Siddhartha

by Hermann Hesse

“Writing is good, thinking is better. Intelligence is good, but patience is better.”

the importance they were able to place on their lives, the amount of passion in their joys and fears, and the trepidation but sweet happiness of being constantly in love. These people were always in love with themselves, with women, with their children, with accolades or riches, and with aspirations. But this out of all things—the joy and foolishness of a child—was

“Om”, which means roughly “that which is perfect” or “the completion”.

meaning of Om

the world of appearances is not eternal, and our garments, hairstyle, even our hair and bodies themselves are anything but eternal.

river was also going downwards, always moving downhill while singing and being happy through it all.

virtues was one of the greatest: he knew how to listen like few others could.

river is everywhere at once, at the source and the mouth, at the waterfall, the ferry, the rapids, the sea, and the mountains. It is everywhere at once, and there only the present exists for it—not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”

Nothing was and nothing will be: everything is, and everything is present and has existence.”

‘soft’ is stronger than ‘hard’, that water is stronger than the rocks, that love is stronger than compulsion. This is good; I praise you.

every other regard, worldly people were of equal rank to the wise men, and were often far superior to them in the same way that animals can, in some moments, seem superior to humans because of the tough, unrelenting pursuit of necessities.

And together—all the voices,

all the goals, all suffering, pleasure, good, and evil—together, it was all the world. All of it together was the flow of events and the music of life.

‘When someone is searching,” said Siddhartha, “then it can easily happen that the only thing his eyes see is that for which he is searching. He is then unable to find anything or let any thought enter his mind because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search. He is obsessed by a goal; searching means having a goal. But finding means: being free, open, and having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, because, in striving for your goal, there are many things that you don’t see, even though they are right in front of your eyes.”

wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness.”

Knowledge can be transferred, but not wisdom. It can be found and lived, and it is possible to be carried by it. Miracles can be performed with it, but it can’t be expressed and taught with words. This

Everything that can be thought with the mind and said with words is one-sided,

But the world itself that exists around us and inside of us is never one-sided. A person or an action is never entirely Samsara or Nirvana, and a person is never completely holy or sinful. It really seems like this, of course, because we are subject to the deception that time is something real. Time is not real, Govinda; I have experienced this many times over. And if time is not real, then the divide which seems to separate the world from eternity, suffering from bliss, and evil from good, is also a deception.”

The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect or on a slow path towards perfection; no, it is perfect every moment.

isn’t possible for any one person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path, because the Buddha is waiting inside the robber and the gambler, and the robber is waiting within the Brahmin. It is also possible through deep meditation to put time out of existence and to see all the life that was and is and ever will be as if they were all simultaneous; in that simultaneity is everything that is good, perfect, and Brahman.

everything has to be just as it is, and everything requires only my consent, willingness, and loving agreement to become good to me and work for my benefit, unable to ever harm me.

up. I had to learn how to leave the world as it is, to love it, and to enjoy being a part of it.

this stone is a stone, and it is also an animal, a god, and Buddha; I do not venerate it because it could turn into this or that, but rather because it already is and always will be everything. The very fact that it is a stone and appears to me today and now as a stone is the reason why I love it and see worth and purpose in each of its veins and cavities, in the yellow and gray, in the hardness, in the sound it makes when I knock at it, or in the dryness or wetness of its surface.

is put into words. It gets distorted slightly and seems a bit silly—yes, this is also very good and I like it quite a bit, and I agree with the idea that what is one man’s treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to someone else.”

This is another teaching that you will laugh about: love, oh Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all. Great thinkers may try to thoroughly understand the world, explain it, and despise it. But I’m only interested in being able to love the world, not despise it. I don’t want to hate it and have it hate me; I want to be able to look upon it and myself and upon all beings with love, admiration, and great respect.”

importance on his actions and life than on his speeches, more stock in the gestures of his hand than in his opinions. I see his greatness not in his speech or his thoughts, but only in his actions and life.”