Demian Quotes

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.

I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.

Love must not entreat,' she added, 'or demand. Love must have the strength to become certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract.

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

The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.

One never reaches home,' she said. 'But where paths that have an affinity for each other intersect, the whole world looks like home, for a time.

Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them.

I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?

Gaze into the fire, into the clouds, and as soon as the inner voices begin to speak... surrender to them. Don't ask first whether it's permitted, or would please your teachers or father or some god. You will ruin yourself if you do that.

You've never lived what you are thinking, and that isn't good. Only the ideas we actually live are of any value.

Good that you ask -- you should always ask, always have doubts.

I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.

You should never be afraid of people... such fear can destroy us completely. You've simply got to get rid of it, if you want to turn into someone decent. You understand that, don't you?

I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I'm beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.

Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.

I am fond of music I think because it is so amoral. Everything else is moral and I am after something that isn't. I have always found moralizing intolerable.

The things we see 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 such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.

For the first time in my life I tasted death, and death tasted bitter, for death is birth, is fear and dread of some terrible renewal.

An enlightened man had but one duty - to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led.

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.

Our god's name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world.

She stood before him and surrendered herself to him and sky, forest, and brook all came toward him in new and resplendent colors, belonged to him, and spoke to him in his own language. And instead of merely winning a woman he embraced the entire world and every star in heaven glowed within him and sparkled with joy in his soul. He had loved and had found himself. But most people love to lose themselves.

If you need something desperately and find it, this is not an accident; your own craving and compulsion leads you to it.

You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world, and you tried to suppress the other half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think.

At one time I had given much thought to why men were so very rarely capable of living for an ideal. Now I saw that many, no, all men were capable of dying for one.

Der Vogel kämpft sich aus dem Ei. Das Ei ist die Welt. Wer geboren werden will, muss eine Welt zerstören.

There are numerous ways in which God can make us lonely and lead us back to ourselves. This is the way He dealt with me at the time. It was like a bad dream.

Wenn wir einen Menschen hassen, so hassen wir in seinem Bild etwas, was in uns selber sitzt. Was nicht in uns selber ist, das regt uns nicht auf.

I will not make a gift of myself, I must be won

The realms of day and night. Two different worlds coming from two opposite poles mingled during this time.

(We) consist of everything the world consists of, each of us, and just as our body contains the genealogical table of evolution as far back as the fish and even much further, so we bear everything in our soul that once was alive in the soul of men. Every god and devil that ever existed, be it among the Greeks, Chinese, or Zulus, are within us, exist as latent possibilities, as wishes, as alternatives. If the human race were to vanish from the face of the earth save for one halfway talented child that had received no education, this child would rediscover the entire course of evolution, it would be capable of producing everything once more, gods and demons, paradises, commandments, the Old and New Testament.

كنت أشتاق شوقاً حقيقياً لأن أعيش بشكل حقيقي و لو لمره واحده, أن أعطي شيئاً من نفسي للعالم, أن أدخل في علاقه و معركه معه

I have no idea whether parents can be of help, and I do not blame mine. It was my own affair to come to terms with myself and to find my own way, and like most well-brought-up children, I managed it badly. Everyone goes through this crisis. For the average person this is the point when the demands of his own life come into the sharpest conflict with his environment, when the way forward has to be sought with the bitterest means at his command. Many people experience the dying and rebirth - which is our fate - only this once during their entire life. Their childhood becomes hollow and gradually collapses, everything they love abandons them and they suddenly feel surrounded by the loneliness and mortal cold of the universe. Very many are caught forever in this impasse, and for the rest of their lives cling painfully to an irrevocable past, the dream of the lost paradise - which is the worst and most ruthless of dreams.

We who bore the mark might well be considered by the rest of the world as strange, even as insane and dangerous. We had awoken, or were awakening, and we were striving for an ever perfect state of wakefulness, whereas the ambition and quest for happiness of the others consisted of linking their opinions, ideals, and duties, their life and happiness, ever more closely with those of the herd. They, too, strove; they, too showed signs of strength and greatness. But as we saw it, whereas we marked men represented Nature's determination to create something new, individual, and forward-looking, the others lived in the determination to stay the same. For them mankind--which they loved as much as we did--was a fully formed entity that had to be preserved and protected. For us mankind was a distant future toward which we were all journeying, whose aspect no one knew, whose laws weren't written down anywhere.

Examine a person closely enough and you know more about him than he does himself.

Sinclair, your love is attracted to me. Once it begins to attract me, i will come. I will not make a gift of myself, I must be won.

The things we see," Pistorius said softly, "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 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.

People like you and me are quite lonely really but we still have each other, we have the secret satisfaction of being different, of rebelling, of desiring the unusual.

One cannot apologize for something fundamental, and a child feels and knows this as well and as deeply as any sage.

I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time.

Only when I found myself sitting in front of you did I realize that my wish was only half fulfilled and that my sole aim was to sit next to you.

That is the way leaves fall around a tree in autumn, a tree unaware of the rain running down its sides, of the sun or the frost, and of life gradually retreating inward. The tree does not die. It waits.

الأفكار التي نعيشها هي وحدها التي لها قيمة.

There's something to walking with autumnal thoughts through the evening fog. One likes to compose poems at a time like that.

I like listening to music, but only the kind you play, absolute music, the kind that makes you feel that someone is rattling at the doors if heaven and hell. I like music very much, I think, because it's so unconcerned with morality.

Ah, das weiß ich heute: nichts auf der Welt ist dem Menschen mehr zuwider, als den Weg zu gehen, der ihn zu sich selber führt!

It was the first rent in the holy image of my father, it was the first fissure in the columns that had upheld my childhood, which every individual must destroy before he can become himself.

Fate and character are different names for the same idea.

بیش از یک قرن اروپا کاری جز ساختن ماشین نکرد. اکنون، مقدار دقیق باروتی که برای کشتن آدمی لازم است را می داند، اما نمی داند چطور یک ساعت خوشبخت باشد.

But I need to feel beautiful and holy things around me, always: music, mystery cults, symbols, myths. I need it, and I refuse to give it up... That’s my fatal flaw.

إنهم يعرفون كم غراماً من البارود تحتاج لقتل إنسان لكنهم لا يغرفون كيف تصلي إلى الله, لا يعرفون حتى كيف تكون سعيداً و لو لمدة ساعه من الرضا

Every natural form is latent within us, originates in the soul whose essence is eternity, whose essence we cannot know but which most often intimates itself to us as the power to love and create.

All I wanted to do was live the life that was inside me, trying to get out. Why was that so hard?

كانت تستطيع أن تحول نفسها إلى كل فكرة من أفكاري, و كل فكرة من أفكاري كانت تتجسد في هيئتها.

