Philosophical Approach on Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha"

Introduction

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is a Nobel Prize-winner and Hesse’s most famous and influential work. It is a novel that tells a story of a young man who lives a life in search for enlightenment. On his way in this spiritual quest, he neglects every kind of doctrine because of his distrust on the words that come from teachers. He believes that one can gain wisdom not through teachings but through his own experiences. The basic philosophy therefore that the author tries to portray in his work is that man can attain enlightenment or inner peace through personal learnings from experiences not through listening from the teachings of doctrines. This philosophy was embodied in the person of the novel’s hero, Siddhartha.

Summary

            Siddhartha is a young son of a Brahmin priest but is not contented from the ablutions, the sacrifices, the books, and the Brahmins’ discourses so he went on his own way of spiritual quest together with his friend, Govinda. His goal is to release his soul from suffering. They first went to the forest to become a Samana but Siddhartha realized that they cannot attain Nirvana (salvation of the soul from suffering) through listening only to the Samana teachers because the adviser himself, in his sixties, had still not attained Nirvana. Then they met Gotama Buddha, the Illustrious One, in his garden in Anarthapindika, and were attracted to the magnificence of the Enlightened One. They listen to one of his lectures and Govinda promised his allegiance to the Buddha. Siddhartha, however continued his pilgrimage for his own goal, leaving Govinda to Gotama. Still, Siddhartha considers Gotama as a man who have reached salvation, but he could not gain salvation through his teachings because Gotama himself did not learn from teachings.
As he again seeks for his true Self, now as a grown man, he began to live a worldly life as a trader with a beautiful courtesan named Kamsala as his lover. He soon gave in to Samsara (the cycle of life) like the ordinary people that he had been despising since he was young and forgot his quest, until that he had a bad dream and realized that he has ben living a worthless and senseless life. His thirst for enlightenment as he awakened from the dream was regained and went to the river of his youth. There he met the ferryman Vasudeva, the man who taught him that the river teaches everyone how to listen. By listening to the river, Siddhartha heard its thousand voices and eventually heard the uniting word “Om” – the voice of perfection. This is when he already found salvation.

Discussion

            Siddhartha shared many viewpoints of life that is explicitly stated by the hero of the story. He states it in words that describe what he believes and what he has learned. These viewpoints represent the concept of Education vs. Experience or Knowledge vs. Wisdom.

            From the beginning where Siddhartha produced his stream of consciousness, he thought of the way in finding the Atman which is through one’s own self and not from anyone else. This was shown in the following paragraph where Siddhartha asks many questions in his thoughts:

His father was worthy of admiration; his manner was quiet and noble. He lived a good life, his words were wise; fine and noble thoughts dwelt in his head---but even he who knew so much, did he live in bliss, was he at peace? Was he not also a seeker, insatiable? Did he not go continually to the holy springs with an insatiable thirst, to the sacrifices, to books, to the Brahmins’ discourses? Why must he, the blameless one, wash away his sins and endeavour to cleanse himself anew each day? Was Atman then not within him? Was not then the source within his own heart? One must find the source within one’s own self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking---a detour, error.           
         These were Siddhartha’s thoughts; this was his thirst, his sorrow. (7-8)

            This viewpoint started Siddhartha’s thirst for enlightenment. He believes that in order to find Atman, one must find it within himself and though himself because Atman is within each of us. When he and Govinda were following the ways of the Samanas, Siddhartha did not believe that they can reach their goal through listening to the Samana teachers, through fasting and meditating, because he always returns from his Siddhartha self, the Brahmin’s son, and not finding his true self. He again “felt the torment of the onerous life cycle” (16). When Govinda told Siddhartha that the oldest Samana teacher is sixty years old, Siddhartha just stated this:

“He is sixty years old and has not attained Nirvana. He will be seventy and eighty years old, and you and I, we shall grow old as he, and do exercises and fast and meditate, but we will not attain Nirvana, neither he nor we, Govinda, I believe that amongst all the Samanas, probably not even one will attain Nirvana. We find consolations, we learn tricks with which we deceive ourselves, but the essential thing—the way—we do not find.” (16)

            Siddhartha means that as they learn the tricks of the Samana, they simultaneously deceive themselves for they do not find the real way in finding their Self. The eldest Samana himself had not attained Nirvana. If they will continue to be with the Samanas, they will be like them and, as well, not attain Nirvana themselves.

