The Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha<\/i> is a classic of the twentieth-century world literature. It is a shimmering tale of a man in the quest for the meaning of life and of oneself. Siddhartha<\/i> can be classified in the genre of a formative novel that narrates the transformation of an individual during their maturation. In the specific case of the book\u2019s protagonist, Siddhartha, the sole objective of the path of individual maturation is wisdom and self-knowledge. Siddhartha\u2019s path closely intersects and intertwines with the principles of Eastern Buddhism and the historical figure of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.<\/p>\n
Siddhartha, the Brahmin<\/em>\u2019s son, seems to have everything one could desire from life, wealth, beauty and power. All this is not enough for him; he is looking for something more, something that cannot be satisfied with material things and the rich culture he is born into. He rejects the intellectual and ritualistic teachings of his father and the other Brahmins<\/em>. He makes a series of acquaintances with individuals who profess to have something to teach, yet whose teachings Siddhartha finds inadequate, incomplete. After three long years of penance and bodily rigors, he abandons the asceticism of Samanas<\/em>. Then in the central episode of the novel, he goes in search of Gautama, the Buddha, the Sublime.<\/p>\n The cornerstones of Buddhism – including the recognition of the desire as a source of pain and the suppression of the desire to live as a way to Nirvana – very often coincide with Siddhartha’s reflections and ways of research. He realizes that being Gautama\u2019s disciple, following his sublime teachings is not what he is looking for, it is not what will illuminate his existence. He declares, “But one thing this doctrine does not contain so clear, so worthy of esteem: It does not contain the secret of what the Buddha himself has lived.” His search for an authentic and pacified inner dimension however does not stop at the teachings of the high master, since, for the protagonist, each must find his own way to wisdom.<\/p>\n His search now enters into the vicissitudes of Samsara<\/em>. He gets overwhelmed by the art of Kamala\u2019s love, but it never results in a supreme and spiritual love. He lives in the world, indulges in commerce, earns money and loses much in gambling. He accumulates possessions but understands that all this leads to an unfulfilled desire to possess more. Finally, he even rejects the role of father, as this sense of protection towards his son is just a source of suffering.<\/p>\n This simple book opens, flows and closes with the same continuous flow even in its own reading, as all life flows, just as the river flows, slowly, relentlessly. Finally, he finds solace in the company of the ferryman and the river that teaches him things that others were unable to.\u00a0 Siddhartha follows a path similar to Buddha\u2019s, but in his unique ways, he deviates. Siddhartha\u2019s illumination takes place not through the refusal of life, but by immersing himself violently in it, letting himself be involved in it and then resurrecting it with a new maturity.<\/p>\n Siddhartha<\/i> is an extraordinary book for the messages it transmits to those who are willing to listen, just as Siddhartha was willing to listen and learn from the river.<\/p>\n Siddhartha, the Brahmin\u2019s son, seems to have everything one could desire from life, wealth, beauty and power. All this is not enough for him; he is looking for something more, something that cannot be satisfied with material things and the rich culture he is born into.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[753,755,754],"class_list":["post-3996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-enlightenment","tag-liberation","tag-realization"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/siddhartha-rev.jpg?fit=760%2C443&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0y3h-12s","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3996"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3996"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4001,"href":"https:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3996\/revisions\/4001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Book Review <\/b>\r\nBook title: Siddhartha<\/b>\r\nAuthor: Hermann Hesse<\/b>\r\nGenre: Fiction, Spiritual, Motivational<\/b>\r\nPages: 160<\/b>\r\nPublisher: Bantam, 1982<\/b><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"