Fragment from Herman Hesse's "Siddhartha"

.... and all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrow, all the pleasures,

all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was

the stream of events, the music of life. When Siddhartha listened attentively to this river,

to this song of a thousand voices; when he did not listen to the sorrow or laughter,

when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self,

but heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices

consisted of one word: Om - perfection.