Life Lessons from “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse

In just over 100 pages, Herman Hesse tells a poetic, profound and powerful story of a man’s path towards enlightenment. Many stories twice or three times the length of Hesse’s Siddhartha fall short in capturing the essence of a soulful yet intellectual character, the profundity of such a character’s thoughts and realizations in relation to his actions, and appear verbose in comparison to the amount of weight and power Hesse’s Siddhartha carries in so few words.

Hesse was ahead of his time. What distinguishes Hesse’s story of one man’s path to enlightenment from others before and after him is his bridging of Eastern and Western traditions, philosophy and intellectual thought, as well as the bridging of a spiritual, ascetic life and that of society, or “the child people,” as Hesse terms “unenlightened” people. I appreciate Siddhartha’s exploration of the whole range of human possibilities―from his religious upbringing, to a wandering ascetic, to carving his own path as a wealthy merchant and lover, to pursuing a simple life as a ferryman and finally, to navigating the tricky waters of fatherhood.

Many of these events parallel the historical Buddha’s own experiences. Hesse seems to believe that the path to enlightenment is an individualistic, experiential one, and advocates exploration of one’s own life, heart and mind rather than following…