حين تحتاج إلى شيئ ما حاجه ماسه ثم تجده, فهذه لسيت مصادفه, إنها رغبتك الملحه و اندفاعك الحار هما اللذان يقودانك إليه

على المرء أن يكون قادرًا على التسلسل إلى داخل نفسه تمامًا مثل السلحفاة.

All I really wanted was to try and live the life that was spontaneously welling up within me. Why was that so very difficult?

We can understand one another; but each one is able to explain only himself.

إذا كرهت شخصاً فإنك تكره شيئاً فيه هو جزء منك أنت, و ما ليس جزءاً منا لا يزعجنا

لا يصل المرء إلى بيته أبداً. و لكن حيث الطرق المتآلفه تتقاطع مع العالم كله يبدو كأنه البيت و لو لفتره قصيره

Ich wollte ja nichts als das zu leben versuchen, was von selber aus mir heraus wollte. Warum war das so sehr schwer?

و لكن كما هو الحال دائماً, ما أن أتعود على ظروفي و ما أن يبدأ الحلم بمنحى الأمل حتى يذوي و يذبل و يصبح بلا فائده

الولادة صعبة دائمًا. أنت تعرف أن الفرخ لا يخرج من البيضة بسهولة؟ تذكر واسأل نفسك: أكان الطريق صعبًا؟ ألم يكن جميلًا أيضًا؟ وهل تستطيع أن تفكر في طريق أجمل وأسهل؟

If a person were to concentrate all his will power on a certain end, then he would achieve it. That's all.

الطاقة التي تجعلك تطير هي من ممتلكاتنا الانسانية العظيمة، كل إنسان لديه هذه الطاقة، إنه الشعور بجذور الطاقة، لكن الانسان سرعان مايخاف من هذا الشعور، وهذا في غاية الخطورة. وهذا مايجعل الناس يطوون أجنحتهم ويفضلون المشي وينصاعون للقانون".

The realization that my problem was one that concerned all men, a problem of living and thinking, suddenly swept over me and I was overwhelmed by fear and respect as I suddenly saw and felt how deeply my own personal life and opinions were immersed in the eternal stream of great ideas. Though it offered some confirmation and gratification, the realization was not really a joyful one. It was hard and had a harsh taste because it implied responsibility and no longer being allowed to be a child; it meant standing on one’s own feet.

A person is afraid only when he isn’t at one with himself.

When someone who badly needs something finds it, it isn’t an accident that brings it his way, but he himself, his own desire and necessity lead him to it.

أنا أعيش في أحلامي. إن الآخرين يعيشون في الأحلام و لكن ليس في أحلامهم. و هذ هو الفارق

Es ist so gut, das zu wissen: daß in uns drinnen einer ist, der alles weiß, alles will, alles besser macht als wir selber.

All over, people were seeking “freedom” and “happiness” somewhere behind themselves, out of the sheer fear of being reminded of their own responsibilities and being admonished to travel their own path.

Ja, man muß seinen Traum finden, dann wird der Weg leicht. Aber es gibt keinen immerwährenden Traum, jeden löst ein neuer ab, und keinen darf man festhalten wollen.

Nur das Denken, das wir leben, hat einen Wert.

There are many ways in which the god can make us lonely and lead us to ourselves.

Clever talk is absolutely worthless. All you do in the process is lose yourself. And to lose yourself is a sin. One has to be able to crawl completely inside oneself, like a tortoise.

If the chick is not able to break the shell of his egg, he will die without being born. We are - chick. The world - is our egg. If we do not break the shell of the world, then we will die without being born

No soy un hombre que sabe. He sido un hombre que busca y lo soy aún, pero no busco ya en las estrellas ni en los libros: comienzo a escuchar las enseñanzas que mi sangre murmura en mí.

I lived in those dreams—I was always a heavy dreamer—more than in real life; those shadows consumed my strength and life.

It’s so good to know that inside us there’s a self that knows everything!

كنت قد تعودت على القيام ببعض النزهات التأملية القصيرة على قدمي أيًا كان الطقس, فأستمتع فيها بنوع من النشوة الممزوجة بالسوداوية و احتقار العالم و كره الذات.

إنهم يتطلعون إلا المُثل التي لم تعد مُثلاً, و لكنهم سوف يطاردون حتى الموت من يطرح مُثلاً جديده

We can understand one another, but each of us can only interpret himself.

But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual, the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.

إنك لا تخاف الا حينما لا تكون منسجما مع نفسك و الناس خائفون لانه لم يسبق لهم ان كانوا مسيطرين على انفسهم. مجتمع باكمله مؤلف من أناس خائفين من المجهول الذي فيهم. و كلهم يحسون ان الأ سس التي يعيشون وفقها لم تعد صالحة، و انهم يعيشون وفق قوانين باليه- لا دينهم ولا اخلاقهم في تلاؤم مع حاجات الحاضر

Mancher wird niemals Mensch, bleibt Frosch, bleibt Eidechse, bleibt Ameise. Mancher ist oben Mensch und unten Fisch. Aber jeder ist ein Wurf der Natur nach dem Menschen hin. Und allen sind die Herkünfte gemeinsam, die Mütter, wir alle kommen aus demselben Schlunde; aber jeder strebt, ein Versuch und Wurf aus den Tiefen, seinem eigenen Ziel zu. Wir können einander verstehen; aber deuten kann jeder nur sich selbst.

الحديقة ينقصها الشذا و الغابة تفقد جاذبيتها. و بدا العالم من حولي كبيع التصفيه لبضائع مستعمله من العام الماضي. باهتاً خالياً من أي فتنه, الكتب ركام من الورق, و الموسيقى صخب من الصرير. هكذا تتساقط الأوراق عن الشجره في الخريف, الشجره لا تشعر بالمطر المتساقط على جوانبها و لا بالشمس أو الصقيع و لا بالحياه المتسربه تدريجياً إلى داخلها, الشجره لا تموت, إنها تنتظر

No one liked him, no one was on intimate terms with him... he was a good person but took no particular trouble to please anyone.

إنك لا تخاف إلا حين لا تكون منسجماً مع نفسك. و الناس خائفون لأنه لم يسبق لهم أن كانوا مسيطرين على أنفسهم.

Man braucht vor niemand Angst zu haben. Wenn man jemanden fürchtet, dann kommt es daher, daß man diesem Jemand Macht über sich eingeräumt hat.

‎We all share the same origin, our mothers; all of us come in at the same door. - from the preface to 'Demian

And occasionally I became very sad over that happiness, because I was well aware it couldn’t last. I wasn’t meant to exist in the lap of plenty and ease; I needed torment and persecution. I felt that some day I would awaken from those beautiful images of love and once be alone, in the cold world of the others, where there was only solitude or struggle for me, not peace or participation.

In fact, at times I preferred to live in the forbidden world, and frequently my return home to the bright realm, no matter how necessary and good that might be, was almost like a return to someplace less beautiful,

When we hate a person, what we hate in his image is something inside ourselves. Whatever isn’t inside us can’t excite us.

