Book Brief: Siddhartha by Hermann Hessee
My Notes
"Writing is good, thinking is better. Being smart is good, being patient is better."
Most people are like a falling leaf that drifts and turns in the air, flutters, and falls to the ground. But few others are like stars traveling on a fixed road: no wind reaches them, they have within themselves their guide and path.
Then he suddenly saw clearly that he was leading a strange life, that he was doing many things that were only a game, that he was quite cheerful and sometimes experienced pleasure, but that real life was flowing past him and did not touch him.
Goals
When you throw a stone in the water, it finds the quickest way to the bottom of the water. It is the same when Siddhartha has an aim, a goal. Siddhartha does nothing; he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he goes through the affairs of the world like the stone through the water, without doing anything; he is drawn and let’s himself fall. He is drawn by his goal, for h e does not allow anything to enter his mind which opposes his goal.
Like a player who plays with his ball, he played with his business with the people around him, watched them, derived amusement from them; but with his heart, with his real nature, he was not there.
Interconnection
They were all interwoven and interlocked, enterprises in a thousand ways. And all the voices, all the goals, all the tearing, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life.
When Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to this song of a thousand voices; when he did no listen to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om—perfection.
Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but not communicate and teach it
Seeking
Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.
When someone is seeking it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. In striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.
Someday
Someday is an illusion.
The world is not imperfect or so lowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all ducklings have death within them, all dying people—eternal life. Therefore, everything that exists is good—death as well as life, sin and holiness, wisdom and stupidity. Everything is necessary and needs my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me.
It was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to survive for wealth, and experienced nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them, in order to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world of perfection... but to leave it as it is, love it, and glad to be long to it.
Takeaways
1. Our identities shift and evolve over time but our core remain the same. Be open to the changes life brings.
2. Receive openly (finding) instead of seeking.
3. Desire needs to run its course.
4. Everything is interconnected - not separate but part of a larger whole.