Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.
Interpretation
The quote contrasts the pursuit of goals with the state of being open and free from expectations.
Hermann Hesse's quote presents the idea that while seeking implies having a defined goal or ambition, finding embodies a sense of liberation and receptivity to experiences. It suggests that true discovery and personal growth occur when one lets go of rigid objectives and allows life to unfold organically, embracing serendipity and openness instead of a fixed pursuit.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth during a conference.
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 β 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.
He [Stephen Douglas] is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national.
I've never allowed my political life, or my life as a basketball player, to define the totality of my humanity or my personality.
For benefits return benefits; for injuries return justice without any admixture of revenge.
Ordinary morality is innate in my view.
Everybody wants to enjoy heaven after they die, but they don't want to be heavenly-minded while they live.
Our paradigm now seems to be: Something terrible happened to us on September 11, and that gives us the right to interpret all future events in a way that everyone else in the world must agree with us. And if they don't, they can go straight to hell.
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