Wednesday, March 31, 2010

no I


Und so lang du das nicht hast,

Dieses: stirb und werde,

Bist du nu rein truber Gast

Auf der dunklen Erde


As long as you do not know how to die and come to life again,

you are but a poor traveler on this dark earth

- Goethe


Death is the epitome of the truth that in each moment we are thrust into the unknown. Here all clinging to security is compelled to cease, and wherever the past is dropped away and safety abandoned, life is renewed. Death is the unknown in which all of us lived before birth.

Nothing is more creative than death, since it is the whole secret of life. It means that the past must be abandoned, that the unknown cannot be avoided, that “I” cannot continue, and that nothing can be ultimately fixed. When a man knows this, he lives for the first time in his life. By holding his breath, he loses it. By letting it go he finds it.

- Alan Watts




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