Siddhartha...and what is enlightenment?

 "Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. 

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.

Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.

The opposite of every truth is just as true!

Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at anytime and be yourself.

Beautiful are your verses.....and truly, I'm losing nothing when I'm giving you a kiss for them.

A person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful.

Your soul is the whole world.

I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew.

One can beg, buy, be presented with and find love in the streets, but it can never be stolen

It seems to me, that love is the most important thing in the world.

Gentleness is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than force.”

- All quotes from "Siddhartha" (book, 1922), by Herman Hesse

 

A Jain friend, a colleague of mine, gave me this book, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. I had heard of this book but had not read it yet. We have been having some discussions on philosophy and the like. During one of those discussions, this book came up and he gave his copy to read.

I have a fairly good reading  speed. This book, though only of 160 odd pages, took time to read primarily because of official work and the shifting of my house which came midway. Curiously enough, even at home, there would be some disturbance or the other while I was reading this book. So this innocuous looking book took me quite some days to finish. I realise now that the reason for it to take such time was to perhaps enable me to understand some of the experiences of the protagonist of the book, Siddhartha, though I should say I am a long way off. 

First, the book. The book was written by Herman Hesse (1877-1962), a German-born Swiss poet and novelist in the year 1922. Originally written in German, it was later translated to English. This novel tells about the experiences of a person (intentionally named 'Siddhartha' (meaning, he who has found and understood the meaning of existence), the other name of the Buddha) who wants to experience enlightenment. In the novel, Siddhartha does go and meet the Buddha but he finds from him that though his teachings have relevance, every person has to experience enlightenment and the same cannot be taught. He understands that unless he perhaps undergoes the four stages of life (student, (brahmacharya), householder (grihastha), hermit (vanaprastha) and ascetic (sanyasa), he would not achieve enlightenment. These four stages of life are necessary to achieve 'Nirvana' - enlightenment. This is enshrined in the principles of Indian ways of life like Hinduism. Siddhartha, in the novel, does not stop at anything till he is satisfied and goes in an unrelenting search for the truth, which is when he gets satisfied.

The biggest plus about the book is that unlike books on philosophy which can get abstract after a point of time and may be able to pull in only some readers, this book holds a good reading interest. It is able to hold the interest of the reader throughout. It is available for free on the internet, in pdf, mobi and epub versions, to suit anyone's reading style. The book tries to also convey that life is a chain of events which convey a deeper meaning and instead of looking into isolated instances, once should look at life as a complete picture. My favourite chapter in the book is 'Awakening' where Siddhartha realises that enlightenment is from within and he needs to seek it himself. This chapter is like a splashing brook and it races ahead of many other strings of words I have come across! The book also tries to convey that enlightenment may not be achievable through tested methods or through the narrow confines of religion. In the book, Siddhartha is a Hindu, becomes a Buddhist and then realises that he should go beyond religion to achieve that he wants.

The book was also made into a movie in 1972 in English starring Hindi movie actors like Shashi Kapoor and Simi Garewal.

Now, there are various mentions, thought processes and teachings on how one could achieve enlightenment and how you can find it, which is perhaps hidden, by doing this and doing that. In short, these are not things that can be handed over to people or shoved down their throat by preaching to them. They need to get to practically feel it, achieve it. Experiencing pain, pleasure, happiness, even something morbid is required to achieve a state of enlightenment - a complete understanding of life? You need to be a complete person to achieve it. Now enlightenment is an abstract term. I don't even know whether once you achieve enlightenment you can be in a perpetual state of enlightenment or you come back! 

I should thank my friend for this book.

I have a bit of a difference with reference to Buddha's lecture on desire being the root cause of all evil. In fact, as I mention often to people, the desire not to desire is itself a desire! Hence we can never free ourselves from it, can we? Now, that is some small enlightenment that I have got!