Siddhartha - A review
🧘🏼♂️ Introduction:
In this timeless novel, Hermann Hesse tells a tale of a frustrated young man who cannot meet spirituality halfway, and readers are delved into a story about suffering, desires, fulfillment, the oneness of all things, and love as the final frontier. We spend so much time worrying about things that are now that we tend to lose our grip on the completeness of the whole.
🦾 Characters:
🤵🏼♂️ Siddhartha is the main character of the book. He has the same name as the real-life Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. His life story is a lot like Buddha's as well, except that Buddha ushered in a spiritual revolution that is today the 5th greatest religion in the world.
👦🏼 Govinda is Siddhartha’s best friend. They spent their childhood together and went away from their village with the Samanas to wander the forests in search of spiritual enlightenment.
🧘🏼♂️ Gotama is an enlightened monk who was a Samana once, but after he becomes enlightened, he leaves the path of the Samanas and starts his own spiritual teaching. He is also named after the real-life Buddha and is similar in many regards.
💃🏼 Kamala is a courtesan whom Siddhartha meets after giving up on the ways of the Samanas. He uses her to satisfy his desires.
⛴️ Vasudeva is the ferryman who lives on the river and takes people across in his boat. He teaches Siddhartha how to listen to the voice of the river and the timelessness of all things.
📜 Story and Notes:
Why did Siddhartha leave the samanas?
As a young man, Siddhartha joined the Samanas, who were religious figures that gave up everything in their search for enlightenment. Enlightenment is defined as a spiritual state in which one becomes immune to any kind of suffering. The Samanas wandered through forests and begged for food from the villages they passed on their journey. Having learned everything that the people in his village could teach him, Siddhartha decided to join the Samanas. He learned how to walk until his feet and legs no longer hurt, and how to sit and sleep on the hard ground until his body was accustomed to it. He learned to fast for inhumanly long periods of time and to meditate for hours or even days. However, he always returned to himself in the end. Although he could trick himself into getting away from all human desires and thirsts through meditation and losing himself in his breath, every path that took him away from himself inevitably brought him back, and he felt pain, thirst, hunger, and need for human connection, among other things. So what was the difference between Siddhartha, who had given up all worldly pleasures in search of the highest good, and a man who indulged in worldly pleasures like drinking? He drank to lose himself and forget his worries, while Siddhartha meditated to lose himself and forget his worries. Thus, how was Siddhartha any holier than this man? Overwhelmed by these thoughts, Siddhartha became convinced that he would not find enlightenment with the Samanas, and he left them.
Why exactly did Siddhartha not accept the teachings of Gotama - the enlightened one?
Siddhartha and his Samana friend, Govinda, leave the Samanas and travel to listen to the teachings of the enlightened one, Gotama. When Siddhartha looks at the enlightened one, he knows that this is the holiest of men, yet he cannot accept Gotama's teachings. He believes that true enlightenment does not come from the outside, no matter how valuable the lessons are. One must search within oneself, find the root of all things, and connect to it to find true transcendence from suffering. Even though Siddhartha thinks that the enlightened one has completely transcended suffering, he still believes that he has to find his own way to it. This is the one thing that cannot be taught; it has to be experienced through self-reflection.
What was Siddhartha’s awakening?
After leaving Gotama, Siddhartha experiences an awakening. For the years he spent with the Samanas, he believed that the material world was nothing but an illusion. The truth existed within him, and he had to get rid of his "self" and become one with nature to transcend suffering. He believed that detachment from everything was the only way. However, detachment from everything is still attachment to detachment. He questions this ridiculous, paradoxical notion. The only thing he can know is his "self." What else is there? All the data in his brain comes from his senses, which convey information from the outside world. What does it matter if it is real or an illusion? It is all the same thing. He sees the world in a new light and appreciates small things like the green shade of the grass, the blue of the sky, clouds passing by, and the sound of crickets chirping. The world is beautiful, and it was wrong to view it any other way. Siddhartha promises himself that he will only listen to his "self." Since he had already rejected the teachings of the enlightened one, no one will ever be able to teach him anything. No doctrine will be good enough for him, so all he can do is listen to the voice within him and do whatever it says.
What did Kamala and the life of riches give Siddhartha and why did he leave them?
Siddhartha listened to his long-buried desires, which always resurfaced after meditating during his days in the forest. They constituted his self. He embraced them now. He had only three skills: thinking, waiting, and fasting. He apprenticed under a merchant and began earning money, while also indulging in bodily pleasures with a courtesan named Kamala. He excelled in playing the long game in business by waiting and thinking for extended periods. His strength lay in his ability to view things from a bird's eye perspective, avoiding anxiety and anger that entrapped others in their petty concerns. He played life's games without attachment to outcomes, knowing that attachment to a particular outcome often led to suffering. If things did not go well in business, he would think of the next best move and patiently wait for improvement. As he rose to become a wealthy businessman, people sought his advice, and he became the subject of their endless praise. Slowly, he began seeing them as inferior since he had more money. He started gambling, winning and losing millions, and became angry when people did not return his money. He lost his ability to think, as he was drunk or hungover most of the time. He punished those who he saw as beneath him and surrounded himself with more and more attractive courtesans. He was drowning in the sea of his desires and greed, no longer the man he used to be. The morning he walked away from Gotama was not an awakening, but the start of another long sleep filled with passion, desires, and even more suffering. Disgusted with himself he ran away from Kamala, his riches, and, everything he had built in the city.
The River and the idea of timelessness
After running away from a life of riches in utter despair, Siddhartha comes across a river. He is broken and wants to drown himself in the river. This is the lowest point he has ever been in his life, even after suffering so much in the forest with the samanas, which was about two decades ago now. He cannot bring himself to do it and falls asleep at the riverbank. He wakes up refreshed and feels so much better about life. The river that felt like an object of his demise now feels like a new opportunity. Maybe he can live on the river and learn more about it. He walks along the riverbank, admiring it and listening to it, and he finds a ferryman who takes people from one side of the river to another. Siddhartha sits in the boat and asks if he can help the ferryman, Vasudeva. Siddhartha becomes Vasudeva's disciple and starts to learn from him. They start living together, and Siddhartha learns much from Vasudeva. He learns about the oneness of all things, how a river is always there, yet always moving. It is a river when at its beginning in the mountains, the same river when it ends in the ocean, the same river when it becomes clouds and repeats the cycle. It is always moving, and yet it is always here. It is restless when it is restless, and it is calm when it is calm. It does not want anything; it just is what it is. There is acceptance in the river and rejection in Siddhartha: the rejection of the ways of the samana, rejection of the teachings of the awakened one, and rejection of the life of the riches. It is precisely because he seeks that he cannot find.
