Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

A friend of mine asked “Did you like the book The Alchemist?”
I replied “No doubt about it”. She said “If you like The Alchemist, you are surely going to like Siddhartha”. The same evening, I went ahead and bought the book.

The book emphasizes on the fact that “Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.”

The story takes place in India during the time of Gauthama Buddha. Siddhartha, the son of a Brahmin leaves home with his friend Govinda to lead an austere life to seek Nirvana. Siddhartha goes through a lot of transitions before he attains Enlightenment.

Few excerpts from the book that challenged and changed my thought process:-

When you throw a stone into the water, it finds the quickest way to the bottom of the water. It is the same when Siddhartha has an aim, a goal. Siddhartha does nothing; he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he goes through the affairs of the world like the stone through the water, without doing anything, without bestirring himself; he is drawn and lets himself fall. He is drawn by his goal, for he does not allow anything to enter his mind which opposes his goal.

Just as the potter’s wheel, once set in motion, still turns for a long time and turns only very slowly and stops, so did the wheel of the ascetic, the wheel of thinking, the wheel of discrimination still revolve for a long time in Siddhartha’s soul; it still revolved, but slowly and hesitatingly, and it had nearly come to a standstill. Slowly, like moisture entering the dying tree trunk, slowly filling and rotting it, so did the world and inertia creep into Siddhartha’s soul; it slowly filled his soul, made it heavy, made it tired, sent it to sleep. But on the other hand his senses became more awakened, they learned a great deal, experienced a great deal.

It was the goal of all of them, yearning, desiring, suffering; and the river’s voice was full of longing, full of smarting woe, full of insatiable desire. The river flowed on towards its goal. Siddhartha saw the river hasten, made up of himself and his relatives and all the people he had ever seen. All the waves and water hastened, suffering, towards goals, many goals, to the waterfall, to the sea, to the current, to the ocean and all goals were reached and each one was succeeded by another. The water changed to vapor and rose, became rain and came down again, became spring, brook and river, changed anew, flowed anew. But the yearning voice had altered.

When someone is seeking, it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal: but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.

It’s a very short book which can be completed in one sitting. There is not a single moment where you feel the author is dragging on. If you are feeling too low, this book will enliven your spirits. If you are flying too high, this book will ground you.

The verdict –

A true masterpiece!!! A must have in your library.