El pájaro rompe el cascarón. El cascarón es el mundo. Quien quiera nacer, tiene que destruir un mundo. El pájaro vuela hacia Dios. El dios se llama Abraxas.

Cuando odiamos a un hombre, odiamos en su imagen algo que llevamos en nosotros mismos. Lo que no está también en nosotros mismos, nos deja indiferentes.

لم أكن أريد إلاّ أن أعيش وفق الدّوافع الحقيقيّة الّتي تنبع من داخلي، فلما كان الأمر بعذه الصّعوبة؟

Gratitude is not a virtue I believe in, and to me it seems hypocritical to expect it from a child.

ترس فقط زمانی در تو بوجود می آید که با خودت سازگاری نداشته باشی. مردم می ترسند چون به هیچ روی از خودشان شناخت ندارند

I had grown accustomed to living within myself. I was resigned to the knowledge that I had lost all appreciation of the outside world, that the loss of its bright colors was an inseparable part of the loss of my childhood, and that, in a certain sense, one had to pay for freedom and maturity of the soul with the renunciation of this cherished aura. But now, overjoyed, I saw that all this had only been buried or clouded over and that it was still possible—even if you had become liberated and had renounced your childhood happiness—to see the world shine and to savor the delicious thrill of the child’s vision.

At the end of that class Demian said to me thoughtfully: "There’s something I don’t like about this story, Sinclair. Why don’t you read it once more and give it the acid test? There’s something about it that doesn’t taste right. I mean the business with the two thieves. The three crosses standing next to each other on the hill are almost impressive, to be sure. But now comes this sentimental little treatise about the good thief. At first he was a thorough scoundrel, had committed all those awful things and God knows what else, and now he dissolves in tears and celebrates such a tearful feast of self-improvement and remorse! What’s the sense of repenting if you’re two steps from the grave? I ask you. Once again, it’s nothing but a priest’s fairy tale, saccharine and dishonest, touched up with sentimentality and given a high edifying background. If you had to pick a friend from between the two thieves or decide which one you’d rather trust, you most certainly wouldn’t choose the sniveling convert. No, the other fellow, he’s a man of character. He doesn’t give a hoot for ‘conversion’, which to a man in his position can’t be anything but a pretty speech. He follows his destiny to it’s appointed end and does not turn coward and forswear the devil, who has aided and abetted him until then. He has character, and people with character tend to receive the short end of the stick in biblical stories. Perhaps he’s even a descendant of Cain. Don’t you agree?" I was dismayed. Until now I had felt completely at home in the story of the Crucifixion. Now I saw for the first time with how little individuality, with how little power of imagination I had listened to it and read it. Still, Demian’s new concept seemed vaguely sinister and threatened to topple beliefs on whose continued existence I felt I simply had to insist. No, one could not make light of everything, especially not of the most Sacred matters. As usual he noticed my resistance even before I had said anything. "I know," he said in a resigned tone of voice, "it’s the same old story: don’t take these stories seriously! But I have to tell you something: this is one of the very places that reveals the poverty of this religion most distinctly. The point is that this God of both Old and New Testaments is certainly an extraordinary figure but not what he purports to represent. He is all that is good, noble, fatherly, beautiful, elevated, sentimental—true! But the world consists of something else besides. And what is left over is ascribed to the devil, this entire slice of world, this entire half is hushed up. In exactly the same way they praise God as the father of all life but simply refuse to say a word about our sexual life on which it’s all based, describing it whenever possible as sinful, the work of the devil. I have no objection to worshiping this God Jehovah, far from it. But I mean we ought to consider everything sacred, the entire world, not merely this artificially separated half! Thus alongside the divine service we should also have a service for the devil. I feel that would be right. Otherwise you must create for yourself a God that contains the devil too and in front of which you needn’t close your eyes when the most natural things in the world take place.

No hay más realidad que la que tenemos dentro. Por eso la mayoría de los seres humanos vive tan irrealmente; porque cree que las imágenes exteriores son la realidad y no permiten a su propio mundo interior manifestarse.

No person has ever been completely himself, but each one strives to become so, some gropingly, others more lucidly, according to his abilities. Each one carries with him to the end traces of his birth, the slime and eggshells of a primordial world. Many a one never becomes a human being, but remains a frog, lizard, or ant.

Earlier I had thought a lot about why it was so extremely unusual for a person to be able to live for an ideal. Now I saw that many people, all in fact, are capable of dying for an ideal. Only, it mustn't be a personal, freely chosen ideal, but one held in common and taken over from other people.

I had often marked the contrast between their almost ludicrous gaiety and my lonely existence, sometimes with scorn, sometimes with a feeling of deprivation. But never until today had I felt with as much calm and secret strength how little it mattered to me, how remote and dead this world was for me.

All I really wanted was to try to live the life that was spontaneously welling up within me. Why was that so difficult?

I wanted only to try to live in obedience to the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?

الحب يجب أن لا يتضرع أو يُطلب, يجب أن تكون لدى الحب من القوة ما يجعله واثقًا من نفسه و مكتفيًا بها. و عندها لا يكتفي بأن يصبح منجذبًا بل يصبح جذابًا.

Quería tan sólo intentar vivir aquello que tendía a brotar espontáneamente de mí ¿Porqué había de serme tan difícil?

El pájaro rompe el cascarón. El huevo es el mundo. el que quiere nacer tiene que romper un mundo.

لا يصل المرء إلى بيته أبداً. ولكن حيث الطرق المتآلفة تتقاطع مع العالم كله يبدو كأنه البيت ولفترة قصيرة.

كل ما تفعله في هذا السياق هو أن تخسر نفسك, و خسارة الذات خطيئة.. علي المرء أن يكون قادرًا علي التسلل إلي داخل نفسه تمامًا مثل السلحفاة.

و كما لو كنت في حلم فقد استسلمت لصوته و تأثيره. بدا كما لو أن صوته يصدر عن أعماقي. و كان بعرف كل شيء. فهل كان يعرف كل شيء بشكل أفضل و أكثر وضوحاً مما أعرف أنا؟؟

وقفت عند زاوية الشارع و أصغيت. من البارات كان مرح الشباب الممنهج المكرور يصحب في الليل. تواصل كاذب في كل مكان, و في كل مكان هدر لمسئولية المصير, و هروب إلى القطيع بحثاً عن الدفء

شعرت أنه ليس مجدياً الإعتماد على شرفه. لقد جاء من العالم الآخر. و الوشايه ليست جريمه بالنسبه له. أحسست بذلك بدقه. فالناس في العالم الآخر ليسوا مثلنا في هذه الأمور

لقد أتت هذه الأشياء كلها و أخذتني

Se tiene miedo cuando no se está de acuerdo consigo mismo. Las personas tienen miedo porque no se han atrevido jamás a seguir sus propios impulsos interiores.

