Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

“"Siddhartha," he spoke, "what are you waiting for?"

"You know what."

"Will you always stand that way and wait, until it'll becomes morning, noon, and evening?"

"I will stand and wait.

"You will become tired, Siddhartha."

"I will become tired."

"You will fall asleep, Siddhartha."

"I will not fall asleep."

"You will die, Siddhartha."

"I will die."”

“Siddhartha gave his garments to a poor Brahman in the street. He wore nothing more than the loincloth and the earth-coloured, unsown cloak. He ate only once a day, and never something cooked. He fasted for fifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight days. The flesh waned from his thighs and cheeks. Feverish dreams flickered from his enlarged eyes, long nails grew slowly on his parched fingers and a dry, shaggy beard grew on his chin. His glance turned to ice when he encountered women; his mouth twitched with contempt, when he walked through a city of nicely dressed people. He saw merchants trading, princes hunting, mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians trying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day for seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children—and all of this was not worthy of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank, it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful and beautiful, and it all was just concealed putrefaction. The world tasted bitter. Life was torture.”

“A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with an emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal. Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my self, the great secret.”

“Siddhartha stayed rigidly, stayed motionless, until no blood flowed any more, until nothing stung any more, until nothing burned any more.”

“And Siddhartha's soul returned, had died, had decayed, was scattered as dust, had tasted the gloomy intoxication of the cycle, awaited in new thirst like a hunter in the gap, where he could escape from the cycle, where the end of the causes, where an eternity without suffering began. He killed his senses, he killed his memory, he slipped out of his self into thousands of other forms, was an animal, was carrion, was stone, was wood, was water, and awoke every time to find his old self again, sun shone or moon, was his self again, turned round in the cycle, felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt new thirst.”

“But he, Siddhartha, was not a source of joy for himself, he found no delight in himself. Walking the rosy paths of the fig tree garden, sitting in the bluish shade of the grove of contemplation, washing his limbs daily in the bath of repentance, sacrificing in the dim shade of the mango forest, his gestures of perfect decency, everyone's love and joy, he still lacked all joy in his heart. Dreams and restless thoughts came into his mind, flowing from the water of the river, sparkling from the stars of the night, melting from the beams of the sun, dreams came to him and a restlessness of the soul, fuming from the sacrifices, breathing forth from the verses of the Rig-Veda, being infused into him, drop by drop, from the teachings of the old Brahmans.”

"Govinda answered:  "We have learned, and we'll continue learning. You'll be a great Samana, Siddhartha.  Quickly, you've learned every exercise, often the old Samanas have admired you.  One day, you'll be a holy man, oh Siddhartha."

Quoth Siddhartha:  "I can't help but feel that it is not like this, my friend.  What I've learned, being among the Samanas, up to this day, this, oh Govinda, I could have learned more quickly and by simpler means.  In every tavern of that part of a town where the whorehouses are, my friend, among carters and gamblers I could have learned it."

“And Siddhartha spoke with a smile:  "I do not know, I've never been a drunkard.  But that I, Siddhartha, find only a short numbing of the senses in my exercises and meditations and that I am just as far removed from wisdom, from salvation, as a child in the mother's womb, this I know, oh Govinda, this I know."

“It took me a long time and am not finished learning this  yet, oh Govinda: that there is nothing to be learned!  There is indeed no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as `learning'.  There is, oh my friend, just one knowledge, this is everywhere, this is Atman, this is within me and within you and within every creature.  And so I'm starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the desire to know it, than learning."

“On the way, Govinda said:  "Oh Siddhartha, you have learned more from the Samanas than I knew.  It is hard, it is very hard to cast a spell on an old Samana.  Truly, if you had stayed there, you would soon have learned to walk on water."

"I do not seek to walk on water," said Siddhartha.  "Let old Samanas be content with such feats!"

“But his face and his walk, his quietly lowered glance, his quietly dangling hand and even every finger of his quietly dangling hand expressed peace, expressed perfection, did not search, did not imitate, breathed softly in an unwhithering calm, in an unwhithering light, an untouchable peace”

“And--thus is my thought, oh exalted one,--nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings!  You will not be able to convey and say to anybody, oh venerable one, in words and through teachings what has happened to you in the hour of enlightenment!”