On the contrary, when they heard that Gotama, the Illustrious One, is in the village, Govinda was attracted and requested Siddhartha to go with him and listen to the Perfect One. If they could not learn from the people who has not attained Nirvana, it is better to listen to the one who did. Siddhartha again told Govinda that he has “become distrustful of teachings and learning” and that he has “little faith in words that come to [them] from teachers” (22), but he also said that he is ready to hear that new teaching, although he believes in his heart that they “have already tasted the best fruit of it” (23), that they could still not learn from teachings.

            When Govinda finally promised allegiance to Buddha, Siddhartha bid goodbye to him and to Gotama for his own pilgrimage. The reason for this is also related to Education vs. Experience. Siddhartha never doubted that Gotama has reached “the highest goal which so many thousand of Brahmins and Brahmins’ sons are striving to reach” (33), but he believed that the teachings he tells his students does not contain the real experience that Gotama had experienced when he found salvation, thus in this excerpt he stated:

“…You have learned nothing through teachings, and so I think, O Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation through teachings. To nobody, O Illustrious One, can you communicate in words and teachings what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment. The teachings of the enlightened Buddha embrace much, they teach much—how to live righteously, how to avoid evil. But there is one thing that this clear, worthy instruction does not contain; it does not contain the secret of what the Illustrious One himself experienced---he alone among the hundreds of thousands…” (33-34)

            This therefore states a viewpoint that experience could not be completely contained in words, that is why the words that even the Enlightened One communicate to his students does not contain the real experience that he had. This made Siddhartha decide to seek no other or better doctrine, “for there is none, but to leave all doctrines and all teachers to reach [his] goal alone—or die” (34).

When Gotama asked Siddhartha if he had seen the many gathering of men in allegiance to his teaching and if it is right to “relinquish the teachings and return to the life of the world and desires” (34), Siddhartha again made a stand on it and said:

“That thought never occurred to me… May they all follow the teachings! May they reach their goal! It is not for me to judge another life. I must judge for myself. I must choose and reject.” (34-35)

            Siddhartha believes that it is not for one to judge someone else’s life. What somebody wants, he must not judge it as wrong because everybody has his own wants. People must judge for themselves and mind their own businesses, for everyone has his own goal. For Siddhartha, it was not his goal to follow the ways of Buddhism, but for the seekers like Govinda, they already have reached their goal and stayed listening to the Buddha. This explains the view of life that Siddhartha embodies.

            After Siddhartha left Govinda and Gotama, he felt a sense of awakening, realizing the true path for enlightenment. He stated this in the following paragraph:

Yes, he thought breathing deeply, I will no longer try to escape from Siddhartha. I will no longer devote my thoughts to Atman and the sorrows of the world. I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins. I will no longer study Yoga-Veda, Atharva-Veda, or asceticism, or any other teachings. I will learn from myself, be my own pupil; I will learn from myself the secret of Siddhartha. (39)

            Siddhartha realized this after he thought of the reason why he cannot find his Self. The reason is that he was afraid of himself. He was seeking Brahman (God) and Atman (Self) but he wishes to destroy himself, to get away from himself, “in order to find in the unknown innermost, the nucleus of all things, Atman Life, the Divine, the Absolute” (38), but by doing so, he lost himself on the way. He realized that he should accept first who he is and not destroy himself so that he will learn from the inside, as he would want to seek the innate wisdom. Moreover, he vowed to neglect his study of the Yoga-Veda, Atharva-Veda, asceticism, or any other teachings to learn from himself the secret of Siddhartha.

Siddhartha remembered what he said to Gotama in the garden of Jetavana – “that the Buddha’s wisdom and secret was not teachable, that it was inexpressible and incommunicable” (47). He realized, in this awakening, that the experience that Gotama had experienced, which was not contained in his words, is what he will be experiencing – “He must gain experience himself” (47). This important quote led the story to Siddhartha plotting his real path to enlightenment – through experience. These thoughts were realized after he has observed nature and had been aware of their existence without seeking reality but by just recognizing the world as it is.

