The Enjoyment of Travelling

Travel used to be a pleasure, now it has become an industry.  No doubt there are greater facilities for traveling today than a hundred years ago and governments with their official travel bureau have exploited the tourist trade, with the result that the modern man travels on the whole much more than his grandfather.

In order to understand that art of travel, beware of the different types of false travel which is no travel at all.  The first kind of false travel is travel to improve one’s mind.  The second type of false travel is travel for conversation, in order that one may talk about it afterwards.  The tourists are so busy with their cameras that they have no time to look at the places themselves.  Of course, they have the privilege of looking at them in the pictures afterwards when they go home.  It is natural that the more places one visits, the richer the memory will be, and the more places there will be to talk about.

This sort of foolish travel necessarily produces the third type of false travelers, who travel by schedule, knowing beforehand exactly how many hours they are going to spend in Shimla or Shillong. Before moving he makes a perfect schedule and religiously adhere to it.  Bound by the clock and run by the calendar as he is at home, he is still bound by the clock and run by the calendar while abroad.

True motive of travel should be to travel to become lost and unknown.  A true traveler is always a vagabond.  The essence of travel is to have no duties, no fixed hours, no mail, no inquisitive neighbors, no receiving delegation, ad no destination. A good traveler is one  who does not know when he is going to, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from. A good traveler does not care for anybody in particular but cares for mankind in general.  Having no particular friend but having everybody’s one’s friend, loving mankind in general, he mixes with them and goes about observing the charms of people and their customs.

It is true that there is something which terrifies the and surprises the soul to find that mother nature, with her great skill and wisdom and energy has suddenly produced a thing like a stone cave or a blessed spot.  As it is said the lion uses the same energy to attack an elephant as to attack a wild rabbit, so does the mother nature do the same thing.  She uses all her energies to produce a stone cave or a blessed spot, but she also uses all her energy in producing a bird, a fish, a flower, a blade of grass or even a feather, a scale, a petal, a leaf.

To comprehend the different organs of the horse is not to comprehend the horse itself what we call the horse exists before its different organs. Laoste said, “Thirty spokes are grouped around the hub of a wheel and when they lose their own individuality, we have a functioning cart.  We knead clay into a vessel and when the clay loses its own existence we have a usable utensils.  We make a hole in the wall to make windows and doors and when the windows and doors lose their own existence, we have a house to live in.

On Living in General

Passion holds up the bottom of the universe and genius paints up its roof.

Better be insulted by common people than be despised by gentlemen, better be flunked by an official examiner than be unknown to a famous scholar.

My regrets or things that exasperate me are ten, that books bags are easily eaten by moths, that summer nights are spoiled by mosquitoes, that a moon terrace easily leaks, that the leaves of chrysanthemums often wither, that pine trees are full of big ants, that bamboo leaves fall in great quantities upon the ground, that the cassia and lotus flowers easily wither, that the pilo plants often conceals snakes, that flowers on a trellis have thorns and, that porcupines are often poisonous to eat.

To be born in times of peace in a district will hills and lakes when the magistrate is just and upright and to live in a family of comfortable means, marry an undeserving wife and have intelligent sons, this is what I call a perfect life.

A monk needs to abstain from wine, abstain from vulgarity, a red petticoat need not understand literature, she need only understand what is artistically interesting.

Wine can take the place of tea but tea cannot take the place of wine, poems can take place of prose but prose cannot take the place of poems.  Moon can take place of lamps but lamps cannot take place of moon, the pen can take place of the mouth, but the mouth cannot take place of the pen, a maid servant can take the place of a man servant but a man servant cannot take the place of a maid.

A little injustice in the breast can be drowned by wine, but a great injustice in the world can be drowned only by the sword.

It is easy to stand a pain but difficult to stand an itch, it is easy to bear the bitter taste, but difficult to bear the sour taste.

The stork gives a man the romantic manner, the horse gives a man the heroic manner, the orchid gives a man the recluse’s manner and the pine gives a man the romantic manner, and the pine gives a man the grand manner of the ancients.

It is against the will of God to eat delicate food hastily, to pass gorgeous views humidly, to express deep sentiments superficially, to pass a beautiful day steeped in food and drinks, and to enjoy your wealth steeped in luxuries

On Books & Reading

Reading books in one’s youth is like looking at the moon through a crevice. Reading books in middle age is like looking at the moon in one’s courtyard and reading books in old age is like looking the moon on an open terrace. This is because the depth of benefits of reading varies in proportion to the depth of one’s own experience.

Reading is the greatest of all joys but there is more anger than joy in reading history.  But, after all, there is pleasure in such anger.  One should read classics in winter then one’s mind is more concentrated, read history in summer, because one has more time, read the ancient philosophers in autumn because they have such charming ideas and read the collected works of later authors in spring because then nature is coming book to life.

When literary men talk about military affairs it is mostly military science in the studio, literally discussing soldiers on papers and when military generals discuss literature, it is mostly rumors packed up on hearsay.

An ancient winter said that he would like to have ten years devoted to reading, ten years devoted to travel and ten years devoted to preservation and arrangement of what he had got.

Poetry becomes good only after one becomes poor or unsuccessful man usually has a lot of things to say and it is thus easy to show himself to advantage.  How can the poetry of rich and successful people be good when they neither sigh over their poverty nor complain about their being unprompted and when all they write about are the wind, the clouds, the moon and the dew?  Poetry acquires depth through sorrow.

On Leisure & Friendship

To talk with learned friends is like reading a rare books, to talk with poetic friends is like reading the poems and prose of distinguished writers, to talk with friends who are careful and proper in their conduct is like reading the classics of the sages and to talk with witty friends is like reading a novel or romance.

Every quite scholar is bound to have some bosom friends.  Bosom friends are those who, although separated by thousands of miles, still have implicit faith in us and refuse to believe rumors against us, those who on hearing a rumor try every means to explain it away, those who in given moments advise us to what to do and what not to do and those who at the critical hour come to our help, and sometimes without our knowing undertake of their own accord to settle a financial account, or make a decision, without for a moment questioning whether by doing so they are not making themselves open to criticism of perhaps injuring our interests.

A “remarkable book” is one which say things that have never been said before and a “bosom friend” is one who unburdens to us his family secrets.

On Hills & water

One dies without regret of there is one in the whole world a “bosom friend”, or one who “knows his heart”.

If there were no flowers and moon and beautiful women, I would not want to be born in the world.  If there were no pen and ink, poetry and horse, there is no purpose in being born a man.

The light of hills, the sound of water, the colour of moon, the fragrance of flowers, the charm of literary men and the expression of beautiful woman are all elusive and indescribable.

To see famous hills and rivers, one must have also predestined luck, unless the appointed time has come, one has no time to see them even though they are situated with in a dozen miles.