The Fourth Letter

***The first three letters were posted in "10 days of Rilke 'til Christmas" in December 2009. Unfortunately the rest of the ten letters weren't posted by then, so here's the rest of this very profound writing for your enlightenment.

Letters to a young poet
Rainer Maria Rilke

“…If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable…

You are so young; you stand before beginnings…have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart…love the questions themselves, like locked rooms…like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot…be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present…live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer some distant day…
…everything assigned to us is a challenge; nearly everything that matters is a challenge, and everything matters…

Man has transformed eating into something else. Lack on the one hand and excess on the other have clouded the clarity of this basic need. Similarly cloudy have become all the deep and simple human needs in which life renews itself. But the individual can clarify them for himself and can live that clarity—as long as he is not too dependent on others, as long as he has a pact with aloneness.

…The earth is full of this secret down to her smallest things. Oh, that we would only receive this secret more humbly, bear it more earnestly, endure it, and feel how awesomely difficult it is, rather than to take it lightly…

Do not allow yourself to be misled by the surfaces of things…

…embrace your solitude and love it. Endure the pain it causes, and try to sing out with it. For those near to you are distant, you say. That shows it is beginning to dawn around you; there is an expanse opening about you. And when your nearness becomes distant, then you have already expanded for: to being among the stars. Your horizon has widened greatly. Rejoice in your growth. No one can join you in that…

…your pact with aloneness will be your support and solace even in the midst of unfamiliar situations. It is through that aloneness that you will find all your paths…”