Some other views of Siddhartha that were presented in this awakening are the oneness of the nature of Atman and Brahman and the necessity to obey the voice that Gotama had similarly heard in his heart before he sought to rest under the Bo tree when he received enlightenment. When he travelled across the river, he learned from the ferryman that one can learn something from a river and that “everything comes back” (49). He did not realize the meaning of this yet until experience had taught him what it really means.

He learned lessons of love from the beautiful courtesan, Kamala, in her grove. Kamala taught him that “One can beg, buy, be presented with and find love in the streets, but it can never be stolen” (55). Siddhartha understood this for Kamala would only allow him to kiss her if he pleases her, and the qualifications are fine clothes, fine shoes, and a money in purse. Siddhartha never have this for he was just a poor Samana from the forest and it is not right to steal a kiss from her without pleasing her first. But what pleases Kamala that made her allow Siddhartha to kiss her is his ability to compose a poem quickly – his intelligence that pleases any woman. Nonetheless, Kamala advised Siddhartha that if he really wants her to be his friend and learn lessons from her, he must have her qualifications, so she told him to go to Kamaswami, the rich merchant, to use his intelligence, please the merchant and be his equal, not be his servant; otherwise, Kamala will not be pleased.

And so, Siddhartha also taught something to Kamala when she asked of a charm how did he come about a way where one door opens after another is being opened to him. He just said that “to think, to wait, and to fast” (59) are his charms for his goals. He added in this following paragraph a lesson of achieving goals by comparing himself to a stone thrown in the water:

“…Listen, Kamala, when you throw a stone into 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 water, without doing anything, without  bestriding himself; he is drawn and lets himself fall. He is drawn by his goal, for he does not allow anything to enter his mind which opposes his goal. That is what Siddhartha learned from the Samanas. It is what fools call magic and what they think is caused by demons. Nothing is caused by demons; there are no demons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goal, if he can think, wait and fast.” (60).

            These things have pleased Kamala and now Siddhartha would use this to please Kamaswami to be his guest and be his equal in order for him to attain the qualifications to gain experience about the pleasures of love from Kamala.

            Siddhartha was asked by the rich merchant about the use of thinking, waiting, and fasting. With regard to fasting, Kamala said:

“It is of great value, sir. If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do. If, for instance, Siddhartha had not learned to fast, he would have had to seek some kind of work today, either with you, or elsewhere, for hunger would have driven him. But as it is, Siddhartha can wait calmly. He is not impatient, he is not in need, he can ward off hunger for a long time and laugh at it. Therefore, fasting is useful, sir.” (64-65)

            With regard to thinking and waiting, Siddhartha only produced a two-sentence statement: “Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.” (65). What Siddhartha had said about fasting, thinking, and waiting pleased Kamaswami. Soon, Kamaswami trusted his business to him and Siddhartha learned many things from this experience. He soon visited Kamala in fine clothes and shoes with gifts for the beautiful courtesan. There, he learned lessons of love from her like:

“…one cannot have pleasure without giving it, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every single part of the body has its secret which can give pleasure to one who can understand. She taught him that lovers should not separate from each other after making love without admiring each other, without being conquered as well as conquering, so that no feeling of satiation or desolation arises nor the horrid feeling of misusing or having been misused.” (66)

He also learned from her that giving and taking are one. When he did everything to please her, Kamala gave pleasures of love in return. He talked to her, he learned from her. He gave advice, he received advice. These lessons of love were learned through Kamala, his teacher.

Years have passed and Siddhartha also learned the unpleasant things from ordinary people. He lived a worldly life and gradually his face showed expressions which are so often found among the rich – expressions of discontent, sickliness, displeasure, idleness, and lovelessness. He also began to play dice for money and jewels with increasing fervor. He became old and sick. He no longer has the Samana in his heart, but above all, “he was nauseated with himself” (82). The day came when he dreamed about a bird which has stopped singing because it died inside its cage, he finally realized that he has been living his life in a worthless and senseless manner. He realized that he was within a game called Samsara, “a game which was perhaps enjoyable played once, twice, ten times” but was not worth playing continually (84). He believed that the game was finished and that he can no longer play it. His “thirst” was regained.

