can’t get my head out of this book.

“I did not doubt you for one moment. Not for one moment did I doubt that you were the Buddha, that you have reached the highest goal which so many thousands of Brahims and Brahims’ sons are striving to reach. You have done so by your own seeking, in your own way, through thought, through mediation, through knowledge, through enlightenment. You have learned nothing through teachings, and so i think, O’ Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation through teachings. To nobody, O’ Illustrious One, can you communicate in words and teachings what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment. The teachings of the enlightened Buddha embrace much, they teach much- how to live righteously, how to avoid evil. But there is one thing that this clear, worthy instruction does not contain; it does not contain the secret of what the Illustrious One himself experience- he alone among hundreds of thousands. That is what I thought and realized when I heard your teachings. That is why I’m going on my own way- not to seek another and better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave all doctrines and all teachers and to reach my goal alone- or die. But I will often remember this day, O’ Illustrious One, and this hour when my eyes beheld a holy man.”

-Siddartha, Hermann Hesse