"Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse

So after 6 years of owning the book, I finally finished the Novella "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse. It's a classic. I just haven 't been in the frame of mind or stage of life where I feel I would have appreciated it, until now.

To summarize, kid wakes up and realizes he wants to know the meaning of his life. Joins the wandering "Samanas" who are like roaming, self-denying "sages" who meditate on life and practice minimalism to the extreme. Studies with Gotama Buddha for a while, but decides to strike out on his own. Gets caught up in the world, become rich, impregnates his hot whorish lover, and leaves her before finding out shes prego because he hates being "of the world" and is all suicidal. Lives alone and wanders for a long time in the forest and becomes roommates with a Ferry Boat guy that lives at a river who is a "sage." His girlfriend/kid run across him like 10 year later and she dies, leaving the kid with him. Kid runs away because he hates living like a freakshow by the river. After years of "studying the river" and looking inwardly at his own life and lessons, Siddatha, then a famous Sage and spiritual leader, concludes that the best thing you can do for yourself is realize that life is like a river - full of transition, ever flowing, constantly full of change. He believes that each person has to strike out on their own, and independantly realize their own destiny, finding their own way to their inward "awareness" or consciousness, not necessarily through a specific system of religious practices, beliefs or dogma.

Quote "He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships to each other, all helping each other, loving, hating, destroying each other and become newly born. Each one of them was mortal, a passionate, painful example of all that was transitory. Yet none of them died, they only changed, were always reborn, continually had a new face: only time stood between one face and another." Chapter 12, pg. 121

It was a great book, written in 1922, and full of imagery and a good message. If you haven't read it and want something a little "deeper" to chew on, this is a great read for a blooming psychoanalyst - or for a good dose of free-spirited religious philosophy. If you decide to read it, curl up with some Herbal Tea, some Nog Champa incense burning, and some Nepalis music playing.

Your "inner Hippie" will be very happy!!!

(Here's a link about the real guy - very interesting after reading the book.)

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/siddhartha.html