It is a bitter and terrible moment when we suddenly recognise that our natural tendency is bound to lead us away from the people we love.

Las cosas que vemos – dijo Pistorious con voz apagada – son las mismas cosas que llevamos en nosotros. No hay más realidad que la que tenemos dentro. Por eso la mayoría de los seres humanos vive tan irrealmente, porque cree que las imágenes exteriores son la realidad y no permiten a su propio mundo interior manifestarse. Se puede ser muy feliz así, desde luego. Pero cuando se conoce lo otro, ya no se puede elegir el camino de la mayoría. Sinclair, el camino de la mayoría es fácil, el nuestro, difícil. Caminemos.

At this point a sharp realization burned within me: each man has his “function” but none which he can choose himself, define, or perform as he pleases. It was wrong to desire new gods, completely wrong to want to provide the world with something. An enlightened man had but one duty—to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led.

For awakened human beings, there was no obligation—none, none, none at all—except this: to search for yourself, become sure of yourself, feel your way forward along your own path, wherever it led.

Wir reden zuviel", sagte er mit ungewohntem Ernst. "Das kluge Reden hat gar keinen Wert, gar keinen. Man kommt nur von sich selber weg. Von sich selber wegkommen ist Sünde. Man muss sich in sich selber völlig kriechen können wie eine Schildkröte.

I like listening to music, but only the kind you play, completely unreserved music, the kind that makes you feel that a man is shaking heaven and hell. I believe I love that kind of music because it is amoral. Everything else is so moral that I'm looking for something that isn't. Morality has always seemed to me insufferable.

The person who truly wants nothing except his destiny no longer has others of his own kind; he stands completely alone and has only the chill of outer space around him. You know, that’s Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.

Ich sehe, du denkst mehr, als du einem sagen kannst. Wenn das nun so ist, dann weisst du aber auch, dass du nie ganz das gelebt hast, was du dachtest, und das ist nicht gut. Nur das Denken, das wir leben, hat einen Wert.

And so every one of us has to find out for himself what is allowed and what is forbidden--forbidden for him. It is entirely possible to never do anything forbidden at all and still be an absolute scroundel. And vice versa.

An occasionally, I became very sad over that happiness, because I was well aware it couldn't last.

إن من الممكن لشخص ما أن لا يتجاوز في حياته قانونًا واحدًا, و مع ذلك يظل سافلًا و العكس صحيح. عمليًا هي مسألة قناعة فقط.

لقد كنت بين يدي القدر. و كان من العبث أن أحاول الفرار

I closed my eyes obediently; I felt a light kiss on my lips, on which there was always a little accumulation of blood that wouldn't decrease. And then I fell asleep

كتبت على ورقة: قائد تخلى عنى, و أنا غارق في الظلمه. لا أستطيع أن أمشي خطوه أخرى وحدي, ساعدني

Sí tiene uno que encontrar su sueño, y entonces el camino se hace fácil. Pero no hay sueño perdurable. Se sustituyen unos a otros y no debemos esforzarnos en retener ninguno.

People with courage and character are always called peculiar by other people.

لقد نسيت أن العالم مازال في وسعه أن يكون ودوداً و لطيفاً. كبرت و أنا أتعود العيش مع داخلي. و لقد استرخيت أمام معرفتي بأنني قد فقدت كل تقويم للعالم الخارجي, أن ضياع ألوانه البراقه جزء لا تجزأ من ضياع طفولتي, و أنه بمعنى من المعاني على المرء أن بتخلى عن هذه الهاله المغريه ثمناً لحريته و لنضج روحه. أما الآن, و الغبطه تغمرني, فقد رأيت أن هذا كله كان مدفوناً أو مستتراً و أنه مازال من الممكن -حتى لو تحررت و فقدت سعادة طفولتك- أن ترى العالم يشع و أن تنقذ الرعشه اللذيذه التي كانت في رؤيا الطفل

There is much that I could say about the happy and tender incidents in my childhood days, the sense of security which I enjoyed with my parents, my childish affections and carefree, irresponsible existence in a gentle and affectionate ambience. But my interest is reserved for the steps that I took in my life towards self-realization. All the pleasant points of repose, islands of happiness, paradises whose magic was not unknown to me can remain, as far as I am concerned, in the enchanted distance; for it is not a world that I have any particular desire to re-enter.

الله وحده يعلم كيف يصادف أن يقول إنسان ما شيئاً ما مثل هذا. لم أكن قد قصدت أن يكون الأمر بهذه الكراهيه, لكنني لم يكن لدي أدني تصور عن الخراب الذي سأحدثه, تلفطت بشئ لم أكن أعي مضمونه لحظة التلفظ به. لقد استسلمت لدافع ضعيف و فيه شيئ من الذكاء و لكنه حاقد. و صار هذا الدافع قدري. لقد اقترفت بتفاهه و استهتار فعلاً وحشياً, اعتبره هو... حُكماً

I saw Demian's face and remarked that it was not a boy's face but a man's and then I saw, or rather became aware, that it was not really the face of a man either; it had something different about it, almost a feminine element. And for the time being his face seemed neither masculine nor childish, neither old nor young but a hundred years old, almost timeless and bearing the mark of other periods of history than our own.

Pero cada uno de los hombres no es tan solo él mismo; es también un punto único, particularismo, importante siempre y singular, en el que se cruzan los fenómenos del Mundo, sólo una vez de aquel modo y nunca más.

En estos momentos tuve una certeza fulminante: cada uno tenía una “misión”, pero ésta no podía ser elegida, definida, administrada a voluntad. Era un error desear nuevos dioses, y completamente falso querer dar algo al mundo. No existía ningún deber, ninguno, para el hombre consciente, excepto el de buscarse a sí mismo, afirmarse en su interior, tantear un camino hacia adelante sin preocuparse de la meta a que pudiera conducir. Aquel descubrimiento me conmovió profundamente, este fue el fruto de aquella experiencia. Yo había jugado a menudo con imágenes del futuro y soñado con papeles que pudieran estar destinados de poeta quizás, de profeta, de pintor o de cualquier otra cosa. Aquellas imágenes no valían nada. Yo no estaba en el mundo para escribir, predicar o pintar; ni yo ni nadie estaba para eso. Tales cosas sólo podían surgir marginalmente. La misión verdadera de cada uno era llegar a sí mismo. Se podía llegar a poeta o a loco, a profeta o a criminal; ese no es asunto de uno: a fin de cuentas, carecía de toda importancia. Lo que importaba era encontrar su propio destino, no un destino cualquiera, y vivirlo por completo. Todo lo demás eran medianías, un intento de evasión, de buscar refugio en el ideal de la masa, era amoldarse; era miedo ante la propia individualidad. La nueva imagen surgió terrible y sagrada ante mis ojos, presentido múltiples veces, quizás pronunciada ya otras tantas, pero nunca vivida hasta ahora. Yo era un proyecto de la naturaleza, un proyecto hacia lo desconocido, quizá hacia lo nuevo, quizá hacia la nada; y mi misión, mi única misión, era dejar realizarse este proyecto que brotaba de las profundidades. Sentir en mí su voluntad e identificarme con él por completo.

