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I had to be wrong to keep living

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) was a German and Swiss writer and poet who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. About him Yordan Evtimov says: "He is a sad-funny author. In his works, some find carnivalesque, others – ethical parabolic. These qualities are not mutually exclusive. But Hesse's irony has really most often remained unread, ignored. And this is explicable with so many readers thirsting for a Teacher who carries unscientific knowledge, a mentor who does not edify… In the age of simulations, Hesse is an old-fashioned seeker of real things…”

Let us recall some of Hesse's wisdom from Siddhartha.

“How blind and deaf I have been! - he thought and walked quickly. - When someone reads something written, the meaning of which he tries to understand, he does not ignore the signs and letters, does not call them fraud, chance or unfit shell, he reads them, studies them, loves them - letter by letter. But I, wanting to read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I, led astray by an imaginary sense, despised letters and signs, called the world of appearances a fraud, called my sight and language random and worthless phenomena. No, that is past now, I have awakened, truly awakened, and only today was I born.'

Kamazwami is as clever as I am, yet he finds no refuge in himself. And others, though with the mind of a child, find it. Most people, Kamala, are like a falling leaf that floats and spins in the air, swings and falls to the ground. Others, however few, are like stars, they move along a certain path, the wind does not reach them, they carry within themselves their own law and path.

I am like you. And you don't love. How else could you turn love into art? Maybe people like us can't love. They can love people children. This is their secret.

He was possessed by the power of the world, by pleasure, by idleness, and lastly by the power of avarice, the vice which he had thought the most insane, and which he had rejected and despised the most of all vices. And property, and property, and wealth had obsessed him, now they no longer seemed to him like play and trinkets, but became fetters and burdens. In this most extreme and wretched addiction, Siddhartha had fallen by a strange path: a weakness for the game of dice. Since he had ceased to be an endless game in his heart? Was it worth living for? No, it wasn't worth it! This game was called samsara, a children's game, pleasant to play once, twice, ten times, but not to repeat forever. Then Siddhartha realized that this game was over, that he could play it no more. Shivers ran through his body and pierced his soul, he felt that something inside him had died.

No, he had no more aims, no longer possessed anything, except the deep, heavy longing to shake off the loathsome sleep, to vomit the fornicating wine, to put an end to this wretched and shameful life. Overhanging the bank of the river was a tree, a coconut tree. Siddhartha leaned his shoulder against its trunk, put his arm around it, and looked down at the green water that did not stop its flight. He was looking down, and he was overcome with the desire to let go of the tree and sink into that water. A terrible emptiness breathed out the water before his eyes, and it completely matched the infinite emptiness in his soul. Yes, that was the end. He had no choice but to strike out, smash the impossible edifice of his life into pieces and throw those pieces at the feet of the mockingly laughing gods. This was the great eruption he had longed for: death, the shattering of the form that loathed him.

Then, he remembered, he had boasted to Kamala of three things, then he had mastered three noble and unattainable skills: fasting, waiting, thinking. This was his wealth, his power and strength, his firm support in the trying years of youth. He had only mastered these three skills, nothing more. And now he no longer mastered any of them, neither fasting, nor waiting, nor thinking. He had sacrificed them for the most miserable and fleeting things—lust, opulence, wealth. Something really strange had happened to him. Now it was as if he had truly become one of the children of men.

"Is it a lie that slowly, by turns, from a man and a sage I turned into a child? Yet this time has been too good, the bird in my breast has not died. But what a trip it was! I had to go through so many follies, vices, delusions, disgusts and disappointments to become a child again, to start all over again. That's how it should have been. My heart says yes to these things and my eyes laugh. I had to experience despair, I had to go to the most reckless of all thoughts, to the thought of suicide, so that I could reach forgiveness, that I could experience Om again, that I could truly sleep and wake again. I had to become a fool to find the Atman in me again. I had to be wrong to keep living. Where else will my path take me? It's crazy this time, it's meandering, maybe closing in a circle? Let him go where he wants, I'll keep walking on him.''

But now, among all the secrets of the river, he saw only one that shook his soul. He saw that the water was flowing, flowing continuously, and yet it was always here, always and at all times the same and yet new every moment.

Read more: 9 things that affect your mood

Source: www.spisanie8.bg

See also: Parable: Everything that happens to us is for good

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