"You know how to talk wisely, my friend.  Be aware of too much wisdom!"

“He pondered deeply, like diving into a deep water he let himself sink down to the ground of the sensation, down to the place where the causes lie, because to identify the causes, so it seemed to him, is the very essence of thinking, and by this alone sensations turn into realizations and are not lost, but become entities and start to emit like rays of light what is inside of them.”

“Slowly walking along, Siddhartha pondered.  He realized that he was no youth any more, but had turned into a man.  He realized that one thing had left him, as a snake is left by its old skin, that one thing no longer existed in him, which had accompanied him throughout his youth and used to be a part of him: the wish to have teachers and to listen to teachings.”

“"It was the self, the purpose and essence of which I sought to learn.  It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome.  But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it.  Truly, nothing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha!  And there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about Siddhartha!"”

“"Oh," he thought, taking a deep breath, "now I would not let Siddhartha escape from me again!  No longer, I want to begin my thoughts and my life with Atman and with the suffering of the world.  I do not want to kill and dissect myself any longer, to find a secret behind the ruins. Neither Yoga-Veda shall teach me any more, nor Atharva-Veda, nor the ascetics, nor any kind of teachings.  I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha."”

“He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colourful was the world, strange and mysterious was the world!  Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself.  All of this, all this yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha for the first time through the eyes, was no longer a spell of Mara, was no longer the veil of Maya, was no longer a pointless and coincidental diversity of mere appearances, despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman, who scorns diversity, who seeks unity.  Blue was blue, river was river, and if also in the blue and the river, in Siddhartha, the singular and divine lived hidden, so it was still that very divinity's way and purpose, to be here yellow, here blue, there sky, there forest, and here Siddhartha.  The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything.”

“All of this, a thousand-fold and colourful, had always been there, always the sun and the moon had shone, always rivers had roared and bees had buzzed, but in former times all of this had been nothing more to Siddhartha than a fleeting, deceptive veil before his eyes, looked upon in distrust, destined to be penetrated and destroyed by thought, since it was not the essential existence, since this essence lay beyond, on the other side of, the visible.  But now, his liberated eyes stayed on this side, he saw and became aware of the visible, sought to be at home in this world, did not search for the true essence, did not aim at a world beyond.  Beautiful was this world, looking at it thus, without searching, thus simply, thus childlike.  Beautiful were the moon and the stars, beautiful was the stream and the banks, the forest and the rocks, the goat and the gold-beetle, the flower and the butterfly. Beautiful and lovely it was, thus to walk through the world, thus childlike, thus awoken, thus open to what is near, thus without distrust.”

“With the body definitely not being the self, and not the spectacle of the senses, so it also was not the thought, not the rational mind, not the learned wisdom, not the learned ability to draw conclusions and to develop previous thoughts in to new ones.  No, this world of thought was also still on this side, and nothing could be achieved by killing the random self of the senses, if the random self of thoughts and learned knowledge was fattened on the other hand.  Both, the thoughts as well as the senses, were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them, both had to be listened to, both had to be played with, both neither had to be scorned nor overestimated, from both the secret voices of the innermost truth had to be attentively perceived.  He wanted to strive for nothing, except for what the voice commanded him to strive for, dwell on nothing, except where the voice would advise him to do so.”

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“To obey like this, not to an external command, only to the voice, to be ready like this, this was good, this was necessary, nothing else was necessary.”

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“You are learning easily, Siddhartha, thus you should also learn this: love can be obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the street, but it cannot be stolen.”

“She beckoned him with her eyes, he tilted his head so that his face touched hers and placed his mouth on that mouth which was like a cracked fig.  For a long time, Kamala kissed him, and with a deep astonishment Siddhartha felt how she taught him, how wise she was, how she controlled him, rejected him, lured him, and how after this first one there was to be a long, a well ordered, well tested sequence of kisses, everyone different from the others, he was still to receive.”

“Siddhartha said:  "Yesterday, I told you I knew how to think, to wait, and to fast, but you thought this was of no use.  But it is useful for many things, Kamala, you'll see.  You'll see that the stupid Samanas are learning and able to do many pretty things in the forest, which the likes of you aren't capable of.  The day before yesterday, I was still a shaggy beggar, as soon as yesterday I have kissed Kamala, and soon I'll be a merchant and have money and all those things you insist upon."”

