Listening to “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse on Audible offers a supremely pleasurable experience, and I wholeheartedly recommend experiencing it as I did.
First, I owe an apology to the author. When I opened “Siddhartha” at 20, I found it supremely boring, didactic, and plain. I had no idea how to appreciate spiritual literature at that time. This book is a heroic effort to translate the Eastern canon for Western readers. It remains a distinctly Western interpretation, yet it is filled with amazing insights into different realms.
The story is simple, and the language is as plain as befits a fable, maybe a bit preachy, overladen with teachings. “Siddhartha” serves as both a spiritual biography and fiction. It simultaneously intrigues and discomforts, initially paralleling the life of Buddha, then diverging to perhaps represent the life of a buddha. It would be a stretch to say there is a plot. Rather, the novel moves through a sequence of relationships — with Siddhartha’s boyhood friend Govinda, who becomes a disciple of the Buddha; Gotama Buddha himself; the courtesan Kamala, who schools Siddhartha in sensuality but sees that he is sadly unable to open his heart; the merchant Kamaswami, who teaches him the ways of commerce, simultaneously leading toward material wealth and spiritual poverty; the saintly old ferryman Vasudeva, his closest companion; Siddhartha’s unnamed and prideful son, child of Kamala, who flees his father’s righteousness; and, at last, the river itself, all-accepting, ever-flowing. Siddhartha’s understanding is tempered and shaped by each encounter. Each is incomplete, each leads to suffering, yet the reader sees that wholeness is always nearby. But it takes all of this book, all his life, for Siddhartha to see this himself and mysteriously transmit it with a kiss to his oldest friend and fellow seeker, Govinda.
In the middle of the book, Siddhartha is asked several times to explain what he has learned from his years and what he can actually do. He replies that he can do the most important things, “I can fast, I can wait, and I can meditate.” Compare it with the modern happy trinity of “Eat — Love — Pray”. Fasting is a far superior skill to eating, and also has a much better effect on your mind and body. Love in its modern connotation is something you are entitled to immediately, a complete juxtaposition with waiting, which is considered to be a feeling of servile, passive position that’s not lauded in our society. And finally, Praying for most westerners is bargaining: I give up my former bad behavior in exchange for whatever gifts I decide I need right now. There are many comparisons like that, the most important being how Hesse uses the triad Body — Consciousness — Ego as an obvious counterpart of Christ — Holy Spirit — God.
The ending is so profound it can only be compared to a sacred medicinal ceremony. Govinda and Siddhartha have a final meeting where Govinda, still perplexed by his old friend, tries to understand the peace Siddhartha has discovered. Siddhartha reiterates that experiences rather than the teachings of man have led him to this place. He says time itself is a human construct, and he now sees how the past, present, and future flow together all at once. He says he believes the key to all things is the ability to love himself and all beings with awe and admiration. He asks Govinda to kiss his forehead, and the man sees a vision of his own, filled with all of the good and evil, pain and beauty of life in faces, actions, and animals. He sees the perfect peace in Siddhartha that he once saw in the Buddha’s eyes, and he falls to his knees feeling deep love. Siddhartha has essentially taken over as ferryman, ferrying his friend into enlightenment. This is nothing short of an incredible description of the bufo effect. Considering that the effect of bufo is essentially going through death experience, and the fact that this happens to Siddartha just before death, a logical question arises — how did Hesse know this?
The sheer carnage and tragedy of WW I, for the more sensitive and thoughtful, raised questions about human suffering on our all too human journey. What does it mean to be human and live an authentic life? What are decisions worth making, how can we be deflected from making such decisions and is there more to being human than the fleeting ego, throes of matter and projected public personas? It was these sorts of questions that greeted Hesse and begged a response. Hesse’s seeming turn to Buddhism as an initial attempt to face such questions after WW I was not a scholarly and academic approach to examining the origins and sources of the emergence of Buddhism — Hesse’s interest was much more existential and personal.
Hesse is a missionary in reverse: his parents were both Christian missionaries in India and he was supposed to become a Christian missionary himself but instead started preaching something quite different. Throughout his life he dealt with bipolar depression, attempted suicide, and was institutionalized in a mental hospital. He took on a few career changes along the way and became a writer. He married Maria Bernoulli, who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, which destroyed their marriage. He had three sons with Maria, one son was sick with a difficult illness. Hesse spoke out against the Nazis and he was deeply interested in Eastern philosophy. He was never quite happy but was struggling to find that peace he was writing about.
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