Siddhartha rejects his life as a Brahman's son and embarks on a journey into the world in search of enlightenment, choosing to live as an ascetic. After encountering Buddha, he abandons the ascetic life for a more material one, becoming a merchant and learning the ways of love from a courtesan. Eventually, he leaves that life behind as well. The question remains: will Siddhartha ever find what he is truly seeking?

Normally, a Nobel Prize-winning book wouldn't catch my attention. I'm more inclined towards stories involving people getting pistol-whipped and big monsters. However, I repeatedly saw this book on my girlfriend's bookshelf and finally decided to give it a try. I'm extremely glad I did.

Siddhartha is the tale of one man's pursuit of meaning, and it's a remarkable one. Given that it's a classic and translated from German, I wasn't anticipating an effortless read. But compared to what I had imagined, it was a breeze. The first couple of paragraphs were a bit rough, but I immediately began to appreciate it.

The story parallels the life of Buddha but is not a mere retelling. This Siddhartha has his own unique path to traverse. He goes from having nothing to possessing everything, including a woman who is eager to teach him to be the best lover she has ever known, and then back to having nothing and living as a ferryman, learning valuable life lessons at every step.

Although it's a novel, it is also highly inspirational. There are gems of wisdom to be discovered within its pages. My favorite is the concept that wisdom cannot be taught but can only be learned.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to those interested in Eastern Philosophy and Buddhism, as well as those who desire something more profound than just gunplay and werewolf attacks.

Started strong, but I got incredibly bored quickly.

At the beginning, I was full of enthusiasm and anticipation. However, as time went by, my initial excitement gradually faded away.

The reason for my boredom might be that the task or activity didn't hold my interest for a long time. It could have been too repetitive or lacked sufficient variety.

Maybe I expected more challenges or new experiences, but unfortunately, it didn't meet my expectations.

As a result, I found myself losing focus and becoming disinterested.

This situation not only affected my motivation but also my overall performance.

I realized that in order to avoid getting bored easily, I need to find ways to make the task more engaging and stimulating.

Perhaps I could try to approach it from a different perspective, or add some personal touches to make it more unique.

Only in this way can I maintain my interest and enthusiasm and achieve better results.

**"Siddhartha": A Journey of Self-Discovery and Universal Appeal**

  




My apologies if this review seems overly enthusiastic. However, "Siddhartha" gave me a truly one-of-a-kind reading experience that is rare. It is beautifully written and a deeply personal story, making it the ultimate expression of the journey of self-discovery.



The book details the life of Siddhartha, the young and brilliant son of a Brahmin in ancient India. Despite having learned all of his father's teachings and followed the religious rites of his caste, Siddhartha is not content. He feels something is missing and decides to leave his father and future to seek enlightenment.



His journey takes him through various stages. He first encounters ascetics who shun personal possessions. Then he meets a courtesan who teaches him about physical love, and a wealthy trader who teaches him about profit and worldly pleasures. He also experiences a life of hedonistic excess before finally returning to an ascetic life that embraces the world.




  




Throughout his journey, Siddhartha finds value in everyone he meets. Hesse's elegant and evocative writing shows the fundamental value of each person. Siddhartha's final realization of enlightenment is amazing and I highly recommend this book to everyone.



I'm a U.S. citizen of Irish heritage, raised Roman Catholic and educated in western philosophy, history, and literature. Despite my background, I was completely floored by how much I could identify with Siddhartha's story. This shows the brilliance of Hesse's prose and the universal nature of the story. It's an amazing and deeply personal read that everyone will get something different out of. I give it 5.0 stars and the highest possible recommendation!

Siddhartha's spirit was reflected on the paper, and thus a masterpiece was born. This is the story of the Indian boy who embarked on a long, long journey that took his entire life, in search of the truth.

Siddhartha is a philosophical novel that first poses questions and attempts to answer them through the reflections and dialogues of the characters. The journey of the Hindu boy begins when he leaves his community from the Brahmin caste after becoming satiated and dissatisfied with the teachings of the Brahmins. He starts a journey into the unknown in order to quench his thirst for the truth. Siddhartha travels from place to place, experiences several doctrines, lives a life of asceticism, austerity, meditation, and devotion. And he has theories and conclusions at each stage.