Everyone had only one true vocation: to find himself. Let him wind up as a poet or a madman, as a prophet or a criminal—that wasn’t his business; in the long run, it was irrelevant. His business was to discover his own destiny, not just any destiny, and to live it totally and undividedly. Anything else was just a half-measure, an attempt to run away, an escape back to the ideal of the masses, an adaptation, fear of one’s own nature.

I was a gamble of Nature, a throw of the dice into an uncertain realm, leading perhaps to something new, perhaps to nothing; and to let this throw from the primordial depths take effect, to feel its will inside myself and adopt it completely as my own will: that alone was my vocation. That alone! I

This change did not bring me into the community of the others, did not make me closer to anyone, but actually made me even lonelier. My reformation seemed to point in the direction of Demian, but even this was a distant fate. I did not know myself, for I was too deeply involved. It had begun with Beatrice, but for some time I had been living in such an unreal world with my paintings and my thoughts of Demian that I'd forgotten all about her, too. I could not have uttered a single word about my dreams and expectations, my inner change, to anyone, not even if I had wanted to. But how could I have wanted to?

Each one carries with him to the end traces of his birth, the slime and eggshells of a primordial world. Many a one never becomes a human-being, but remains a frog, lizard, or ant. Many a one is a human-being above and a fish below.

—No debe usted entregarse a deseos en los que no cree. Sé lo que desea. Pero tiene que saber renunciar a esos deseos o desearlos de verdad. Cuando llegue a pedir con la plena seguridad de que su deseo va a ser cumplido, éste será satisfecho. Sin embargo, usted desea y al mismo tiempo se arrepiente de ello con miedo.

An enlightened man had but one duty--to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led. The realization shook me profoundly, it was the fruit of this experience. I had often speculated with images of the future, dreamed of roles that I might be assigned, perhaps as poet or prophet or painter, or something similar. All that was futile. I did not exist to write poems, to preach or to paint, neither I nor anyone else. All of that was incidental. Each man had only one genuine vocation--to find the way to himself. He might end up as poet or madman, as prophet or criminal--that was not his affair, ultimately it was of no concern. His task was to discover his own destiny--not an arbitrary one--and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one's own inwardness.

Novelists when they write novels tend to take an almost godlike attitude toward their subject, pretending to a total comprehension of the story, a man's life, which they can therefore recount as God Himself might, nothing standing between them and the naked truth, the entire story meaningful in every detail. I am as little able to do this as the novelist is, even though my story is more important to me than any novelist's is to him - for this is my story; it is the story of a man, not of an invented, or possible, or idealized, or otherwise absent figure, but of a unique being of flesh and blood, Yet, what a real living human being is made of seems to be less understood today than at any time before, and men - each one of whom represents a unique and valuable experiment on the part of nature - are therefore shot wholesale nowadays. If we were not something more than unique human beings, if each one of us could really be done away with once and for all by a single bullet, storytelling would lose all purpose. But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.

La vida de cada hombre es un camino hacia sí mismo, el intento de un camino, el esbozo de un sendero. Ningún hombre ha llegado a ser él mismo por completo; sin embargo, cada cual aspira a llegar, los unos a ciegas, los otros con más luz, cada cual como puede. Todos llevan consigo, hasta el fin, los restos de su nacimiento, viscosidades y cáscaras de un mundo primario. Unos no llegan nunca a ser hombres; se quedan en rana, lagartija u hormiga. Otros son mitad hombre y mitad pez. Pero todos son una proyección de la naturaleza hacia el hombre. Todos tenemos en común nuestros orígenes, nuestras madres; todos procedemos del mismo abismo; pero cada uno tiende a su propia meta, como un intento y una proyección desde las profundidades. Podemos entendernos los unos a los otros; pero interpretar es algo que sólo puede hacer cada uno consigo mismo.

... E por que têm medo? Só se tem medo quando não se está de acordo consigo mesmo. Têm medo porque jamais se atreveram a perseguir seus próprios impulsos interiores. Uma comunidade formada por indivíduos atemorizados com o desconhecido que levam dentro de si.

People who don’t run after the herd are rare everywhere

Hoje sei muito bem que nada na vida repugna tanto ao homem do que seguir pelo caminho que o conduz a si mesmo.

All I wanted was to try and realize whatever was in me. Why was that so difficult?

همانطور كه ديوانگي به معناي متعالي خود آغاز هر نوع حكمت و خردي است،‌جنون افتراق و انتزاع نيز سر لوحه هر هنر و هر تخيلي است

But each one is a gamble of Nature, a hopeful attempt at forming a human being.

Oh, I know it today: nothing in the world is more repugnant to a man than following the path that leads him to himself!

We marked men were not at all worried about the shape the future would take.

No one ever arrives home,” she said amiably. “But when the paths of friends meet, the whole world looks like home for a while.

Desde luego, no sé nada de espíritus; pero vivo en mis sueños y tú lo has notado. El resto de la gente también vive en sus sueños, pero no en los propios. Ahí está la diferencia.

پرنده تلاش می کند تا از درون تخم رها شود. تخم همان «جهان» است. کسی که دلش می خواهد به دنیا بیاید، اول باید دنیایی را ویران کند

حياة كل انسان عبارة عن طريق نحو نفسه .. لم يسبق لانسان ان كان نفسه تماما و بشكل كامل

الأشياء التي نراها هي الأشياء ذاتها التي نحملها في أعماقنا. ولا حقيقة إلا تلك التي نحملها فينا.

Não há porque te compares com os demais, e se a natureza te criou para morcego, não deves aspirar ser avestruz. às vezes te consideras por demais esquisito e te reprovas por seguires caminhos diversos dos da maioria. Deixa-te disso. Contempla o fogo, as nuvens e quando surgirem presságios e as vozes soarem em tua alma abandona-te a elas sem perguntares se isso convém.

We recognized only one thing as our duty and destiny: every one of us had to become himself, had to be true to and live for the sake of the seed of nature at work in himself, so completely that the uncertain future would find us ready for anything and everything it might bring.

No matter how inflexibly the world was clamoring for war and heroism, honor and other outmoded ideals, no matter how remote and unlikely every voice that apparently spoke up for humanity sounded, all of that was merely superficial, just as the question of the external and political aims of the war remained superficial. Deep down, something was evolving. Something like a new humanity. Because I could see people, and a number of them died alongside me, who had gained the new emotional insight that hatred and rage, killing and destroying, were not linked to the specific objects if that rage. No, the objects, just like the aims, were completely accidental. Those primal feelings, even the wildest of them, weren't directed against the enemy; their bloody results were merely an outward materialization of people's inner life, the split within their souls, which desired to rage and kill, destroy and die, so that they could be reborn.

