"The man who, being really on the way, falls upon hard
times in the world will not...turn to that friend who
offers him refuge and comfort and encourages his old
self to survive. Rather, he will seek out someone who
will faithfully and inexorably help him to risk himself...

"Only to the extent that man exposes himself over and
over again to annihilation, can that which is
indestructible arise within him. In this lies the
dignity of daring. Thus, the aim of practice is not to
develop an attitude which allows a man to acquire a
state of harmony and peace wherein nothing can ever
trouble him.

"On the contrary, practice...should enable him to dare;
to let go his futile hankering after harmony, surcease
from pain, and a comfortable life in order that he may
discover, in doing battle with the forces that oppose
him, that which awaits him beyond the world of
opposites. The first necessity is that we should have
the courage to face life, and to encounter all that is
most perilous in the world...

"The more a man learns wholeheartedly to confront the
world that threatens him with isolation, the more are
the depths of the ground of being revealed in the
possibilities of new life and becoming opened."

The Way of Transformation
Karlfried Gras von Durkheim

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