“Look, Kamala:  When you throw a rock into the water, it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water.  This is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution.  Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like a rock through water, without doing anything, without stirring; he is drawn, he lets himself fall.  His goal attracts him, because he doesn't let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal.  This is what Siddhartha has learned among the Samanas.  This is what fools call magic and of which they think it would be effected by means of the daemons.  Nothing is effected by daemons, there are no daemons.  Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast."”

“"And what's the use of that?  For example, the fasting--what is it

good for?"

"It is very good, sir.  When a person has nothing to eat, fasting is the

smartest thing he could do.”

“Kamaswami conducted his business with care and often with passion, but Siddhartha looked upon all of this as if it was a game, the rules of which he tried hard to learn precisely, but the contents of which did not touch his heart.”

“Kamaswami could never convince his partner that it would be useful to utter a few words of worry or anger, to have wrinkles on the forehead, to sleep badly.  When, one day, Kamaswami held against him that he had learned everything he knew from him, he replied:  "Would you please not kid me with such jokes!  What I've learned from you is how much a basket of fish costs and how much interests may be charged on loaned money.  These are your areas of expertise.  I haven't learned to think from you, my dear Kamaswami, you ought to be the one seeking to learn from me."”

“However easily he succeeded in talking to all of them, in living with all of them, in learning from all of them, he was still aware that there was something which separated him from them and this separating factor was him being a Samana.  He saw mankind going through life in a childlike or animallike manner, which he loved and also despised at the same time.  He saw them toiling, saw them suffering, and becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him to entirely unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being slightly honoured, he saw them scolding and insulting each other, he saw them complaining about pain at which a Samana would only smile, and suffering because of deprivations which a Samana would not feel.”

*****

“Most people, Kamala, are like a falling leaf, which is blown and is turning around through the air, and wavers, and tumbles to the ground.  But others, a few, are like stars, they go on a fixed course, no wind reaches them, in themselves they have their law and their course.”

***

“For a long time, Siddhartha had lived the life of the world and of lust, though without being a part of it.  His senses, which he had killed offin hot years as a Samana, had awoken again, he had tasted riches, had tasted lust, had tasted power; nevertheless he had still remained in his heart for a long time a Samana; Kamala, being smart, had realized this quite right.  It was still the art of thinking, of waiting, of fasting, which guided his life; still the people of the world, the childlike people, had remained alien to him as he was alien to them.”

“Slowly, like humidity entering the dying stem of a tree, filling it slowly and making it rot, the world and sloth had entered Siddhartha's soul, slowly it filled his soul, made it heavy, made it tired, put it to sleep.”

“He had been captured by the world, by lust, covetousness, sloth, and finally also by that vice which he had used to despise and mock the most as the most foolish one of all vices: greed.  Property, possessions, and riches also had finally captured him; they were no longer a game and trifles to him, had become a shackle and a burden.”

“That fear, that terrible and petrifying fear, which he felt while he was rolling the dice, while he was worried about losing high stakes, that fear he loved and sought to always renew it, always increase it, always get it to a slightly higher level, for in this feeling alone he still felt something like happiness, something like an intoxication, something like an elevated form of life in the midst of his saturated, lukewarm, dull life.”

“But more than by anything else, he was disgusted by himself, by his perfumed hair, by the smell of wine from his mouth, by the flabby tiredness and listlessness of his skin.  Like when someone, who has eaten and drunk far too much, vomits it back up again with agonising pain and is nevertheless glad about the relief, thus this sleepless man wished to free himself of these pleasures, these habits and all of this pointless life and himself, in an immense burst of disgust.”

“For how long had he not heard this voice any more, for how long had he reached no height any more, how even and dull was the manner in which his path had passed through life, for many long years, without a high goal, without thirst, without elevation, content with small lustful pleasures and yet never satisfied!  For all of these many years, without knowing it himself, he had tried hard and longed to become a man like those many, like those children, and in all this, his life had been much more miserable and poorer than theirs, and their goals were not his, nor their worries; after all, that entire world of the Kamaswami-people had only been a game to him, a dance he would watch, a comedy.”

