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.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the idea that suppressing knowledge and understanding is futile, as true awareness will eventually emerge.
Hermann Hesse's quote reflects on the limitations of a sanctioned worldview that aims to ignore or suppress alternative perspectives. It suggests that once an individual begins to think critically and question the norms imposed by society, such as those by priests and teachers, they cannot unlearn or ignore the reality of a more complex and nuanced world. The struggle between accepted beliefs and personal discovery is highlighted, emphasizing the inevitability of expanding one's understanding despite attempts to suppress it.
In practice
In a discussion about education and the importance of critical thinking, this quote can emphasize the necessity of exploring beyond traditional teachings.
I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha." He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time.
That is where my dearest and brightest dreams have ranged — to hear for the duration of a heartbeat the universe and the totality of life in its mysterious, innate harmony.
I, also, would like to look and smile, sit and walk like that, so free, so worthy, so restrained, so candid, so childlike and mysterious. A man only looks and walks like that when he has conquered his Self. I also will conquer my Self.
You're quite right there," he said. "I have practiced abstinence myself for years, and had my time of fasting, too, but now I find myself once more beneath the sign of Aquarius, a dark and humid constellation.
I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself.
Despair is the result of each earnest attempt to go through life with virtue, justice and understanding, and to fulfill their requirements. Children live on one side of despair, the awakened on the other side.
I have always played into the belief that you are only ever borrowing the jersey; you never own the jersey because someone has gone before you and there is going to be someone after you, so it's a case of giving the jersey maximum respect.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Without you, without your onslaughts, without your uprootings of us, we should remain all our lives inert, stagnant, puerile, ignorant both of ourselves and of God. You who batter us and then dress our wounds, you who resist us and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shackle and liberate, the sap of our souls, the hand of God, the flesh of Christ: it is you, matter, that I bless.
So lonely 'twas that God himself Scarce seemed there to be.
Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit.
And the end of the fight is tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, and the epitaph drear, "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.