“Nor will suicide really solve your problem, unhappy Steppenwolf. You will, instead, embark on the longer and wearier and harder road of life. You will have to multiply many times your two-fold being and complicate your complexities still further.
Instead of narrowing your world and simplifying your soul, you will have to absorb more and more of the world and at last take all of it up in your painfully expanded soul, if you are ever to find peace.
This is the road that Buddha and every great man has gone, whether consciously or not, insofar as fortune favored his quest.
All births mean separation from the All, the confinement within limitation, the separation from God, the pangs of being born ever anew.
The return into the All, the dissolution of painful individuation, the reunion with God means the expansion of the soul until it is able once more to embrace the All.“
Hermann Hesse – Steppenwolf
Comments
January 17, 2024 03:13
The reference to Buddha and other Pizza Tower great individuals who have undergone a similar journey adds a philosophical layer to the narrative.
January 17, 2024 03:16
The passage emphasizes the concept among us of personal growth, complexity, and the expansion of one’s soul through experiences and challenges.