“When she received the first news of Siddhartha's disappearance, she went to the window, where she held a rare singing bird captive in a golden cage.  She opened the door of the cage, took the bird out and let it fly.  For a long time, she gazed after it, the flying bird.  From this day on, she received no more visitors and kept her house locked.  But after some time, she became aware that she was pregnant from the last time she was together with Siddhartha.”

“A frightening emptiness was reflected back at him by the water, answering to the terrible emptiness in his soul.  Yes, he had reached the end.  There was nothing left for him, except to annihilate himself, except to smash the failure into which he had shaped his life, to throw it away, before the feet of mockingly laughing gods.  This was the great vomiting he had longed for: death, the smashing to bits of the form he hated!  Let him be food for fishes, this dog Siddhartha, this lunatic, this depraved and rotten body, this weakened and abused soul!  Let him be food for fishes and crocodiles, let him be chopped to bits by the daemons!”

“Then, out of remote areas of his soul, out of past times of his now weary life, a sound stirred up.  It was a word, a syllable, which he, without thinking, with a slurred voice, spoke to himself, the old word which is the beginning and the end of all prayers of the Brahmans, the holy "Om", which roughly means "that what is perfect" or "the completion".  And in the moment when the sound of "Om" touched Siddhartha's ear, his dormant spirit suddenly woke up and realized the foolishness of his actions.”

“Om! he spoke to himself:  Om!  and again he knew about Brahman, knew about the indestructibility of life, knew about all that is divine, which he had forgotten.”

-->

“Not eternal is the world of appearances, not eternal, anything but eternal are our garments and the style of our hair, and our hair and bodies themselves.”

“"Things are going downhill with you!" he said to himself, and laughed about it, and as he was saying it, he happened to glance at the river, and he also saw the river going downhill, always moving on downhill, and singing and being happy through it all.  He liked this well, kindly he smiled at the river.  Was this not the river in which he had intended to drown himself, in past times, a hundred years ago, or had he dreamed this?”

“But it was right so, my heart says "Yes" to it, my eyes smile to it.  I've had to experience despair, I've had to sink down to the most foolish one of all thoughts, to the thought of suicide, in order to be able to experience divine grace, to hear Om again, to be able to sleep properly and awake properly again.  I had to become a fool, to find Atman in me again.  I had to sin, to be able to live again.  Where else might my path lead me to?  It is foolish, this path, it moves in loops, perhaps it is going around in a circle.  Letit go as it likes, I want to take it.”

“How did I hate this world of the rich, of those who revel in fine food, of the gamblers!  How did I hate myself for staying in this terrible world for so long!  How did I hate myself, have deprive, poisoned,

tortured myself, have made myself old and evil!  No, never again I will, as I used to like doing so much, delude myself into thinking that Siddhartha was wise!  But this one thing I have done well, this I like, this I must praise, that there is now an end to that hatred against myself, to that foolish and dreary life!  I praise you, Siddhartha, after so many years of foolishness, you have once again had an idea, have done something, have heard the bird in your chest singing and have followed it!”

“That he had felt this despair, this deep disgust, and that he had not succumbed to it, that the bird, the joyful source and voice in him was still alive after all, this was why he felt joy, this was why he laughed, this was why his face was smiling brightly under his hair which had turned gray.”

“"It is good," he thought, "to get a taste of everything for oneself, which one needs to know.  That lust for the world and riches do not belong to the good things, I have already learned as a child.  I have known it for a long time, but I have experienced only now.  And now I know it, don't just know it in my memory, but in my eyes, in my heart, in my stomach.  Good for me, to know this!"”

“Now he saw it and saw that the secret voice had been right, that no teacher would ever have been able to bring about his salvation. Therefore, he had to go out into the world, lose himself to lust and power, to woman and money, had to become a merchant, a dice-gambler, a drinker, and a greedy person, until the priest and Samana in him was dead.  Therefore, he had to continue bearing these ugly years, bearing the disgust, the teachings, the pointlessness of a dreary and wasted life up to the end, up to bitter despair, until Siddhartha the lustful, Siddhartha the greedy could also die.  He had died, a new Siddhartha had woken up from the sleep.”

****

“He saw: this water ran and ran, incessantly it ran, and was nevertheless always there, was always at all times the same and yet new in every moment!”

