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Q: Can you give us something which will explain and reduce our fears of exploring the unknown? This is my major roadblock. A: Our life is like a journey in which, as we advance, the landscape takes a different view from that which is presented at first, and changes again, as we come nearer. This is just what happens, especially with our desires. We often find something else, no, something better than what we were looking for . . . Instead of finding, as we expected, pleasure, happiness, joy, we get experience, insight, knowledge -- a real and permanent blessing, instead of a disappearing and illusory one. In their search for gold, the alchemists discovered other things -- gunpowder, china, medicines, the laws of nature. There is a sense in which we are all alchemists.
Q: By personal experience I know that it is a thousand times easier to find a religious charlatan than to find a man who truly knows what life is all about. Why is it like this?
A: It is natural for great minds -- the true teachers of humanity -- to care little about the constant company of others, just as little as the schoolmaster cares for joining in the frolic of the noisy crowd of boys which surrounds him. The mission of these great minds is to guide mankind over the sea of error to the harbor of truth, to draw men back from the dark abyss of barbarous crudeness into the light of culture and refinement. Men of superior intellect live in the world without really belonging to it . . . they let no one approach them who is not in some degree freed from the prevailing crudeness.
Q: I have made up my mind to never give up following these esoteric guides, but what reminder can help a person who feels he has taken a wrong turn? A: Gradual practice makes him perfect, through a long series of slips, blunders, and fresh starts. It is just the same as in other things you learn.
Q: I have made a list of all the sensible reasons why I should be free of others, which I should never trade my inner integrity for foolish rewards, why I must live my own life. What might I add to the list?
 This is why there are so few people with whom you care to become more intimate, and why you should avoid familiarity with shallow people. 
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-- Schopenhauer
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A: There is one thing that, more than any other, throws people absolutely off their balance -- the thought that you are dependent upon them. This is sure to produce an insolent and domineering manner towards you . . . they soon come to fancy that they can take liberties with you, and so they try to transgress the laws of politeness. This is why there are so few people with whom you care to become more intimate, and why you should avoid familiarity with shallow people.
Q: I am certainly in error with other people. I appear to be at ease with others, but underneath I feel that the smallest wrong word on my part will cause an explosion between us. I would like esotericism to work for me in this area. A: That is no reason for despair. You need not fancy it is impossible to regulate your life in accordance with abstract ideas and maxims . . . the first thing to do is to understand the rule; the second thing is to learn the practice of it. The theory may be understood at once with an effort of reason, and yet the practice of it acquired only in the course of time.
Q: What prevents people from making clear and realistic thinking a permanent power for self-guidance? A: With a large number of people, it is quite evident that their power of sight wholly predominates over their power of thought; they seem to be conscious of their existence only when they are making a noise.
Q: I am wondering if this is why self-reliance is so highly prized by those who have found their way out of the cave? I mean, if we cease to lean on others, we must lean on ourselves, which forces our slumbering energies to awaken. A: A man is best off if he is thrown upon his own resources, and can be all in all to himself, and Cicero goes so far as to say that a man who is in this condition cannot fail to be very happy.
Q: You are teaching us to look in an entirely new direction, which I know is the only right way. As an aid, please illustrate how we look in the wrong direction. A: Suppose that, with the exception of some sore or painful spot, we are physically in a sound and healthy condition. The pain of this one spot will completely absorb our attention, causing us to lose the sense of general well-being, and destroying our comfort in life. In the same way, when all our affairs but one turn out as we wish, the single instance in which our aims are frustrated is a constant trouble to us, even though it is something quite trivial.
Q: I feel myself almost in possession of lasting contentment, but the secret is still inches from my grasp. A: Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, finally, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness.
Q: Our study group is at present exploring false escapes from fear and tension. I believe you include most social activities as a wrong route. A: I have said that people are rendered sociable by their inability to endure solitude, that is to say, their own society. They become sick of themselves. Their mind is wanting in flexibility; it has no movement of its own, so they try to give it some -- by drink, for instance . . . They are always looking for some form of excitement, of the strongest kind they can bear -- the excitement of being with people of like nature with themselves; and if they fail in this, their mind sinks by its own weight, and they fall into grievous lethargy.
Q: Please point out a cause of anxiety of which we may be unaware. A: We often try to banish the gloom and despondency of the present by speculating upon our chances of success in the future; a process which leads us to invent a great many unreal hopes. Every one of them contains the seed of illusion, and disappointment is inevitable when our hopes are shattered.
Q: As a school teacher, I wish to show my students how immodesty and arrogance bring self-punishment. Do you have a lesson I might use? A: It is the tall pine which is cruelly shaken by the wind, and the lofty towers that fall so heavily, and the highest peaks which are struck by the storm. Q: It would be much easier for me if I understood human nature better. It is true that like attracts like, and if so, how does it work?
If there are two rascals among them, they will recognize each other quickly, as if each wore a similar badge...
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-- Schopenhauer
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A: Take the case of a large number of people who have gathered together for the purpose of carrying out some practical project. If there are two rascals among them, they will recognize each other quickly, as if each wore a similar badge, and they will at once conspire for some selfishness or treachery . . . It is really curious to see how two such men, especially if they are morally and intellectually inferior, will recognize each other at first sight, with what zeal they will try to become friends, how affably and cheerfully they will rush to greet each other. Q: I am surprised at a recent discovery I made while talking with people about truth and reality. Many people get tense and defensive, as if they see the truth as an enemy, instead of as a friend. A: The man who comes into the world with the notion that he is really going to instruct it in matters of the highest importance, may thank his stars if he escapes with a whole skin.
Q: I feel compelled to do so many things which are useless and boring. Need I submit to this mysterious pressure? A: Nothing will protect us from external compulsion so much as the control of ourselves, and, as Seneca says, to submit yourself to reason is the way to make everything else submit to you. Q: I view esoteric teachings as a vast sea, upon which we must bravely dare the voyage. What is the good news for whoever sails all the way to the other side? Schopenhauer's Answer: Nothing can trouble him more, nothing can more him, for he has cut all the thousand cords of will which hold us bound to the world . . . as desire, fear, envy, anger, drag us here and there is constant pain. He now looks back smiling and at rest on the delusions of the world, which once were able to move and agonize his spirit also.
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