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.
Interpretation
Despair arises from the challenges of living a virtuous life, while a deeper understanding brings awareness beyond despair.
Hermann Hesse's quote reflects on the duality of life experiences, emphasizing that the quest for virtue, justice, and understanding often leads individuals to confront despair. However, it also suggests that those who achieve a higher level of consciousness can transcend despair, marking a distinction between the innocence of children and the enlightenment of awakened individuals who navigate life's complexities with insight.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming life's challenges.
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.
People know, or dimly feel, that if thinking is not kept pure and keen, and if respect for the world of mind is no longer operative, ships and automobiles will soon cease to run right, the engineer's slide rule and the computations of banks and stock exchanges will forfeit validity and authority, and chaos will ensue.
Esteem must be founded on preference: to hold everyone in high esteem is to esteem nothing.
Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion go hand in hand.
[Evangelization] is not something optional, but the very vocation of the People of God, a duty that corresponds to it by the command of the Lord Jesus Christ himself
Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.
Fate's arrow, when expected, travels slow.
In truth, I’m not my body, my race, religion, or other beliefs, and neither is anyone else. The real self is infinite and much more powerful-a complete and whole entity that isn’t broken or damaged in any way. The infinite me already contains all the resources I need to navigate through life, because I’m One with Universal energy. In fact, I am Universal energy.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.