****

“Vasudeva said:  "It is as I thought.  The river has spoken to you.  It is your friend as well, it speaks to you as well.  That is good, that is very good.”

“The river has taught me to listen, from it you will learn it as well.  It knows everything, the river, everything can be learned from it.  See, you've already learned this from the water too, that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek depth.” 

“But more than Vasudeva could teach him, he was taught by the river.  Incessantly, he learned from it.  Most of all, he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart, with a waiting, opened soul, without passion, without a wish, without judgement, without an opinion.”

Lessons from the river:

‘"Yes, Siddhartha," he spoke.  "It is this what you mean, isn't it: that the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future?"

"This it is," said Siddhartha.  "And when I had learned it, I looked at my life, and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was only separated from the man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by a shadow, not by something real.  Also, Siddhartha's previous births were no past, and his death and his return to Brahma was no future.  Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is present.”

“Often, they sat in the evening together by the bank on the log, said nothing and both listened to the water, which was no water to them, but the voice of life, the voice of what exists, of what is eternally taking shape.”

“The curious people asked many questions, but they got no answers, and they found neither sorcerers nor wise men, they only found two friendly little old men, who seemed to be mute and to have become a bit strange and gaga.”

“"Oh yes, he too is called upon, he too is of the eternal life.  But do we, you and me, know what he is called upon to do, what path to take, what actions to perform, what pain to endure?  Not a small one, his pain will be; after all, his heart is proud and hard, people like this have to suffer a lot, err a lot, do much injustice, burden themselves with much sin.”

“Which father, which teacher had been able to protect him from living his life for himself, from soiling himself with life, from burdening himself with guilt, from drinking the bitter drink for himself, from finding his path for himself?”

“Now he too felt, late, once in his lifetime, this strongest and strangest of all passions, suffered from it, suffered miserably, and was nevertheless in bliss, was nevertheless renewed in one respect, enriched by one thing.”

 

“He did sense very well that this love, this blind love for his son, was a passion, something very human, that it was Sansara, a murky source, dark waters.  Nevertheless, he felt at the same time, it was not worthless, it was necessary, came from the essence of his own being. This pleasure also had to be atoned for, this pain also had to be endured, these foolish acts also had to be committed.”

“Nevertheless, he ran without stopping, no longer to save him, just to satisfy his desire, just to perhaps see him one more time.”

“Deeply, he felt the love for the run-away in his heart, like a wound, and he felt at the same time that this wound had not been given to him in order to turn the knife in it, that it had to become a blossom and had to shine.”

“That this wound did not blossom yet, did not shine yet, at this hour, made him sad.  Instead of the desired goal, which had drawn him here following the runaway son, there was now emptiness.  Sadly, he sat down, felt something dying in his heart, experienced emptiness, saw no joy any more, no goal.  He sat lost in thought and waited.  This he had learned by the river, this one thing: waiting, having patience, listening attentively.  And he sat and listened, in the dust of the road, listened to his heart, beating tiredly and sadly, waited for a voice.  Many an hour he crouched, listening, saw no images any more, fell into emptiness, let himself fall, without seeing a path.  And when he felt the wound burning, he silently spoke the Om, filled himself with Om.”

“For a long time, the wound continued to burn.  Many a traveller Siddhartha had to ferry across the river who was accompanied by a son or a daughter, and he saw none of them without envying him, without thinking:  "So many, so many thousands possess this sweetest of good fortunes--why don't I?  Even bad people, even thieves and robbers have children and love them, and are being loved by them, all except for me." Thus simply, thus without reason he now thought, thus similar to the childlike people he had become.”

“The blind love of a mother for her child, the stupid, blind pride of a conceited father for his only son, the blind, wild desire of a young, vain woman for jewelry and admiring glances from men, all of these urges, all of this childish stuff, all of these simple, foolish, but immensely strong, strongly living, strongly

prevailing urges and desires were now no childish notions for Siddhartha any more, he saw people living for their sake, saw them achieving infinitely much for their sake, travelling, conducting wars, suffering infinitely much, bearing infinitely much, and he could love them for it, he saw life, that what is alive, the indestructible, the Brahman in each of their passions, each of their acts. Worthy of love and admiration were these people in their blind loyalty, their blind strength and tenacity.”

