Who in the World is Siddhartha?

© 2003 Boaz Rauchwerger

Reading opens up a whole new world in our minds. And a mind, once expanded, never returns to its original size. That’s what growth is all about.

Ken, a good friend, recently gave me a marvelous book called “Siddhartha.” Written by the German writer Hermann Hesse, and published in 1922, this book won the Nobel Prize for literature.

Although I’d never heard of this book before Ken gave it to me, it is apparently a famous and influential novel. It integrates Eastern and Western spiritual traditions with psychoanalysis and philosophy. A strangely simple tale, “Siddhartha” is written with a deep and moving empathy for humanity.

Set in India, this is a story of a young man, Siddhartha, and his search for ultimate reality after meeting with the Buddha. His quest takes him from a life of self-depravation, to wealth and fame, to giving it all up, to painful struggles with his son and a point of ultimate wisdom.

Published near the height of Germany’s devastating inflation, in 1922, “Siddhartha” reflects a yearning for wholeness outside and within the self. Isn’t that what most of us struggle with throughout our lives?

I’ve chosen some excerpts from the book, which I found quite moving, to share with you in order to stir your thoughts.

After Siddhartha had left home as a young man, in order to study the ways of the deeply religious in a remote area, he then decides to once again join civilization. Coming to a village, he meets Kamala, a beautiful and well-off young woman who helps Siddhartha establish himself as a successful businessman.

He says to her, with great confidence, “I knew that you would help me. I knew it the moment you looked at me by the entrance to the grove.” She questions Siddhartha, “But what if I had not wanted to help you?”

His answer gives us an important clue to high achievement: “You did want to. If you toss a stone into water, it takes the swiftest way to the bottom. And Siddhartha is like that when he has a goal, makes a resolve. Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, but he passes through the things of the world like the stone through the water, never acting, never stirring.”

Siddhartha continues by saying, “He is drawn, he lets himself drop. His goal draws him, for he lets nothing into his soul that could go against his goal. Anyone can work magic, anyone can reach his goals if he can think, if he can wait.”

That last portion is so profound that I’d like to repeat it: “Anyone can work magic, anyone can reach his goals if he can think, if he can wait.”

As Siddhartha becomes a close associate of a wealthy businessman in the village, people comment that, in business, he has the secret of those people to whom success comes on its own. They state: “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.” Siddhartha also believed in not showing haste or anger, in life and in business.

What if more of us took those attitudes to heart when approaching our work? Could we be more calm and peaceful?

About having more focus in life, Siddhartha comments by saying, “Most people are like a falling leaf, that wafts and drifts through the air, and twists and tumbles to the ground. Others, however, few, are like stars: they have a fixed course, no wind reaches them, they have their law and their course inside them.”

Later in the book, when Siddhartha meets a son he didn’t know he had, he is given advice, by a close friend, as to his attitude with that son: “You never force him, never beat him, never order him, because you know that soft is stronger than hard, water stronger than rock, love stronger than violence.”

I really like these thoughts because they are underlying themes that keep weaving their way through these columns. It is true that soft is stronger than hard, water stronger than rock and love is stronger than violence.

Near the end of the book, when Siddhartha has come full circle in his understanding of life, he states, “All I care about is to be able to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it or myself, to be able to view it and myself and all beings with love and admiration and awe.”

I was quite moved by this book and highly recommend it. Maybe you, too, will take to heart that final thought from the book, as I did: To view the world, myself, and all beings with love and admiration and awe.

A Daily Affirmation of Appreciation

I view the world, myself, and all beings with love and admiration and awe.