Siddhartha found the answer towards salvation as he was resting beside the river, the same river where he met the ferryman for the first time when he was a young man. As he attempts suicide by the river in order “to destroy the form which he hated” (89), he heard the word “Om” from his deepest part of his soul and that this word embodies the meaning of “Perfection”. He was saved from this suicide and then remembered what his childhood wish was: “to find peace by destroying the body” (89). Moreover, this next paragraph tells the lesson that Siddhartha had gained from his experiences:

I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear Om again, to sleep deeply again and to awaken refreshed again.  I had to become a fool again in order to find Atman in myself. I had to sin in order to live again. (97)

            If we go back to the very goal he stated before he joined the Samanas, he said that his one single goal is “to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow—to let the self die” (14). By Siddhartha’s worldly life with the ordinary people, where he experienced despair and thought of suicide, he has achieved that single goal. He now understood that the inward voice has been right, “that no teacher could brought him salvation.” (99). That was why he had to go into the world and live a worldly life to let his Samana Self die, and now a new Siddhartha was awakened from sleep. He felt a deep love for the river after this awakening, and a newly awakened voice said to him: “Love this river, stay by it, and learn from it” (101).

            When he finally got to know the ferryman, Vasudeva, he also learned how to learn from the river. Siddhartha went through days of staying with Vasudeva and how to look after the boat, but the learnings which came to Siddhartha was not from the ferryman, but from the river. Vasudeva was a good listener but he did not teach that ability to Siddhartha. He only said that the river had taught him so. And so Siddhartha has been able to learn what Vasudeva had been saying:

He learned from it continually. Above all, he learned from it how to listen, to listen with a still heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinions. (106)

            He also learned from the river that there is no such thing as time because the present only exist for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future, just like his life:

“Siddhartha’s previous lives were also not in the past, and his death and his return to Brahma are not in the future. Nothing was, nothing will be, everything has reality and presence” (107).

Another secret that he had learned from the river was that it has a thousand voices. And when one hears these thousands of voice at the same time, according to Vasudeva, he only hears one word: “Om”. The river has “the voice of life, the voice of Being, of perpetual Becoming” (108). But he has not yet understood the meaning of it until when he had experienced it.

            When Siddhartha met his son, from Kamala, during the time of Gotama’s death, Kamala also died and the son was left to him. Because the son is used to an easy life with his mother, he could not accept the kind of living that his father has. He left his father with a hate in his heart and lived a worldly life in town instead. Siddhartha was wounded by what his son did, but he remembered how he also left his own father and went with the Samanas, then lived a worldly life after he had left his friend Govinda to Gotama in his grove. And now he believes that this wound will not fester him but rather it should heal. Since the wound has not been healed yet, he continued to be sad. Until when he heard the river laughed and Siddhartha confessed his sorrows to Vasudeva, the man who mastered the art of listening, he felt that Vasudeva was not the person who was listening to him.  As in the following paragraph it says:

He felt that this motionless listener was absorbing his confession as a tree absorbs the rain, that this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God himself, that he was eternity itself. (133)

          After this revelation of Vasudeva’s divinity, the ferryman directed Siddhartha to listen to the river while he is still in deep sorrow. Siddhartha saw his father whom he has left lonely, he saw himself also lonely longing for his son, and his son who left him, also lonely and advancing to the burning path of life’s desires. Each of them was lonely and focusing on their goals and is obsessed with their goals. The river’s voice was sorrowful. As Siddhartha listened again, he saw Kamala, Govinda, and others that emerged and passed on the river, also having the goal of yearning, desiring, and suffering. The voice of the river still echoed sorrowfully. Finally, as he listened intently, Siddhartha could no longer distinguish the many voices of the river. He finally heard the overall voice of the river, the single word that unites the thousand voices: Om—perfection. (136)

            This event finally made the goal of Siddhartha to be achieved by him alone, not by any teachings or doctrines. He became one with his Self and has found salvation with the help of Vasudeva, the radiant Saint, who have been the ferryman for a long time and now who walks “full of peace, his face glowing, his form full of light” (137). He has discovered the voice of enlightenment by himself as he listens to the river, for Vasudeva had not taught him the word “Om”, but Siddhartha himself had listened to it from the river’s voice at the time when he was losing himself due to his yearning, longing, and suffering. His wound was healed and he himself belonged to the river, the unity of all things.

