one for the road!

I always prefer to walk on this service road close to my home...its quiet and peaceful and you can't see the end... but you know the end! very few people you will see walking on this road even during rush hours. There is an express highway adjacent to it. everyone prefers that for fast pace and clear vision. I loved the following poem while reading a book and remember this road.


THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by;
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Siddhartha

“The world, Govinda, is not perfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all suckling have death within them, all dying people-eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore it seems to me that everything that exists is good-death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly.

Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me. I have learned from my body and soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to strive for property and experience nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them, in order to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it and be glad to belong to it.”
I just finished reading the book by Hermann Hesse..read few pages again ...very good book, simple, easy to connect and makes you think!!

Goal

‘My dear Kamala,’ said Siddhartha,’ When I came to you in your grove I made the very first step. It was my intention to learn about love from the most beautiful woman. From the moment I made that resolution I knew that I would execute it. I knew that you would help me; I knew it from your first glance at the entrance to the grove.’
‘And what if I had not wanted?’

‘But you did want. Listen, Kamala, When you throw the stone into the water, it finds the quickest way to the bottom of the water. It is the same way when Siddhartha has an aim, a goal. Siddhartha does nothing; he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he goes through the affairs of the world like the stone through the water, without doing anything, without bestirring himself; he is drawn and let himself fall. He is drawn by his goal, for he does not allow anything to enter his mind which opposes his goal. That is what Siddhartha learned from the Samanas. It is what fools call magic and what they think is caused by demons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goal, if he can think, wait and fast.’

Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse