Hermann Hesse

Much he learned from her red, smart mouth. Much he learned from her tender, supple hand. Him, who was, re­gard­ing love, still a boy and had a tend­ency to plunge blindly and in­sa­ti­ably into lust like into a bot­tom­less pit, him she taught, thor­oughly start­ing with the ba­sics, about that school of thought which teaches that pleas­ure can­not be taken without giv­ing pleas­ure, and that every ges­ture, every caress, every touch, every look, every spot of the body, how­ever small it was, had its secret, which would bring hap­pi­ness to those who know about it and un­leash it. 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.

shim­mer­ing

tran­scend­ent

For how long had he not heard this voice any more, for how long had he reached no height any more, how even and dull was the man­ner in which his path had passed through life, for many long years, without a high goal, without thirst, without el­ev­a­tion, con­tent with small lust­ful pleas­ures and yet never sat­is­fied!

Noth­ing was, noth­ing will be; everything is, everything has ex­ist­ence and is present.”

, 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?

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

e able to feel and in­hale the one­ness. Slowly this blos­somed in him, was shin­ing back at him from Vas­udeva’s old, child­like face: har­mony, know­ledge of the eternal per­fec­tion of the world, smil­ing, one­ness.

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.

Joy leapt in his father’s heart for his son who was quick to learn, thirsty for know­ledge