But, despite everything, it was almost a pleasure to suffer those torments. I had crawled through life blindly and dully for so long, my heart had kept silent and had sat, impoverished, in a corner for so long, that even these self accusations, this horror, this whole ghastly emotion in my soul was welcome. After all, it was an emotion, flames were still rising, it showed that my heart was still alive! In a confused way, in the midst of misery I felt something like liberation and springtime.

Pero no hay tales casualidades. Cuando alguien que de verdad necesita algo lo encuentra, no es la casualidad quien se lo procura, sino él mismo. Su propio deseo y su propia necesidad le conducen a ello.

Veo que piensas más de lo que puedes expresar. Claro que si es así te darás cuenta también de que nunca has vivido completamente lo que piensas; y eso no es bueno. Sólo el pensamiento vivido tiene valor.

 "The things we see," said Pistorius gently, "are the things which are already in us. There is no reality beyond what we have inside us. That is why most people live such unreal lives; they take pictures outside themselves for the real ones and fail to express their own world. One can of course live contentedly enough in that situation. But once you know about the other you no longer have the choice of following the majority way. The way of the majority, Sinclair, is easy, ours is hard....But now we must go." 

..the face struck me at that moment as neither masculine nor childlike, neither old nor young, but somehow a thousand years old, somehow timeless, bearing the scars of an entirely different history than we knew.

The impetus that makes you fly is the great store of humanity that each of us possesses. It's the feeling of interconnectedness with the roots of all power, but we soon get alarmed by it! It's damned dangerous! And so most people are glad to give up flying; they prefer walking on the sidewalk, following the rules and regulations.

Everyone lives through this difficult period. For the average person it’s the point in his life when the demands of his own life clash most violently with the world around him, when his forward path must be fought for most bitterly. Many experience this death and rebirth, which are our destiny, only this once in their life, when childhood decays and slowly disintegrates, when all that has become dear to us is about to leave us and we suddenly feel the solitude and deathly chill of outer space around us. And very many are hung up for good on this reef and for the rest of their life cling painfully to the irretrievable past, to the dream of the lost paradise, which is the worst and most murderous of all dreams.

There’s a big difference between merely carrying the world inside you and knowing that you do! A madman can produce ideas that resemble Plato’s, and a pious little schoolboy in a Herrnhut institute can creatively reconstruct profound mythological associations in his mind, ideas to be found in the Gnostics or Zoroaster. But he doesn’t know he’s doing it! He’s a tree or a stone, at best an animal, just as long as he doesn’t know that. But when the first spark of that knowledge glimmers, he becomes a human being. You certainly don’t consider all the bipeds running around the street to be human beings merely because they walk upright and carry their young for nine months? After all, you see how many of them are fish or sheep, worms or leeches, how many are ants, how many are bees! Now, each one of them has the potentiality of becoming a human being, but only when he senses that potential, when he even learns to be conscious of it to some degree, does that potential belong to him.

قلما جابهتني بشئ جديد أو بشيء مدهش, و لكن كل شئ و حتى أكثر الأمور عادية, كان يشبه الضرب المستمر بمطرقه على النقطه ذاتها في داخلي. و هذه كلها قد ساعدتني على أن أصوغ نفسي. كلها ساعدتني على سلخ طبقات الجلد, على كسر قشرة البيضه. و بعد كل ضربه كنت أرفع رأسي إلى الأعلى قليلا, و أصبح أكثر حريه بقليل, إلى أن دفع طائري الأصفر رأس الطير الجارح الجميل من وسط القشره المتكسره للكون الأرضي

No tiene usted por qué compararse con los demás, y si la Naturaleza le ha creado para murciélago, no debe usted aspirar a ser avestruz. A veces se tiene usted por demasiado raro y se reprocha seguir caminos distintos a los que sigue la mayoría. Deje usted eso. Contemple el fuego, contemple las nubes, y en cuanto surjan los presagios y comiencen a sonar en su alma las voces, abandónese a ellas sin preguntarse antes si le conviene o le parece bien al señor profesor, a papá o a un buen dios cualquiera.

Everyone who has changed the course of human history, every last one was able to do so only because he was ready for his destiny. That’s true of Moses and the Buddha, Napoleon and Bismarck. The wave that carries us, the star that guides us—we cannot choose it.

Besides-neither of us knows why you happen to be drinking wine at this moment. That which is within you and directs your life knows already. It's good to realize that within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves.

In any case, the life of a drunk is presumably livelier than that of the ordinary well-behaved citizen. And then—I read that once somewhere—the life of a hedonist is the best preparation for becoming a mystic. People like St. Augustine are always the ones that become visionaries.

I see that you think more than you can express. But, if that’s the case, you must also know that you have never fully lived out your thoughts, and that isn’t good. Only the thoughts that we live out have any value. You knew that your ‘permissible world’ was only half the world, and you tried to hide away the second half from yourself, the way clergymen and teachers do. You won’t succeed! No one can do that when he has once begun to think.

This change did not bring me into the community of the others, did not make me closer to anyone, but actually made me even lonelier. My reformation seemed to point in the direction of Demian, but even this was a distant fate. I did not know myself, for I was too deeply involved. It had begun with Beatrice, but for some time I had been living in such an unreal world with my paintings and my thoughts of Demian that I'd forgotten all about her, too. I could not have uttered a single word about my dreams and expectations, my inner change, to anyone, not even if I had wanted to. But how could I have wanted to?

يجب الا تستسلم للرغبات التي لا تؤمن بها . انا اعرف ما ترغب به ، و لكن عليك اما ان تتمكن من التخلي عن هذه الرغبات او ان تجد نفسك مبررا تماما عند تحقيقها. و عندما تتمكن من صياغة طلبك بحيث تكون واثقا من تحقيقه فان التحقيق سيحدث ، ول كنك في الوقت الحاضر متأرجح بين الرغبة و رفضها ، و لذا فإنك تعيش في الخوف الدائم

But each person is not only himself, he is also the unique, very special point, important and noteworthy in every instance, where the phenomena of the world meet, once only and never again in the same way. And so every person’s story is important, eternal, divine; and so every person, to the extent that he lives and fulfills nature’s will, is wondrous and deserving of full attention. In each of us spirit has become form, in each of us the created being suffers, in each of us a redeemer is crucified. Not

هناك من لا يصير أبداً، يظل ضفدعاً، سحلية أو نملة.وهناك من هو إنسان في نصفه الأعلى وسمكة في نصفه الأسفل. كل إنسان يمثل مقامرة من قبل الطبيعة لخلق إنسان. إن لنا جميعاً أصلاً واحداً هو أمهاتنا، و جميعنا جئنا من الباب ذاته.لكن كلاً منا- بخبرات الأعماق- يجاهد للوصول إلى مصيره. يستطيع كل منا أن يفهم الآخر، لكن أياً منا لا يستطيع أن يشرح نفسه إلا لنفسه

Few people nowadays know what man is. Many sense this ignorance and die the more easily because of it . . . I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people . . . I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves.

