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    “I had to go through so much stupidity, so much vice, so much error, so much disgust and disillusion and distress, merely in order to become a child again and begin afresh. But it was right, my heart says yes, my eyes are laughing. I had to experience despair, I had to sink down to the most foolish of all thoughts, to the thought of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear om again, to sleep properly again and to awaken properly again. I had to become a fool in order to find Atman in me again. I had to sin in order to live again.”

    Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha (Page 85)

      “That was the enchantment that had happened to him in his sleep and through the om: he now loved everything and everyone, he was full of cheerful love for anything he saw. And it seemed to him now that he had been so ill earlier because he had been able to love nothing and no one.”

      Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha (Page 83)

        “The potter’s wheel, once set in motion, keeps spinning and spinning, and only gradually slackens and comes to a halt; and likewise, in Siddhartha’s soul, the wheel of asceticism, the wheel of thinking, the wheel of discrimination had kept turning and turning, was still turning, but was now sluggish and hesitant and on the verge of halting. Slowly, the way moisture creeps into the dying tree stump, slowly filling it and rotting it, worldliness and slothfulness had crept into Siddhartha’s soul; slowly they filled his soul, made it heavy, made it weary, lulled it to sleep.”

        Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha (Page 68)

          “At times he heard, deep in his breast, a soft and dying voice that admonished softly, lamented softly, barely audible. Then for an hour he was aware that he was leading a strange life, that he was doing all sorts of things that were merely a game, that he was cheerful, granted, and sometimes felt joy, but that real life was flowing past him and not touching him. Like a juggler juggling his balls, he played with his business, with the people around him, watched them, enjoyed them; but he never participated with his heart, with the wellspring of his being. The wellspring ran somewhere, as if far from him, ran and ran, invisible, having nothing to do with his life. And sometimes he was startled by such thoughts and wished that it could be granted him to participate with passion and with all his heart in the childlike doings of the day, to live really—to act really, to enjoy really, and to live really instead of merely standing on the side as a spectator.”

          Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha (Page 63)

            “Anger is easy. It’s easier to be angry than hurt. Being angry is active, it’s aggressive, it’s distracting. Hurt is acceptance. It’s something you sit with. It’s something you wish you didn’t feel, but you do. It’s something you wish hadn’t happened, but did. When Marcus Aurelius said it wasn’t manly to get angry, perhaps this is what he was saying. That the childish thing is to yell about and fight about and reject the hurt that you feel. The adult thing is to try to understand it, to come to terms with it, to understand that—like all things—it will pass, and that if you’re patient and have perspective, it will help. The responsible thing is to explore the roots of an emotion, to ask why you’re feeling a particular way, why something was so triggering or painful and to try to deal with that.”

            Ryan Holiday

              “How can I overlap the things I enjoy? For example, maybe you want to exercise and spend time with your spouse. What type of exercise sounds fun to do with your spouse? Or perhaps you’d like to hang out with friends and build your career. How can you find ways to work with people you like being around? It doesn’t always work, but there are usually a few areas of life you can overlap in an enjoyable way. Look for the overlap.”

              James Clear

                “Move toward the next thing, not away from the last thing. Same direction. Completely different energy.”

                James Clear

                  “College can help you be externally successful in life but you have to find ways to be internally successful too. Finding ways to cultivate you inner balance, your peace, and your mental clarity are just as important as getting a good job. When I started meditating daily, it helped my mind feel more peaceful and it opened up my creativity. It also helped deepen my relationship with my wife and friends and family. I didn’t know I was a writer until I started meditating. Even if meditating is not your thing, your inner peace requires you to develop self-awareness, which will help you be less reactive. Find your own way to be self-reflective – journaling, therapy, mindfulness, there is a lot out there that can help you get in touch with your emotional history and your inner world.”

                  Yung Pueblo

                    “If energy is there and not used rightly it goes sour, becomes bitter. We create energy every day, and it has to be used every day. You cannot accumulate it; you cannot be a miser about it. Find ways to use your energy—games, jogging, running—and delight in it. Use the energy, and then you will feel very calm. That calmness will be totally different from a forced stillness. You can force yourself, you can have energy and repress it, but you are sitting on a volcano, and there is a constant trembling inside. The more energy you use, the more fresh energy will become available.”

                    Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 243)

                      “She thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of having misused or been misused. He spent wonderful hours with the clever and beautiful artist, became her pupil, her lover, her friend.”

                      Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha (Page 60)

                        “If you toss a stone into water, it takes the swiftest way to the bottom. And Siddhartha is like that when he has a goal, makes a resolve. Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like the stone through the water, never acting, never stirring. He is drawn, he lets himself drop. His goal draws him, for he lets nothing into his soul that could go against his goal.”

                        Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha (Page 56)

                          “For the first time, all this, all this yellow and blue, river and forest, passed into Siddhartha through his eyes, was no longer the magic of Mara, was no longer the veil of Maya, was no longer senseless and random diversity of the world of appearance, despised by the deep thinking Brahmin, who disdains the diversity, who seeks the unity. Blue was blue, river was river, and even though the One and the Divine lived concealed in the blue and the river in Siddhartha, it was the manner and meaning of the Divine to be yellow here, blue here, sky there, forest there, and Siddhartha here. Meaning and reality were not somewhere beyond things, they were in them, in everything.”

                          Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha (Page 37)