That's the way it is when you love. It makes you suffer, and I have suffered much in the years since. But it matters little that you suffer, so long as you feel alive with a sense of the close bond that connects all living things, so long as love does not die!
Interpretation
Love brings both joy and suffering, but the connection it creates is what truly matters.
This quote by Hermann Hesse expresses the dual nature of love; it can lead to deep suffering yet is integral to feeling alive. The pain we endure because of love is overshadowed by the profound bond it forges among all living beings, emphasizing that the essence of love should not perish despite the hardship it may cause.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a wedding speech to highlight the beautiful complexity of love.
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.
One can imagine the look the two lovers exchanged; it was like a flame, for virtuous lovers have not a shred of hypocrisy.
Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness.
A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never daunted.
A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.
Romances paint at full length people's wooing. But only give a bust of marriages.
When my love swears that she is made of truth, _x000D_ _x000D_ I do believe her, though I know she lies.
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