Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. 

4/5 rating. 

Book #9 of 2020. Read February 19, 2020.

I absolutely loved this book! It is a novel telling Siddhartha (the Buddha) ‘s journey towards enlightenment.

The journey takes many turns as Siddhartha originally leaves his home to become an ascetic. After becoming disillusioned with this life and his teachers, he meets the Buddha, falls in love with a courtesan, gets rich, loses it all, and becomes a ferryman. All along, Siddhartha is continually searching for the same thing that we all are looking for: happiness, understanding, and love.

With my current place of being somewhat lost and looking for where to move – both physically and metaphorically – I really enjoyed Siddhartha’s journey and some of his insights into the ways we suffer and seeing how he was able to escape this.

Some of my favorite quotes:

– “Wondrous indeed was my life, so he thought, wondrous detours it has taken.”

– “‘It’s a beautiful life you have chosen for yourself,’…’It is beautiful, sir…But isn’t every life, isn’t every work beautiful?’”

– “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.”

Additional Quotes:

“It is not my place to judge another person’s life. Only for myself, for myself alone, I must decide, I must choose, I must refuse.”

“‘I am without possessions,’ said Siddhartha, ‘if this is what you mean. Surely, I am without possessions. But I am so voluntarily, and therefore I am not destitute.’”

“He saw them toiling, saw them suffering, and become gray for the sake of things which seemed to him too entirely unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being slightly honored, 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.”

“With me too, friend, it is as it is with you. I’m going nowhere. I’m just travelling. I’m on a pilgrimage.”

“And it was this very thing, so it seemed to him now, which had been his sickness before, that he was not able to love anybody or anything.”

“For much longer, he could have stayed with Kamaswami, made money, wasted money, filled his stomach, and let his soul die of thirst; for much longer he could have lived in this soft, well upholstered hell, if this had not happened: the moment of complete hopelessness and despair, that most extreme moment, when he hung over the rushing waters and was ready to destroy himself. 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’s a beautiful life you have chosen for yourself,’ the passenger spoke. ‘It must be beautiful to live by this water every day and to cruise on it.’ With a smile, the man at the oar moved from side to side: ‘It is beautiful, sir, it is as you say. But isn’t every life, isn’t every work beautiful?’”

“I also very much agree with this, that is what is one man’s treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to another person.”

“Not in his speech, not in his thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life.”

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