Man is only afraid when he is not attuned to himself. They are afraid because they have never made themselves known to themselves

Je ne voulais qu'essayer de vivre ce que je portais en moi. Pourquoi était-ce si difficile?

Você não deve entregar-se a desejos nos quais não acredita. Sei o que deseja. Você tem que abandonar esses desejos ou deseja-los de verdade e totalmente.

I don’t want to make a gift of myself, I want to be won.

We who bore the mark might well be considered by the rest of the world as strange, even as insane and dangerous. We had awoken, or were awaking, and we were striving for an ever more perfect state of wakefulness, whereas the ambition and quest for happiness of the others consisted of linking their opinions, ideals, and duties, their life and happiness, ever more closely with those of the herd.

Feliz emprendí mi largo camino a casa en la fría noche. Aquí y allá tropecé aún con estudiantes que se retiraban a dormir alborotando y haciendo eses. Muy a menudo había comparado su singular manera de divertirse con mi vida solitaria, unas veces con cierta envidia y otras con desprecio. Pero nunca había sentido como hoy, con plena serenidad y secreta energía, cuán poco me atañía aquello y cuán lejano y perdido era para mí aquel mundo. Me acordé de los honrados filisteos de mi ciudad natal, viejos señores rebosantes de dignidad que conservaban los recuerdos de sus años estudiantiles como la memoria de un bienaventurado paraíso y consagraban a la perdida «libertad» de aquellos años un culto como el que los poetas y otros románticos dedican a su infancia. ¡En todas partes sucedía lo mismo! Todos los hombres buscaban la «libertad» y la «felicidad» en un punto cualquiera del pasado, sólo por miedo a ver alzarse ante ellos la visión de la responsabilidad propia y del propio singular camino. Durante un par de años alborotaban y bebían, para someterse luego al rebaño y convertirse en señores graves al servicio del Estado. Era verdad lo que Demian afirmaba: nuestro Mundo estaba carcomido, y esa estupidez estudiantil era aún menos estúpida y menos despreciable que ciertas otras.

However, one can study someone very closely and then one can often know almost exactly what he thinks or feels and thenone can also anticipate what he will do the next moment. It's simple enough, only people don't know it.

Una vaga desilusión fue debilitando y esfumando mis sentimientos y mis alegrías habituales; el jardín no tenía perfume, el bosque no me atraía, el mundo se extendía alrededor de mí como un saldo de trastos viejos, insípido y desencantado; los libros eran papel; la música, ruido. No de otro modo pierde sus hojas el árbol otoñal en torno de sí. No lo siente, y la lluvia, la escarcha y el sol resbalaban por su tronco, mientras su vida se retira a lo más íntimo y recóndito. No muere. Espera.

En ocasiones, me sentía descontento y atormentado de deseos. Creía no poder soportar ya por más tiempo tenerla a mi lado sin estrecharla entre mis brazos. También esto lo adivinó ella en seguida, y al verme llegar una tarde a su casa, agitado y confuso, después de varios días de retraimiento, me llevó aparte y me dijo: “No debe usted entregarse a deseos en los que no cree. Sé lo que usted desea. Tiene usted que abandonarlos o desearlos de verdad y por entero. Cuando llegue usted a pedir llevando en sí la plena seguridad de lograr su deseo, la demanda y la satisfacción coincidirán en un solo instante. Pero usted desea y se reprocha, temeroso, sus deseos. Tiene usted que dominar todo eso. Voy a contarle una conseja. Y me contó de un adolescente que estaba enamorado de una estrella. A la orilla del mar extendía los brazos hacia ella, la adoraba, soñaba con ella y le dedicaba todos sus pensamientos. Pero sabía, o creía saber, que un hombre no puede enlazar con sus brazos una estrella. Imaginaba que su destino era amarla siempre sin esperanza y construyó sobre esta idea toda una vida de renunciamiento y de dolor, callado y fiel, que habría de purificarle y ennoblecerle. Una noche se hallaba sentado de nuevo junto al mar, sobre un acantilado, contemplando a su amada y ardiendo en amor por ella. Y en un instante de profundo anhelo saltó al vacía, hacia la estrella. Pero todavía entonces pensó en la imposibilidad de alcanzarla y cayó, destrozándose contra las rocas. No sabía amar. Si en el momento de saltar hubiese tenido fuerza de alma suficiente para creer fija y seguramente en el logro de su deseo, hubiese volado cielo arriba a reunirse con su estrella. - El amor no debe pedir – continuó -, ni exigir tampoco. Ha de tener la fuerza de llegar en sí mismo a la certeza, y entonces atrae ya en lugar de ser atraído. Sinclair, su amor es ahora atraído por mí. Cuando llegue a atraerme, entonces acudiré. No quiero hacer un regalo, quiero ser ganada.

I can see that your thoughts are deeper than you yourself are able to express. But since this is so, you know, don't you, that you've never lived what you are thinking and that isn't good. Only the ideas that we actually live are of any value. You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world and you tried to suppress the second half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think." This went straight to my heart. "But there are forbidden and ugly things in the world!" I almost shouted. "You can't deny that. And they are forbidden, and we must renounce them. Of course I know that murder and all kinds of vices exist in the world but should I become a criminal just because they exist?" "We won't be able to find all the answers today," Max soothed me. "Certainly you shouldn't go kill somebody or rape a girl, no! But you haven't reached the point where you can understand the actual meaning of 'permitted' and 'forbidden.' You've only sensed part of the truth. You will feel the other part, too, you can depend on it. For instance, for about a year you have had to struggle with a drive that is stronger than any other and which is considered 'forbidden.' The Greeks and many other peoples, on the other hand, elevated this drive, made it divine and celebrated it in great feasts. What is forbidden, in other words, is not something eternal; it can change. Anyone can sleep with a woman as soon as he's been to a pastor with her and has married her, yet other races do it differently, even nowadays. That is why 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. Actually it's only a question of convenience. Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them; things are forbidden to them that every honorable man will do any day in the year and other things are allowed to them that are generally despised. Each person must stand on his own feet.

