Siddhartha

by Hermann Hesse

work of art and a philosophical parable, but as a sacred text for deeply committed readers who brooked no dissection or analysis? Siddhartha can respond to all these contradictory perspectives, because

it represents all and none of these: it is a work of lyrical poetry in prose.

romantic way of experiencing the outside world as an interior dimension.

credo,

pedantic,

Although the range and depth of his readings remained restricted by his need to work only with German translations, he was aware of this limitation and worked within it faithfully as best he could.

promulgate

unmistakable presence of a Western persona in the wings of the Eastern stage.

ascetic

goal than to create a space within ourselves in which God’s voice can be heard.”

the call for wholeness over the corrosiveness of death-dealing war, with Siddhartha struggling to find that wholeness in the ascetic life.

Siddhartha, the father, must ultimately accept the son’s escape back into the city of samsara (just as Siddhartha himself had once escaped in the opposite direction, toward asceticism), implementing, as in a poem, the constant confrontation and reconciliation of these two realms in the search for “wordless” unity.

(Kama being the god of love and the senses) and who becomes his teacher in the sexual arts, introducing him to worldly desire and its fulfillment, not unlike the twin figures Hermine and Maria in the later Steppenwolf. Her death at the river in her search for salvation (her desire to reach the Buddha) again portrays the dialectic of samsara and nirvana—sense and spirit—that pervades the book.

river Siddhartha crosses early and late in the novel stands out as a symbol separating and connecting samsara and nirvana.

Hesse’s Siddhartha left the established priestly house of his parents, where he was well protected; Buddha, dissatisfied with the splendor and luxury of his father’s kingdom, also leaves home.

Finally, Siddhartha’s third, reconciling step foresaw neither a complete return to the ascetic life nor the continued immersion in the senses. Rather, by joining Vasudeva at the river, Siddhartha guarded the bridge between these worlds. At the same time, in the vision produced by Govinda’s kiss, Buddha’s smile reconnects this reconciling identity with his own authoritative presence.

audiences in touch with its nonverbal message—is so effective in this book precisely because it uses words as expressions of sensed thought rather than as verbalized thought in promoting the idea of unity above the inner divisions of people and the fissures of societies in crisis.

adulatory

In the shade of the house, in the sunshine near the boats on the riverbank, in the shade of the sal forest, in the shade of the fig tree,

The repetition tion is lyrical

ablutions,

when Siddhartha became a god, someday, when he joined the radiant ones, then Govinda would follow him, as his friend, as his companion, as his servant, as his lance bearer, his shadow.

first glance, Govinda realized: Now it is beginning, now Siddhartha is following his path, now his destiny is starting to sprout, and mine with his. And he turned as pale as a dried banana peel.

empty of thirst, empty of desire, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. To die away from himself, no longer be self, to find peace with an emptied heart, to be open to miracles in unselfed thinking: that was his goal. When the entire self was transcended and extinct, when every drive and every mania in the heart had fallen silent, then the ultimate was bound to awaken, the innermost essence, which is no longer ego, the great secret.

“Now tell me, Govinda, are we really on the right path? Are we really approaching knowledge? Are we really approaching redemption? Or are we not perhaps going in a circle—we

Is faith in this method in being a shamana par of the process?

we will get almost as old and we will practice, and we will fast and we will meditate.

They get to choose but I woud say they could be living a life with more dignity

redolent

spurn

He has robbed me of my friend, my friend, who believed in me and who now believes in him—my friend, who was my shadow and is now Gautama’s shadow. But he has given me Siddhartha, has given me my self.

For, it seemed to him, thinking is recognizing causes, and that is the only way in which sensations become insights: they are not lost, they become substance and begin to radiate what is within them.

I will learn from me, from myself, I will be my own pupil: I will get to know myself, the secret that is Siddhartha.”

Meaning and reality were not somewhere beyond things, they were in them, in everything.

he was alone like a star in the sky, from that moment of coldness and despondence, Siddhartha surfaced, more ego than before, more concentrated. He felt that this had been the final shudder of awakening, the last cramp of birth. And instantly he started walking again, started walking swiftly and impatiently, no longer to his home, no longer to his father, no longer back.

“All the people I meet on my path are like Govinda. All are thankful, although they themselves have the right to be thanked. All are subservient, all want to be friends, like to obey, think little. People are children.”

And at that instant he shuddered upon hearing his innermost voice, and the voice said, “No.” All magic left the young woman’s smiling face; Siddhartha saw nothing more than the moist gaze of a rutting female animal.

My lips too are red and fresh, they will fit yours, you will see. But tell me, beautiful Kamala, do you not fear the samana from the forest, who has come to learn love?”

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

Kamala heard him out. She loved his voice, she loved the look in his eyes.

‘Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.’

She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other,

He always seems to be only playing at business, it never fully becomes part of him, it never dominates him, he never fears failures, he is never bothered by a loss.”

And this whole game and the passion with which all people played it occupied his mind as much as the gods and Brahma had once occupied

hetaera

It was always the art of thinking, of waiting, of fasting that guided his life; the worldlings, the child people, were still foreign to him as he to them.

after his separation from Govinda, that alert expectation, that proud independence without teachings or teachers, that supple willingness to hear the godly voice in his own heart, had gradually become memories, had been ephemeral.

Yet he still felt different from others and superior to them; he had always watched them with a touch of scoffing, with a touch of scorn, the very scorn that a samana always feels toward people of the world.

He envied them for the one thing that he lacked and that they had: the importance they were able to place on their lives, the passionateness of their joys and fears, the queasy but sweet happiness of being eternally in love.

titillate

ardor

surfeit

He had heard that voice when leaving his homeland and choosing the life of the samana, and again, when going from the samanas to that Perfect One, and then from him into the unknown.

The voice wants him to lead many lives