The novel is beautiful in its invitation to think and reflect and not be content with simply accepting beliefs. However, it is limited to the scope of Buddhism and Hinduism, which limits its impact on those who do not have a background in their principles. Also, my taste always leans towards reality that is deeply rooted in my subconscious mind more than travel stories. In addition, there was a certain atmosphere in the novel that did not appeal to me.

Yeah, this is indeed pretty much the wet dream of non-Buddhist people.

They exoticize Eastern cultures and religions by packaging them in a way that conforms to the Western cultural lens.

This approach is highly othering.

It represents the classic hot take of a white dude on a culture that is not his own.

Such writing fails to truly understand and respect the essence and complexity of the Eastern cultures and religions.

It simplifies and distorts them to fit the Western narrative and biases.

Instead of attempting to bridge the cultural gap and promote mutual understanding, it further alienates and objectifies the other.

This kind of writing is not only inaccurate but also disrespectful and harmful to the rich and diverse tapestry of Eastern cultures and religions.

We should strive for a more inclusive and respectful approach that values and celebrates the unique qualities of each culture, rather than reducing them to mere exotic curiosities for Western consumption.

People can read books for two reasons that Bertrand Russell had written about. One is just for the joy of the mind, and the other is to show off to others. From Russell's way of speaking, it can be understood that his real intention is to highlight the people in the second category. Reading books is a bit like brushing teeth; everyone knows and understands that it needs to be done, but few people actually do it. Books are the foundation of knowledge. By reading books, one can learn about many things, and there is also a good trend of looking at reading books in society. Combining all these, the phrase "I read books" has a certain value in promoting in society.

It is known to all that there is no discussion of knowledge in Bangladesh. Here, people are taught in schools, colleges, and universities just to pass exams, not for the sake of reading books or becoming learned like Vidyasagar. There is a rush of BCS examinees in the libraries here. Here, uneducated rickshaw pullers and PHED workers beat their wives, throw rubbish on the road, take bribes, steal, and fight, all under the same law. It is not clear what role education plays in the behavior of these people. Since no one reads anything other than textbooks, the matter of reading books has become a myth here. Those who pile up this myth and introduce themselves as readers to ten people, new types of bookstores are opened for them. When you go to these places, you can't tell if these stores are selling books or expensive tea, coffee, and biscuits.

When someone changes the photo on their Facebook profile, they are at these bookstores, wearing a new shirt, pajama, or saree, taking a photo with an expensive camera, and writing the caption, "I got lost in the world of books for a few hours." Looking at the captions of some people's photos, it seems that they wandered around the bookstore, picked up the first book they saw when they were about to go home after a date, took a random page photo, and when uploading their own photo, they also wrote two random words from that random page. The model books for these types of readers are "The Alchemist" and "Siddhartha". Bertrand Russell's second reason for reading books is being shown outside by these people. The category of people who want to stand firm in the field of philosophy has sweated a lot, shed blood, been burned in fire, and fought. The books they have written or read cannot be read or understood by these people. They say that they dilute the taste of milk in "Siddhartha" or "The Alchemist" with warm water and say, "My interest is in philosophical books." Although technically, the readers of "Siddhartha" may consider themselves a little more serious and relatively more educated than the readers of "The Alchemist".

There is no need for everyone to read all books. If someone gets lost in the babble of philosophy in "Siddhartha" or "The Alchemist", there is no problem. The difficulty comes when overly eager readers take these books as the equivalent of celestial books. In 1972, there was a movie made about Siddhartha; the devotees were not happy with that movie because the original philosophy of the book did not come out in the movie. How much more can the director himself bear the pain of being criticized by people for filling this book with sex scenes on every page? There are many readers of "The Alchemist" and "Siddhartha" in the world. The authors of these books are made into cute dolls, coffee, tea, and biscuit-selling bookstores are opened for them, the business increases, and the turnover increases. All these are understandable. I myself have eaten the salt of the capitalist system, and it is difficult for me to speak ill of this system. But if you do business in the capitalist system and your interest is like that of the communists in the field of industrial literature, then what can be said? "Siddhartha" and some other books are sold in tea and coffee-selling bookstores with stickers like "Philosophy", "Self-help", "Self-development", and "Inspiring" pasted on them. No one buys these books to read, but to take a photo and post it on Instagram to show off. We live in a world of 700 crore people, white, brown, Hindu, Japanese, and everyone has something in common here. Those who have no brains "rightly" become "inspired" by looking at the photos below and following the trend.