التجمع اﻷصيل شئ جميل ، ولكن ما نراه يزدهر في كل مكان شئ مختلف، الروح الحقيقية ستبرز من المعرفة التي يملكها اﻷفراد المنفصلون كل منهم عن اﻵخر. وبعد حين من الزمن سوف تحول العالم. أما روح التجمع فما هي إلا تجليات غريزة القطيع. إن كل إنسان يندفع إلى ذراعي اﻵخر ﻷن كل إنسان يخاف من اﻵخر، الملاك على حدة والعمال على حدة، والطلبة والباحثون على حدة! ولم خوفهم! إنك لا تخاف إلا حين لا تكون منسجما مع نفسك. والناس خائفون ﻷنه لم يسبق لهم أن كانوا مسيطيرين على أنفسهم. مجتمع بأكمله مؤلف من أناس خائفين من المجهول الذي فيهم. وكلهم يحسون أن اﻷسس التي يعيشون وفقها لم تعد صالحة، وأنهم يعيشون وفق قوانين بالية ، لا دينهم ولا أخلاقهم في تلاؤم مع حاجات الحاضر. منذ مئة سنة وأكثر لم تفعل أوروبا شيئا سوى دراسة المعامل وبنائها، إنهم يعرفون كم غراما من البارود تحتاج لقتل إنسان، لكنهم لا يعرفون كيف تصلي إلى الله ، ولا يعرفون كيف تكون سعيدا ولو لمدة ساعة من الرضا.

Only the ideas that we really live have any value. You have known that your 'permitted' world was only half of the world and you have tried to subjugate the second half after the manner of the priests and teachers. It will not be to your benefit! It benefits no one once he has begun to think!

Lo que esto significa, un ser vivo, se sabe hoy menos que nunca, y por eso se destruye a montones de seres humanos, cada uno de los cuales es una creación valiosa y única de la naturaleza. Si no fuéramos algo más que seres únicos, sería fácil hacernos desaparecer del mundo con una bala de fusil, y entonces no tendría sentido contar historias. Pero cada hombre no es solamente él; también es el punto único y especial, en todo caso importante y curioso, donde, una vez y nunca más, se cruzan los fenómenos del mundo de una manera singular. Por eso la historia de cada hombre, mientras viva y cumpla la voluntad de la naturaleza, es admirable y digna de toda atención.

The surrender to Nature's irrational, strangely confused formations produces in us a feeling of inner harmony with the force responsible for these phenomena. We soon fall prey to the temptation of thinking of them as being our own moods, our own creations, and see the boundaries separating us from Nature begin to quiver and dissolve. We become acquainted with that state of mind in which we are unable to decide whether the images on our retina are the result of impressions coming from without or from within. Nowhere as in this exercise can we discover so easily and so simply to what extent we are creative, to what extent our soul partakes of the constant creation of the world. For it is the same indivisible divinity that is active through us and in Nature, and if the outside world were to be destroyed, a single one of us would be capable of rebuilding it: mountain and stream, tree and leaf, root and flower, yes, every natural form is latent within us, originates in the soul whose essence is eternity, whose essence we cannot know but which often intimates itself to us as the power to love and create.

Todos los hombres pasan por estas dificultades. Para el hombre medio es éste el punto en que las exigencias de su propia vida entran en colisión dramática con las circunstancias, el punto en que tiene que luchar más duramente por alcanzar el camino que conduce hacia adelante. Muchos viven tal morir y renacer, que es nuestro destino, sólo en ese momento de su vida en que el mundo infantil se resquebraja y se derrumba lentamente, cuando todo lo que amamos nos abandona y, de pronto, sentimos la soledad y la frialdad mortal del universo que nos rodea. Muchos se estrellan para siempre en este escollo y permanecen toda su vida apegados dolorosamente a un pasado irrecuperable, al sueño del paraíso perdido, que es el peor y más nefasto de todos los sueños.

Nos sentimos tentados a creerlos caprichos nuestros, creaciones propias, vemos vacilar y disolverse la frontera entre nosotros y la naturaleza, y adquirimos conciencia de un estado de ánimo en el que no sabemos si las imágenes en nuestra retina provienen de impresiones exteriores o interiores. En ningún otro momento descubrimos con tanta facilidad la medida en que somos creadores, en que nuestra alma participa constantemente en la recreación de la vida. Una misma divinidad invisible actúa en nosotros y en la naturaleza, y si el mundo exterior desapareciera, cualquiera de nosotros sería capaz de reconstruirlo, porque los montes y los ríos, los árboles y las hojas, las raíces y las flores, todo lo creado en la naturaleza, está ya prefigurado en nosotros: proviene del alma, cuya esencia es eterna, y escapa a nuestro conocimiento, pero que se nos hace patente como fuerza amorosa y creadora.

An enlightened man had but one duty--to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led. The realization shook me profoundly, it was the fruit of this experience. I had often speculated with images of the future, dreamed of roles that I might be assigned, perhaps as poet or prophet or painter, or something similar. All that was futile. I did not exist to write poems, to preach or to paint, neither I nor anyone else. All of that was incidental. Each man had only one genuine vocation--to find the way to himself. He might end up as poet or madman, as prophet or criminal--that was not his affair, ultimately it was of no concern. His task was to discover his own destiny--not an arbitrary one--and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one's own inwardness.

Lo que hoy existe no es comunidad: es, simplemente, rebaño. Los hombres se unen porque tienen miedo unos de otros, y cada uno se refugia en los suyos. Los señores, en su rebaño; los obreros, en el suyo; los intelectuales en otro... ¿Y por qué tienen miedo? Se tiene miedo cuando no se está de acuerdo consigo mismo. Tienen miedo porque no se han atrevido jamás a seguir sus propios impulsos interiores. Una comunidad formada por individuos temerosos todos de lo desconocido que en sí mismos llevan. Todos ellos sienten que las leyes a las que ajustan su vida han periclitado ya, que viven conforme a mandamientos anticuados y que ni sus religiones ni su moral son ya las que necesitamos. ¡Durante cien años no ha hecho Europa más que estudiar y construir fábricas! Saben muy bien cuántos gramos de pólvora se necesitan para matar a un hombre; pero no saben cómo se reza a Dios, no saben siquiera cómo puede pasarse una hora divertida. ¡Fiíjate en una cualquiera de estas cervecerías estudiantiles! ¡O en cualquiera de los lugares de diversión a los que acude la gente rica! ¡Qué espectáculo más desconsolador!... De todo esto no puede resultar nada bueno, querido Sinclair. Estos hombres que se hacinan tan temerosamente están llenos de miedo y de maldad, ninguno se fía de otro. Se mantienen fieles a ideales que no lo son ya, y lapida, furiosos, a quien intenta erigir otros nuevos. Siento iniciarse ya graves conflictos que no pueden tardar en surgir.

But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross. Few people nowadays know what man is. Many sense this ignorance and die the more easily because of it, the same way that I will die more easily once I have completed this story. I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams--like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves. Each man's life represents a road toward himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that--one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can. Each man carries the vestiges of his birth--the slime and eggshells of his primeval past--with him to the end of his days. Some never become human, remaining frog, lizard, ant. Some are human above the waist, fish below. Each represents a gamble on the part of nature in creation of the human. We all share the same origin, our mothers; all of us come in at the same door. But each of us--experiments of the depths--strives toward his own destiny. We can understand one another; but each of us is able to interpret himself to himself alone.