. 2004 - 2006

Listen to Trees - Hermann Hesse

Trees are sanctuaries.  Whoever knows how to speak to them,
whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.
They do no preach learning and precepts, they preach
undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

[.....]

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer,
then a tree has something to say to us: Be still!  Be still!  Look
at me!  Life is not easy, life is not difficult.  These are childish
thoughts.... Home is neither here no there.  Home is within you,
or home is nowhere at all.

If one listens to them silently for a long time, it reveals its kernel,
its meaning.  It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's
suffering, though it may seem to be so.  It is a longing for home....,
for new metaphors for life.  It leads home.  Every path leads
homeward, every step is birth, every step is death...

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 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.

Hermann Hesse
Trees: Reflections and Poems

via: Love Is A Place

Happiness - Hermann Hesse

As long as you chase happiness,
you are not ready to be happy,
even if you owned everything.

As long as you lament a loss,
run after prizes in restless races,
you have not yet known peace.

But when you have moved beyond desire,
become a stranger to your goals and longings
and call no longer on happiness by name,

then your heart rises calmly
above the ebb and flow of action
and peace has reached your soul.

Hermann Hesse
translation by Ludwig Max Fischer

via: The Beauty We Love