Book Review. “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse

This is my first book by German-Swiss poet and novelist Hermann Hesse and I like it. I like the way he writes, I like the topics he depicts, and the profound analysis of fundamental things in life.

According to Wikipedia Hermann Hesse “survived the years of the Hitler regime and the Second World War through the eleven years of work that [he] spent on [The Glass Bead Game]”. Printed in 1943 in Switzerland, this was to be his last novel. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946. So my next Hesse book will be “The Glass Bead Game”.

In 1911 Hesse made a long trip to Sri Lanka and Indonesia pursuing spiritual and religious inspiration, but physical experiences depressed him and despite this fact, this journey made an impression on him and influenced his works in particular “Siddhartha”.

When I opened “Siddhartha” I realized that in Kyiv just before the full-scale invasion I saw the same movie and it irritated me hugely, even made me angry. So I decided that it was a good sign to read a book and try to find out what triggered me so much. But I as wrote already liked the book very much, it helped me to understand better myself and my spiritual path and to find answers to very important questions that triggered me for the last four years.

“Siddhartha” is a book of self-discovery and the spiritual path of one person that can help millions to realize and get insights.

For me, I can divide this book, the story of Siddharta, into some important parts.

Going out from home and becoming Samana living in the forest

Siddhartha decided to leave his parent’s house and live in a forest becoming Samana, an ascetics who believes that deprivation leads to enlightenment. Siddhartha left his family and his city together with his friend and now they both turned to Samanas experiencing the art of reflection, the service of meditation, fasting, living in a forest, and possesing nothing.

Going through this path of full deprivation he learned to listen and to be calm, but he did not become enlightened.

“A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with an emptied heart, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal. Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my self, the great secret.”

“Siddhartha learned a lot when he was with the Samanas, many ways leading away from the self he learned to go. He went the way of self-denial by means of pain, through voluntarily suffering and overcoming pain, hunger, thirst, tiredness. He went the way of self-denial by means of meditation, through imagining the mind to be void of all conceptions. These and other ways he learned to go, a thousand times he left his self, for hours and days he remained in the non-self. But though the ways led away from the self, their end nevertheless always led back to the self. Though Siddhartha fled from the self a thousand times, stayed in nothingness, stayed in the animal, in the stone, the return was inevitable, inescapable was the hour, when he found himself back in the sunshine or in the moonlight, in the shade or in the rain, and was once again his self and Siddhartha, and again felt the agony of the cycle which had been forced upon him.”

Meeting with Gautama Buddha, the Enlightened One

Siddhartha and Govinda heard about Gautama, the Enlightened One, and decided to find him, listen to his teachings, and maybe be near him and study his teachings they also became enlightened.

During this part of the spiritual journey, Siddhartha realized that nobody could teach you how to become enlightened, he could only share his personal experience and his way, but every single person his way, not the way of another person. Thus, Siddharta rejected Buddha’s teachings but accepted fully his self-experience and self-wisdom.

From this part, he left his best friend and decided to return to the city.

“The teachings of the enlightened Buddha contain much, it teaches many to live righteously, to avoid evil. But there is one thing which these so clear, these so venerable teachings do not contain: they do not contain the mystery of what the exalted one has experienced for himself, he alone among hundreds of thousands. This is what I have thought and realized, when I have heard the teachings. This is why I am continuing my travels — not to seek other, better teachings, for I know there are none, but to depart from all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal by myself or to die.”

Learning the art of love from Kamala, the courtesan

In the city, he saw Kamala, a beautiful and rich courtesan, and he felt an extreme sexual desire that Samana should not have felt. He asked her to teach him the art of love. But as she was a courtesan he must pay for her love. Kamila found a job for him so he could pay her for her love. While experiencing love and pleasure with a woman, he also began to experience all other aspects of human life, like business and anxiety, overeating and overdrinking, gambling, etc. In the beginning, he was the same Samana only having sex with a woman, but then he became a simple human being obsessed with desires, excitement, and wanting, turning to a fully miserable life of a rich consumer. That began to devastate and depress him, he could not believe who he had turned into, forgetting about inner balance, stillness, inner abundance, and wisdom.

Wealth and inner abundance will not bring you peace and inner balance, they will cause only anxiety and the desire for primitive pathological more wanting.

“A new dress becomes old in time, loses its beautiful color in time, gets stains, gets wrinkles, gets worn off at the seams, and starts to show threadbare spots here and there, thus Siddhartha’s new life, which he had started after his separation from Govinda, had grown old, lost color and splendour as the years passed by, was gathering wrinkles and stains, and hidden at bottom, already showing its ugliness here and there, disappointment and disgust were waiting. Siddhartha did not notice it. He only noticed that this bright and reliable voice inside of him, which had awoken in him at that time and had ever guided him in his best times, had become silent. He had been captured by the world, by lust, covetousness, sloth, and finally also by that vice which he had used to despise and mock the most as the most foolish one of all vices: greed. Property, possessions, and riches also had finally captured him; they were no longer a game and trifles to him, had become a shackle and a burden.”