“In all other respects, the worldly people were of equal rank to the wise men, were often far superior to them, just as animals too can, after all, in some moments, seem to be superior to humans in their tough, unrelenting performance of what is necessary.”

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“Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realisation, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was.  It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness.”

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The laughing river…. “Was it not a comedy, a strange and stupid matter, this repetition, this running around in a fateful circle?”

“While he spoke, spoke for a long time, while Vasudeva was listening with a quiet face, Vasudeva's listening gave Siddhartha a stronger sensation than ever before, he sensed how his pain, his fears flowed ver to him, how his secret hope flowed over, came back at him from his counterpart.  To show his wound to this listener was the same as bathing it in the river, until it had cooled and become one with the river.  While he was still speaking, still admitting and confessing, Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no longer a human being, who was listening to him, that this motionless listener was absorbing his confession into himself like a tree the rain, that this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God himself, that he was the eternal itself.”

“The river sang with a voice of suffering, longingly it sang, longingly, it flowed towards its goal, lamentingly its voice sang.”

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“And when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was Om: the perfection.”

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“In this hour, Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate, stopped suffering. On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a knowledge, which is no longer opposed by any will, which knows perfection, which is in agreement with the flow of events, with the current of life, full of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure of others, devoted to the flow, belonging to the oneness.”

“"When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal.  Searching means: having a goal.  But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.  You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are directly in front of your eyes."”

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“Look, my dear Govinda, this is one of my thoughts, which I have found: wisdom cannot be passed on.  Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness."

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****

“It says:  The opposite of every truth is just as true!  That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided. Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with words, it's all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness.”

*****

"Listen well, my dear, listen well!  The sinner, which I am and which you are, is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha--and now see: these 'times to come' are a deception, are only a parable!  The sinner is not on his way to become a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these things.  No, within the sinner is now and today already the future Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible, the hidden Buddha.  The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life.  It is not possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the Brahman, the robber is waiting.  In deep meditation, there is the possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was, is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman.  Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me.  I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.--These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have come into my mind."

“The words are not good for the secret meaning, everything always becomes a bit different, as soon as it is put into words, gets distorted a bit, a bit silly--yes, and this is also very good, and I like it a lot, I also very much agree with this, that this what is one man's treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to another person."”

“To be honest, I also have no high opinion of thoughts.  I have a better opinion of things.” 

“Govinda said:  "But is that what you call `things', actually something real, something which has existence?  Isn't it just a deception of the Maja, just an image and illusion?  Your stone, your tree, your river-- are they actually a reality?"

"This too," spoke Siddhartha, "I do not care very much about.  Let the things be illusions or not, after all I would then also be an illusion, and thus they are always like me.  This is what makes them so dear and worthy of veneration for me: they are like me.  Therefore, I can love them.  And this is now a teaching you will laugh about: love, oh Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all.  To thoroughly understand the world, to explain it, to despise it, may be the thing great thinkers do.  But I'm only interested in being able to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it and me, to be able to look upon it and me and all beings with love and admiration and great respect."

***************

“ […] he saw all of these figures and faces in a thousand relationships with one another, each one helping the other, loving it, hating it, destroying it, giving re-birth to it, each one was a will to die, a passionately painful confession of transitoriness, and yet none of them died, each one only transformed, was always re-born, received evermore a new face, without any time having passed between the one and the other face […]”

*********************

“-and all of these figures and faces rested, flowed, generated themselves, floated along and merged with each other, and they were all constantly covered by something thin, without individuality of its own, but yet existing, like a thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, a shell or mold or mask of water, and this mask was smiling, and this mask was Siddhartha's smiling face, which he, Govinda, in this very same moment touched with his lips. And, Govinda saw it like this, this smile of the mask, this smile of oneness above the flowing forms, this smile of simultaneousness above the thousand births and deaths, this smile of Siddhartha was precisely the same, was precisely of the same kind as the quiet, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps benevolent, perhaps mocking, wise, thousand-fold smile of Gotama, the Buddha, as he had seen it himself with great respect a hundred times.  Like this, Govinda knew, the perfected ones are smiling.” 

---

Pub Info:

Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha: An Open Source Reader Edited by Lee Archie, Jeffrey Baggett, Bill Poston, and John G. Archie