            During the final chapter of the book, where Govinda and Siddhartha met again, Siddhartha shared the lessons that he learned when he already found enlightenment. First of it was the difference between seeking and finding:

“When someone is seeking,” said Siddhartha, “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. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.” (140)

            Siddhartha considers Govinda to be a seeker who seeks too much and cannot find. Siddhartha prefers men who do not have a goal so they would not be obsessed by it and will accept the things along the way so they can find the answer. It is better to find than to seek.

            Another thought that Siddhartha shared to Govinda is the difference between wisdom and knowledge:

“Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish… Knowledge can be communicated but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.” (142)

            This was all that drove Siddhartha along the way since he was young as a Brahmin’s son until he became a Samana, a listener of Buddha, a courtesan lover, a dice player, and now a ferryman who had found enlightenment. There is still another thought that Siddhartha shared to Govinda. It is about the relationship between truth and words:

“…in every truth the opposite is equally true. For example, a truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is one-sided. Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity.” (143)

            Siddhartha related this to the division of the world into Samsara and Nirvana, into illusion and truth, into suffering and salvation. A teacher divides this because it can never be one with the use of words, “but the world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided” (143).

            Siddhartha, then, added a lesson about time and illusion--- that “time is not real”:

“And if time is not real, then the dividing line that seems to lie between this world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion.” (143)

            Siddhartha related it to the sinners who will someday be Brahma, who will attain Nirvana, who will become Buddha. He regarded this ‘someday’ as an illusion too, for the potential Buddha is already inside the sinner and must only recognized in him.

            Then, Siddhartha shared about his conception of everything— that everything is good and necessary to life:

“Therefore, it seems to me that everything is good---death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me. I learned through my body and soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to strive for property and experience 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, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it and be glad to belong to it.” (144)

            Then after, he discussed about the uselessness of teachings. Teachings only contain words that keep one to find peace because of too many words. Even salvation and virtue, Samsara and Nirvana, are just words.  The river, for example, does not contain so much words if one hears the overall voice which only constitutes of only one word: Om. Vasudeva did not teach Siddhartha everything. He only pointed out to the river who taught him how to listen so that Siddhartha can also learn from it and listen to the powerful word of enlightenment from all the thousands of voice of the river

The last thing that Siddhartha had told Govinda was about the most important thing in the world – Love:

“..It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.” (147)

Conclusion

            Siddhartha presents a philosophy that one cannot attain wisdom through teachings because these teachings only contain words and will only teach you knowledge. Wisdom is not communicable, knowledge is, and everything that is stated in words could not give you true wisdom, only knowledge. Wisdom can only be gained through experience. Experience teaches a man the true wisdom of one’s Self. And if one understands his Self, he also understands God because God and the Self are one. God and the Self share the same path of divinity. Therefore, this philosophy makes one ask why seek outside the Self and listen to teachings for enlightenment if the Self is within us. However, Hermann Hesse also presents the things that are undesirable, like Siddhartha’s worldly life, as a good and necessary thing in the realization of purpose or awakening of the Self. One needs to be sunken in the depth of despair in order to hear the inner voice that will awaken us from deep sleep. One needs to feel pain in order to learn not to resist them, to love the world, to accept the world as it is, and to belong to it, because the world also belongs to the same divine path as the Self and God. One word will only unite everything: Om, which means Perfection. And this could only be realized within us. There are the things that Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha reflects in the plot and the story’s hero, Siddhartha.

Bibliography

Hermann Hesse. (Oct 1951). Siddhartha, Translated by Hilda Rosner. United States and Canada. New Directions Publishing Corporation and Bantam Books.