Kamala #279 (P)

On Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha - Part 2

Dear friends and supporters of Daily Philosophy,

Here comes the second part of our look at Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse’s book about the life of a young Hindu man at the time of the Buddha. Siddhartha goes on his own search for enlightenment and meaning, going through life as he slowly approaches, then loses, then finally finds his goal at the very end of the book.

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Last week, we talked about the beginning of Siddhartha’s journey. The young man leaves his village and with it a safe life as a high-caste member of his society, a future priest or scholar. Together with his friend Govinda, he follows a group of begging ascetics into the wilderness, where they stay for three years, learning the arts and skills needed to survive with nothing: fasting, meditating, punishing the body, getting rid of its desires. But at the end of this time, Siddhartha realises that just killing the ego and closing one’s eyes to the world cannot be all that there is to the ultimate wisdom.

At the same time, news of the Buddha reach them. They leave the ascetics to go and find the Buddha and to hear his teaching. When they find the wise man, Govinda, Siddhartha’s friend, decides to stay as a monk in the Buddha’s community. Siddhartha is still not convinced. In a meeting between the young man and the old teacher, Siddhartha makes the point that the Buddha himself clearly did not become enlightened by following Buddhist teachings. His enlightenment came as a consequence of the life he had led, his experiences and his thoughts about the world. It was lived rather than learned wisdom that made the Buddha himself — and this is also the path that Siddhartha wishes to follow. He leaves his friend with the other monks and leaves, now alone, to find his destiny:

Out of this moment, when the world melted away all around him, when he stood alone like a star in the sky, out of this moment of a cold and despair, Siddhartha emerged, more a self than before, more firmly concentrated. He felt: This had been the last tremor of the awakening, the last struggle of this birth. And it was not long until he walked again in long strides, started to proceed swiftly and impatiently, heading no longer for home, no longer to his father, no longer back.

Kamala

Siddhartha now wanders alone along the dusty road, without a goal, without knowing where he’s going, except that he won’t return back. Not to his family, not to his friend, not to the teachings of the Buddha. Whatever it is he’s looking for, it will be something new, an experience he has not yet had.