Siddhartha (Modern Library Classics)

by Hermann Hesse

The problem, for writers and readers alike, with all this inward gazing is how few of us ever gaze in far enough to justify the strain.

Once he became convinced that we humans can alter reality by altering our perceptions of it, the lid was off the pitcher. Hesse went to his writing desk and poured the nectar.

Finally, the seeker even rejects seeking, concluding that ultimate reality can never be captured in a net made of thought, and that “knowing has no worse enemy than the desire to know.”

His mind was not content, his soul not at peace, his heart restless. The ablutions were good, but they were only water; they could not wash away sin, could not quench his mind’s thirst or dispel his heart’s fear.

But where, where was this Self, this innermost, utmost thing? It was not flesh and bone, it was not thought and not consciousness, at least according to the wise men’s teachings. Where was it then, where?

“Your soul is the entire world” was written there, and it was written as well that in sleep, the deepest sleep, man entered the innermost core of his being and dwelt in Atman.

But even he, who was possessed of such knowledge, did he dwell in bliss, did he know peace? Was not he too only a seeker, a man tormented by thirst?

And of all the wise and wisest men he knew and whose teachings he enjoyed, not a single one had succeeded in reaching it, this heavenly world; not one had fully quenched that eternal thirst.

Govinda realized: Now it is beginning, now Siddhartha is on his way, now his destiny is beginning to bud and, along with it, mine as well. And he turned as pale as a dried-out banana peel.

Mute and motionless stood the son with his arms crossed, mute and motionless upon his mat sat the father, and the stars moved across the sky.

In Siddhartha’s face he saw no trembling; his eyes gazed into the distance straight before him. The father realized then that Siddhartha was no longer with him in the place of his birth. His son had already left him behind.

Before him, Siddhartha saw a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of want, empty of dream, empty of joy and sorrow. To let the ego perish, to be “I” no longer, to find peace with an empty heart and await the miraculous with thoughts free of Self. This was his goal.

A heron flew over the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha received the heron into his soul, flew over forests and mountains, was heron, ate fish, felt the pangs of heron hunger, spoke in heron squawks, died a heron death.

A thousand times he left his Self behind, spent hours and days at a time liberated from it. But just as all these paths led away from the Self, the end of each of them returned him to it.

Are we drawing closer to knowledge? Are we drawing closer to redemption? Or are we not perhaps walking in circles—we who had hoped to escape the cycle?”

We are not walking in a circle, we are ascending; the circle is a spiral, and we have already climbed many of its steps.”

There is in fact—and this I believe—no such thing as what we call ‘learning.’ There is, my friend, only knowing, and this is everywhere; it is Atman, it is in me and in you and in every creature.

I have become distrustful and weary of doctrines and learning and that I have little faith in words that come to us from teachers.

Whether this world be good or evil, and life in it sorrow or joy—let us set this question aside, for it is quite possibly not essential.

Opinions are of little account; be they lovely or displeasing, clever or foolish, anyone can subscribe to or dismiss them. But the doctrine you heard from me is not my opinion, and its goal is not to explain the world to the inquisitive.

No one will ever attain redemption through doctrine! Never, O Venerable One, will you be able to convey in words and show and say through your teachings what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment.

This is why I am continuing my journey—not in order to seek a different, better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave behind me all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal alone or perish.

It is not fitting for me to pass judgment on another’s life! Only for myself, for myself alone, must I judge, must I choose, must I reject.

“You speak cleverly, my friend. Be on your guard against too much cleverness!”

I myself would like to be able to gaze and smile, sit and walk in just such a way, so freely, so venerably, so secretly, so openly, so childishly and mysteriously.

Immersed in deep contemplation of this feeling, which had taken hold of him completely, he walked slowly away, allowing himself to sink to the bottom of this feeling as if through deep water, down to where the causes lay.

Something that had accompanied him throughout his youth and been a part of him was no longer present: the desire to have teachers and hear doctrine.

That I know nothing of myself, that Siddhartha has remained such a stranger to me, such an unknown, comes from one cause, from a single cause: I was afraid of myself, was running away from myself!

No more killing myself, no more chopping myself into bits in the hope of finding some secret hidden among the debris.

Everything was beautiful, everything mysterious and magical, and in the midst of all this was he, Siddhartha, in the moment of his awakening, on the path to himself.

Meaning and being did not lie somewhere behind things; they lay within them, within everything.

For years he had been without a home and had not felt it. Now he felt it.

How beautiful the world was when one looked at it without searching, just looked, simply and innocently.

How beautiful, how lovely it was to walk through the world like this, like a child, so awake, so open to what was near at hand, so free of distrust.

All these things had always been there, and yet he had not seen them; he had not been present. Now he was present, he belonged. Light and shade passed through his eyes, star and moon passed through his heart.

But never had he truly found this Self, for he had been trying to capture it with a net made of thought.

To obey like this, to obey not a command from the outside but only the voice, to be in readiness—this was good, this was necessary. Nothing else was necessary.

This too I have learned from the river: Everything comes back again!

Beautiful and red is Kamala’s mouth, but try to kiss it against her will and you will get from it not a single drop of sweetness, though it has much sweetness to offer.

You must do what you have learned to do and in exchange have people give you money and clothes and shoes. There is no other way for a poor man to get money.

I need clothing and money, that is all. These goals are small and within reach; they will not trouble my sleep.

“You’ve been lucky,” she said, as he was taking leave of her. “One door after the other is opening before you. How is that? Do you have magical powers?”

You see, Kamala, when you throw a stone into the water, it hurries by the swiftest possible path to the bottom. It is like this when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolve.

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

Kamaswami pursued his business with solicitousness, even with passion, but Siddhartha saw it all as a game whose rules he was striving to learn but whose substance did not touch his heart.

She taught him that lovers may not part after celebrating their love until each has admired the other, each been as much victor as vanquished, so that neither might be beset by surfeit or tedium or an uneasy sense of having taken advantage or been taken advantage of.

“Certainly.” Siddhartha laughed. “Certainly I undertook the journey for my pleasure. Why else?

Kamaswami was never able to persuade Siddhartha that it was useful to speak words of worry or of anger, to have a wrinkled brow, or to sleep poorly.

He observed people living in a childish or animal way that he simultaneously loved and deplored.

At once he would become conscious for an hour that he was living a strange life, that all the things he was doing here were but a game, and that, while he was in good spirits and at times felt joy, life itself was nonetheless rushing by without touching him.