A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow.

I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself! I searched Atman, I searched Brahman, I was willing to to dissect my self and peel off all of its layers, to find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life, the divine part, the ultimate part. But I have lost myself in the process.”

develop previous thoughts in to new ones

everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.”

Writing is good, thinking is better. Being smart is good, being patient is better.

He saw mankind going through life in a childlike or animal-like manner, which he loved and also despised at the same time. He saw them toiling, saw them suffering, and becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him to entirely unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being slightly honoured, 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.

You are like me, you are different from most people. You are Kamala, nothing else, and inside of you, there is a peace and refuge, to which you can go at every hour of the day and be at home at yourself, as I can also do. Few people have this, and yet all could have it

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

Perhaps, people of our kind can’t love. The childlike people can; that’s their secret

It was still the art of thinking, of waiting, of fasting, which guided his life

moderate living, joy of thinking, hours of meditation, secret knowledge of the self, of his eternal entity, which is neither body nor consciousness.

he envied them, envied them just the more, the more similar he became to them

He envied them for the one thing that was missing from him and that they had, the importance they were able to attach to their lives, the amount of passion in their joys and fears, the fearful but sweet happiness of being constantly in love

His face was still smarter and more spiritual than others, but it rarely laughed, and assumed, one after another, those features which are so often found in the faces of rich people, those features of discontent, of sickliness, of ill-humour, of sloth, of a lack of love.

Slowly the disease of the soul, which rich people have, grabbed hold of him.

something like an intoxication, something like an elevated form of life in the midst of his saturated, lukewarm, dull life.

In this pointless cycle he ran, growing tired, growing old, growing ill.

when every obtained knowledge only kindled new thirst in him,

Thinking was hard on him, he did not really feel like it, but he forced himself.

learned to love my stomach, learned to please my senses.

let his soul die of thirst;

lust for the world and riches do not belong to the good things

Too much knowledge had held him back

was just listening

it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek depth

Most of all, he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart, with a waiting, opened soul, without passion, without a wish, without judgement, without an opinion.

They were both masters of patience.

This he had learned by the river, this one thing: waiting, having patience, listening attentively.

Neither one talked about what had happened today, neither one mentioned the boy’s name, neither one spoke about him running away, neither one spoke about the wound.

he understood and shared their life, which was not guided by thoughts and insight, but solely by urges and wishes

to be able to feel and inhale the oneness

Perhaps that you’re searching far too much? That in all that searching, you don’t find the time for finding?”

When someone is searching,” said Siddhartha, “then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don’t see, which are directly in front of your eyes.”

The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment

Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me.

wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness.”

it cannot be expressed in words and taught.

The opposite of every truth is just as true! That’s like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided. Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with words, it’s all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness.

I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.—These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have come into my mind.”

The words are not good for the secret meaning, everything always becomes a bit different, as soon as it is put into words, gets distorted a bit, a bit silly—yes, and this is also very good, and I like it a lot, I also very much agree with this, that this what is one man’s treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to another person.”

place more importance on his acts and life than on his speeches, more on the gestures of his hand than his opinions.

eternal not-finding

Excerpt from Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Read on: July 2014