Still Contemplating This
from
Whiskey River and Hermann Hesse
"In my writings people often miss the customary respect for reality, and when I paint, the trees have faces and the houses laugh or dance or weep, but whether the tree is a pear or a chestnut, that for the most part cannot be determined. I must accept this reproach. I admit that my own life frequently appears exactly like a legend. I often see and feel the outer world connected and in harmony with my inner world in a way I can only call magical."
And from Siddhartha:
"Siddhartha learned something new at every step along his path, for the world was transformed, and his heart was enchanted. He saw the sun rising over the wooded mountains and setting over the distant palm-lined shore. At night, he saw the stars arranged in the sky and the crescent moon drifting like a boat in the blue. He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds, rainbows, rocks, herbs, flowers, brooks, and rivers, dew glittering on the morning bushes, high and distant mountains blue and wan, birds sang and bees, wind wafted silvery in the rice paddy. All this, myriad and motley, had existed always; sun and moon had been shining always, rivers rushing and bees humming always. But in earlier times all this had been nothing but a fleeting and deceptive veil in front of Siddhartha's eyes, distrusted, destined to be pierced by thought and destroyed, since it was not reality, since reality lay beyond the visible. But now his liberated eyes remained on this side, he saw and acknowledged visibility, he sought his home in this world, did not seek reality, did not aim at any beyond. Beautiful was the world if you contemplated it like this, with no seeking, so simple, so childlike. Beautiful were the moon and stars, beautiful were brook and bank, forest and rock, goat and rose beetle, flower and butterfly. It was beautiful and delightful to go through the world like this, so childlike, so awake, so open to what was near, so without distrust. The sun burned his head differently, the forest shade cooled him differently, brook and cistern tasted differently, as did pumpkin and banana. Short were the days, short the nights, every hour flew by swiftly like a sail across the sea, under the sail a ship full of treasures, full of joys.
All this had always existed, and he had never seen it, he had never been present. Now he was there, he belonged to it. Light and shadow ran through his eyes, star and moon ran through his heart."
- Hermann Hesse