“And after each big loss, his mind was set on new riches, pursued the trade more zealously, forced his debtors more strictly to pay, because he wanted to continue gambling, he wanted to continue squandering, continue demonstrating his disdain of wealth. Siddhartha lost his calmness when losses occurred, lost his patience when he was not payed on time, lost his kindness towards beggars, lost his disposition for giving away and loaning money to those who petitioned him.”

Desire to commit suicide

Siddhartha decided to leave the city and commit suicide, but by accident, he fell into a deep meditation stage hearing Om, Aum, the sacred healing sound of the Universe. This sound saved his life.

There is something in this world that is more powerful than we are.

“Siddhartha walked through the forest, was already far from the city, and knew nothing but that one thing, that there was no going back for him, that this life, as he had lived it for many years until now, was over and done away with, and that he had tasted all of it, sucked everything out of it until he was disgusted with it. Dead was the singing bird, he had dreamt of. Dead was the bird in his heart. Deeply, he had been entangled in Sansara, he had sucked up disgust and death from all sides into his body, like a sponge sucks up water until it is full. And full he was, full of the feeling of been sick of it, full of misery, full of death, there was nothing left in this world which could have attracted him, given him joy, given him comfort.”

“What a wonderful sleep had this been! Never before by sleep, he had been thus refreshed, thus renewed, thus rejuvenated! Perhaps, he had really died, had drowned and was reborn in a new body? But no, he knew himself, he knew his hand and his feet, knew the place where he lay, knew this self in his chest, this Siddhartha, the eccentric, the weird one, but this Siddhartha was nevertheless transformed, was renewed, was strangely well rested, strangely awake, joyful and curious.”

Making friendship with ferryman Vasudeva

Not understanding what to do else and where to go he asked a ferryman if he could work together with him, Vasudeva, the ferryman, agreed. He was already Enlightened but his mission was to help Siddhartha truly understand and experience enlightenment without teaching him, but just be with him. Vasudeva did not study at some spiritual school, and did not meet a guru or Samana, but he studied everything from the river, the river awakened him and enlightened him.

“Now he saw it and saw that the secret voice had been right, that no teacher would ever have been able to bring about his salvation.Therefore, he had to go out into the world, lose himself to lust and power, to woman and money, and become a merchant, a dice-gambler, a drinker, and a greedy person, until the priest and Samana in him was dead. Therefore, he had to continue bearing these ugly years, bearing the disgust, the teachings, the pointlessness of a dreary and wasted life up to the end, up to bitter despair, until Siddhartha the lustful, Siddhartha the greedy could also die. He had died, a new Siddhartha had woken up from the sleep. He would also grow old, he would also eventually have to die, mortal was Siddhartha, mortal was every physical form. But today he was young, was a child, the new Siddhartha, and was full of joy”

Meeting his and Kamala’s son

Kamala became a devotee of Buddha and one day she decided to go on a pilgrimage with her son to meet with the Enlightened One before his death. During this trip, a poisonous snake bit her and she was dying. Occasionally this happened near a boat of a ferryman and Siddhartha took Kamila to the ferryman’s house. He understood that her son, young Siddhartha, was his son.

Experiencing parenthood

After Kamila’s death, young Siddhartha stayed with his father whom he did not accept, appreciate, and honor. He was very rude and spoiled by his luxurious life, he did not want to live with his father in complete poverty.

Siddhartha first in his life experienced attachment to a person and unconditioned love and could not give a possibility for his son to live his life as he wanted. A boy ran away from home to the city, and Siddhartha experienced loss. It was extremely difficult for him to accept it and let go. His friend Vasudeva showed him the way by listening to the water and observing it, water dissolved all his inner conflicts and problems, showed his own path, and that day Vasudeva left him as his mission was completed.

The enlightenment

Siddhartha ultimately became enlightened and people all over the city made stories about him and his enlightenment. One day his old friend Govinda came to him asking what did he do and how it was to become enlightened. He searched for enlightenment all his life and still did not find it.

“Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realisation, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness. Slowly this blossomed in him, was shining back at him from Vasudeva’s old, childlike face: harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling, oneness.

The river laughed. Yes, so it was, everything came back, which had not been suffered and solved up to its end, the same pain was suffered over and over again.”

“Any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided. Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with words, it’s all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness. When the exalted Gotama spoke in his teachings of the world, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into deception and truth, into suffering and salvation. It cannot be done differently, there is no other way for him who wants to teach. But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided. A person or an act is never entirely Sansara or entirely Nirvana, a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful. It does really seem like this, because we are subject to deception, as if time was something real. Time is not real, Govinda, I have experienced this often and often again. And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between the world and the eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between evil and good, is also a deception.”

“Siddhartha” makes me feel better in understanding my spiritual path, and in acknowledging that I did everything correctly, even if it looks like I could do differently and more easily. During my path, I had almost the same feelings, thoughts, and deeds as the protagonist of Hermann’s book. There is no universal recipe, methodology, or technique for the enlightenment, as there is no teacher that could make you the enlightened one. There is no spiritual school that can enhance your enlightenment. This is your path and your choice, and you should make billions of steps this way. And “Siddhartha” reveals a lot of truth and dissolves some myths and associations with understanding what does is mean to be a spiritual person. To feel the Nirvana, you need to experience Sansara. To become free, you need to suffer and struggle. To reveal your inner Light you need to go through your total Darkness facing all your internal demons.