Hermann Hesse wrote Siddhartha during a period in his life in which he suffered what he described as a “sickness with life.” He claimed to be unable to complete the book because he had not experienced the kind of nirvana that Siddhartha, the main character, wants to achieve — so Hesse surrounded himself with sacred Buddhist and Hindu teachings and lived as a recluse in order to complete this work. Siddhartha is a short, simple tale of a man’s quest to achieve enlightenment and happiness. Over twelve short chapters the reader follows Siddhartha through his time as a young adult, to his exploration of spirituality as a traveling ascetic, to his delving in lust, business, and greed, to his time as an old man. At each stage of his life Siddhartha yearns for nirvana, finally achieving it only after realizing that it’s all of life’s experiences that form it, not the teachings of any one man. Today Siddhartha remains an influential text in new Western spirituality.
One of the best books i've ever read in my short live. Indeed this immaculate masterpiece is worth reading despite that at the first glance the text seems difficult to understand, but it isn't. There're so many hidden secrets and advices on understanding and seeing life, on sin, virtue, fall and rise of man. Unfortunately i don't read much, but this is the book i am happy to read many and many times more in many languages i know now and will know in the future. And if once i'll decide to learn German, the first and the strongest motivation will be the desire to read "Siddhartha" in original.
I've read this book twice already and every time it left me satisfied with the experience, fullfilled with what I've read and saved in my mind eventually. It always amazes me how this book makes me think more scrupulous about some day to day activities. Funny how it stayed in my mind throughout many years after I've read it for the first time. At somepoint i started to notice that I start to come back more and more to this book in my thoughts and decided to refresh my knowledge. No doubts, it was right decision and I wasn't dissapointed.
And everything together, all voices, all goals, all yearning, all suffering, all pleasure, all that was good and evil, all of this together was the world. All of it together was the flow of events, was the music of life.
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?"
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