I was interested in transcendence from a very early age. I was

In the dawn of the soul’s awakening, when youth still gazes upon the world with eyes unclouded by custom, Anselm Kiefer spoke words that reach beyond the veil of time: “I was interested in transcendence from a very early age. I was interested in what was over there, what was behind life. So when I had my first communion I was very disappointed. I had expected something amazing and surprising and spiritual. Instead all I got was a bicycle. That wasn’t what I was after at all.” These words are not the complaint of a child, but the lament of a spirit that hungers for eternity. They tell of a heart that sought transcendence, only to find the material world waiting with open, empty hands.

From the earliest age, Kiefer’s soul leaned toward the mystery behind existence—toward the unseen power that breathes beneath the surface of all things. He speaks of disappointment, but within that disappointment lies a profound revelation: that the treasures of this world—its gold, its gifts, its bicycles—cannot satisfy the yearning of a spirit that seeks what lies “over there.” His story echoes the ancient cry of the mystics, of those who have gazed upon the shimmering edge of reality and found the world’s offerings too small to fill the vast hunger of the divine within.

So too did Siddhartha Gautama, before he became the Buddha, live in a palace adorned with every comfort, his every desire met before it was born. Yet he felt a shadow stirring behind the beauty, a sense that life concealed something deeper. When he left the palace and beheld the sick, the old, and the dead, he realized that no earthly joy could conquer the truth of impermanence. He renounced wealth, title, and power to seek transcendence—the same horizon that Kiefer glimpsed as a child, and that every awakened heart glimpses when it begins to question the meaning behind the veil of appearances.

Kiefer’s bicycle becomes a symbol, a sacred metaphor. It is the gift of the world—useful, joyful, fleeting, but not eternal. It is what humanity often offers in place of mystery: distraction instead of revelation, comfort instead of awakening. His disappointment, therefore, is holy. For only those who are dissatisfied with shallow gifts can truly seek the treasures of the spirit. In that disappointment begins the path of the seeker, the pilgrim, the artist, who refuses to mistake the tangible for the transcendent.

In this way, Kiefer joins the lineage of those who walked between heaven and earth—the prophets, philosophers, and painters who felt that art and spirit are one journey. His yearning for “what was behind life” was not a rejection of the world, but an attempt to see it illuminated from within. For the true artist, like the true sage, seeks not escape, but revelation—to pierce the ordinary until it burns with the light of the infinite.

And so, O listener, take heed of this wisdom. There will come a day when the world offers you its bicycles—its prizes, its comforts, its fleeting joys—and tells you they are enough. Smile, take them if you must, but do not mistake them for the mystery that calls to you from the far side of life. Remember that what you truly seek cannot be given by another, nor bought, nor won—it must be discovered in silence, in awe, in the daring act of looking beyond the surface.

Let your life, then, be a pilgrimage toward the unseen. Seek the spiritual even in the mundane, and never cease to question what lies beyond. Watch the sunrise not only for its light, but for the truth it hints at—the eternal rhythm that binds all things together. And when disappointment visits you, as it did Kiefer, welcome it. For disappointment is the gate through which wonder enters.

Thus, the teaching endures: Do not trade your longing for transcendence for the comfort of the visible world. Let your heart remain unsatisfied until it finds the sacred that hides behind the ordinary. Only then will you see as the ancients saw, and live not merely upon the earth, but behind life, where all things become divine.