#keyserling

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

There are no limits to the development of every individual.

from Creative Understanding by Count Hermann Keyserling

[picsofsannyas]

My function is to tickle you in the right place

I have heard a story about Count Keyserling – his grandson is here, a sannyasin.

Count Keyserling was one of the most famous German thinkers. He traveled far and wide in the East; he was fascinated by the East. The grandson must have something of Count Keyserling in him, hence he has come to me. When Count Keyserling was in China, a friend presented him with a beautiful box, two thousand years old, but with a condition which has been fulfilled for two thousand years: that the box’s face has to be towards the East. A beautiful piece of art work, a great work of art! With that condition, for two thousand years whosoever had it has followed it.

Count Keyserling went with it. He placed the box in his drawing room facing towards the East, but then the whole drawing room was unbalanced. The box looked odd, so the whole drawing room had to be redone. But then the whole drawing room was no longer fitting with the house! But Count Keyserling was a man of his word – he changed his whole house… but then the garden was not fitting, so he had to change the garden. And then he became afraid, because when he changed the garden the house was not fitting in the neighborhood. Now, he could not do anything with the neighborhood!

Then he wrote a letter to the friend who has given the box, “Please take this box back – I don’t know how I can fulfill the condition. I will have to change the whole world! Now the neighborhood, then the town, then the district, then the province, then the country…. This is too much!”

If you start seeing just a ray of light, a new light, you will have to change your whole world.

The friend wrote to Count Keyserling, “Don’t be worried, that’s exactly the message: that even a small box can change your whole world. It is an ancient Taoist symbol; a message is contained in it. You have understood the message.”

Allow a single insight of a buddha in you and you will never be the same. That’s my function here as a master: to give you something which will not fit with you but which will be so tremendously significant for you that you will be ready to change for it, that you will be ready to risk everything for it.

A zookeeper was headed for the kangaroo cage right around feeding time when, much to his surprise, the kangaroo jumped right over the ten-foot fence and went hopping out of sight. The startled zookeeper dashed up to the cage and confronted a woman who was standing in front of the cage. “What happened?” he asked. “I have not the faintest notion,” she replied. “All I did was tickle him a little.” “Well, lady,” he replied, “I guess you had better tickle me in the same place – I am the one who has to catch him now!”

My function is to tickle you in the right place – because it is a long long journey, a pilgrimage, and you are to catch hold of God. Less than that is not going to fulfill you.

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

Philosophy is neither dry science nor intellectual sport: it is essentially the completion of science in the synthesis of wisdom.

from Creative Understanding by Count Hermann Keyserling

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

We develop in the direction we have chosen.

from Creative Understanding by Count Hermann Keyserling

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

We are free only at the moment of our decision; as soon as we have decided, we are bound.

from Creative Understanding by Count Hermann Keyserling

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

The world could at any moment become the best possible world.

from Creative Understanding by Count Hermann Keyserling

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

We are capable of bearing anything.

from Creative Understanding by Count Hermann Keyserling

[denimatio]

Le fait que le Bouddha, le premier homme pleinement éveillé qui eut le courage d'être entièrement sincère envers lui-même, ne soit pas considéré, au seul titre de cet état de fait indiscutable et indépendamment de toute question confessionnelle comme l'un des plus grands modèles de l'humanité, prouve combien sont rares les hommes dignes pris au sérieux comme personnalités morales. Lorsque la conscience intelligente s'éveilla pour la première fois et qu'elle s’aperçut presque aussitôt à quel point est épouvantable la réalité dans laquelle un destin nullement souhaité a placé l'homme, la créativité de l'âme, tout naturellement, s'employa d'abord à inventer des procédés et des expédients qui lui permissent de restaurer tant bien que mal, en usant de mécanismes trompeurs et d'une technique d’illusionnisme, le visage supportable de sa vie première aveugle sur la base d'une vie nouvelle devenue voyante. Et comme aujourd'hui encore la plupart des hommes n'ont pas la force de supporter la réalité telle qu'elle est, ils vivent aujourd'hui encore une vie qui pour sa plus grande part repose sur des fictions. Mais de siècle en siècle, ceux qui se sont ainsi rendus artificiellement perdent de plus en plus toute importance - pour ne rien dire de ceux qui sont les héritiers d'une cécité dépassée qu'ils perpétuent. […] La plupart des vérités n'ont rien de réjouissant ; l'ordre émotionnel tout entier et le domaine tout entier de la Delicadeza ne sauraient être ramenés ni haussés au niveau de l'idéal de la vérité. Il n'en est pas moins vrai que tout homme conscient de soi, ne fût-ce que de la façon la plus confuse,  est poussé par son être solitaire le plus profond à dépasser toute fixation sur le plan empirique, qui peut être surmonté. Un tel homme sent ainsi : je dois voir la vie telle qu'elle est réellement, car au plus profond de moi-même, je veux la voir ainsi. Je dois trouver un nouvel équilibre intérieur dans l'esprit de la sincérité, car pour arriver à me réaliser moi-même, je suis obligé de le faire. Mais pour l'exécution de cet ordre intérieur, l'homme, même le plus profond, n'est pas mûr de naissance ; seule une métamorphose crée en lui l'état nouveau à la fois exigé et désiré. Or ce processus de transformation est douloureux. C'est en cela que réside la profonde signification de la souffrance. – Hermann de Keyserling (De la souffrance à la plénitude, 1938)