Siddhartha

by Hermann Hesse

I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha.”

Meaning and essence were not somewhere or other in back of things, they were in them, in everything.

“When someone reads a piece of writing and wants to find out what it means, he does not feel contempt for the written signs and letters, calling them illusion, chance, and a valueless husk, but he reads them, he studies and loves them, letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own nature, I have held the signs and letters in contempt, for the sake of a preassumed interpretation ; I called the world of phenomena an illusion, I called my eyes and my tongue an accident, valueless phenomena. No, that is all over; I have awakened, I have really awakened and I have just been born today.”

It was beautiful and lovely to wander through the world this way, so like a child, so wide awake, so open to your surroundings, so free from mistrust.

His goal draws him toward itself, because he admits nothing into his soul that could oppose that goal.

Anyone can work magic, anyone can attain his goals, if he can think, if he can wait, if he can fast.”

“I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”

Most people, Kamala, are like a falling leaf, which drifts and turns in the air, and sways, and zigzags to the ground. But others, just a few, are like stars; they travel a fixed route, no wind reaches them; their law and their route lie within themselves.

These people were always in love: with themselves or with women; they loved their children, they loved honor or money, plans or hopes.

Just as someone who has eaten or drunk too much vomits it out again in great discomfort but nevertheless is glad of the relief, thus the insomniac wished he could rid himself of these pleasures, of these habits, of this whole pointless life, and of himself, in one enormous surge of nausea.

Remember, my dear friend: the world of created forms is transitory; transitory, extremely transitory, are our garments, and the way we do our hair, and our hair and body themselves.

Transitory things change swiftly, Govinda, as you know.”

And it now appeared to him that it had been his inability to love anything or anyone that had previously made him so ill.

Above all it taught him how to listen, to listen with a quiet heart, with an open, expectant soul, without passion, without a desire, without judging, without forming an opinion.

What father, what teacher, was able to protect him from living his own life, sullying himself with life on his own account, burdening himself with guilt on his own, drinking the bitter potion himself, finding his own path?

In that hour Siddhartha ceased to struggle with his destiny, he ceased to suffer. On his face there blossomed the serenity of a knowledge that was no longer opposed by his will, a knowledge that knew perfection, that was in accord with the river of events, with the current of life, full of sympathy, full of shared pleasure, yielding to the current, part of the oneness.

“When someone seeks,” Siddhartha said, “it is all too easy for his eyes to see nothing but the thing he seeks, so that he is unable to find anything or absorb anything because he is always thinking exclusively about what he seeks, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by that goal. Seeking means having a goal. But finding means being free, remaining accessible, having no goal. You, venerable one, are perhaps really one who seeks, because, pressing after your goal, you fail to see many a thing that is right before your eyes.”

“O Siddhartha, it seems to me you still enjoy making a little fun of people.

Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness.” “Are you joking?” Govinda asked.

Knowledge can be imparted, but not wisdom. You can discover it, it can guide your life, it can bear you up, you can do miracles with it, but you cannot tell it or teach it.

Even in his case, even in the case of your great teacher, the fact is dearer to me than words, his activities and life more important than his sermons, the gesture of his hands more important than his opinions. I see his greatness not in his sermons or his thoughts, but only in his activities, in his life.”