Review of my friend Huda, more than excellent:

https://goo.gl/Jj9cb9

As for the novel, it is extremely wonderful. It is a short journey that summarizes a person's life and his path in this world. His struggle with time, disappointments, defeats, his journey from youth to old age, a life full of desires, quarrels, struggles, wars, both ideological and otherwise. It is a small novel filled with all that life entails of mysteries and secrets, of pains and hopes, of dreams and disappointments, of falls and breakdowns, and a few moments of joy. The eternal return? Is this what it's all about, as the dear Nietzsche said? Or are we still ignorant of this world? And that, despite what we claim to know and understand of its mysteries, it is still capable of astonishing us with more events? Read, know. And search, find. As Zizito said. It is a beautiful novel, steeped in the scent of time, the past, the delicate state, the beauty of the desert, for a period in the early twentieth century. With all the ideological struggles it contains, between the soul, the body, matter, thought, and the many conflicting doctrines. Spiritual, material, monistic, theistic, worldly, religious. It is a novel that contains all the struggles of that period, but it is, nevertheless, full of inner peace and hope of reaching. It is a novel that makes you feel, after reading it, the extent of the stupidity of our world and our human nature - we - with all that it contains of fear, pain, greed, desire, torture, and - futile - attempts towards perfection. Buda, Sade, Jovinda, and his perfection. They are all of us, as humans, in our worst manifestations, but over time, in different forms and realizations and conflicting stages of life, each one tries to eliminate the other and rise to the surface. It is a novel, as I said, full of struggles, but it is, as Sade said in the end, life in one way or another. "A harmonious unity but it is conflicting." It is an amazing novel, just. Read it with Huda, and its review surely deserves all the praise.

After reading so many eulogistic reviews, I followed Sintarta on his spiritual journey which is not a straight line. On the contrary, it has meanderings.

He teaches the momentum of fears, the passionate path of love (the story with Kamala deeply touched me) as he tries to find the lost unity of the Self. He doesn't try to convey wisdom because his wisdom always sounds crazy. Only knowledge is conveyed so that we can travel like stars on a constant path, regardless of the breath of the wind.

Sintarta confirmed to me what I hypothesized, that people-children have the ability to love. This is our secret, our power and our weakness.

His words and experiences made me reflect on my own life and the meaning I seek. It's like a new door has opened, leading me to a world of deeper understanding and self-discovery.

I look forward to continuing this journey with Sintarta and seeing where it takes me. Maybe I'll find my own answers and share them with others one day.

Who knows what lies ahead? But one thing is for sure, this journey with Sintarta has already changed me in ways I could never have imagined.

\\"Wisdom does not accept delivery, and the wisdom that a great man tries to deliver to others always seems foolish?\\"

\\"Knowledge can be delivered, but wisdom cannot. A person may be able to discover wisdom, strengthen himself with it, and perform wonders through it, but he will not be able to deliver and teach it to others.\\"

As the translator said in his preface: Siddhartha means the man who has achieved his goal. It can be the story of every human being who walks on the path of self-discovery.

Siddhartha was beloved since childhood.

\\"Everyone loved Siddhartha, and this love was a source of joy for him, so it made him happy to be a source of happiness for others. However, Siddhartha himself was not happy.\\"

His father and teachers taught him a lot, but he felt

\\"That his father and other teachers had passed on to him the essence of their wisdom and the best of it, and that they had poured the sum of their knowledge into his waiting vessel. But this vessel was not filled, his mind was not convinced, his soul did not know peace, and his heart did not enjoy stability.\\"

So he followed his friend Govinda and they were a group of wandering ascetics, and then he went to meet the Buddha. But did he find what he was looking for? Did he know himself? Did he find what was lacking in him? Did he know happiness and achieve inner peace?

\\"It seems that I, who claim to be Siddhartha... I only find brief rest in my meditations and reflections, and I am far from wisdom and salvation, just as I was as a child in my mother's womb.\\"

It was not what he wanted, but he knew the way to it. So he decided to leave all doctrines and teachers and go to search for himself through his personal experiences, not through what he heard from others and what he learned from their experiences and teachings. To be his own teacher. So we follow him in what he experiences.

\\"A person should not obey any external order, but should only obey his own voice and be prepared.\\"

Man usually learns about the things of life through his personal experiences more than what he hears and learns from others, so his personal experiences have a stronger impact than the experiences of others. Of course, this is not the case in everything, but I am talking about man's search for himself, about what makes him happy, and about what he needs. For each of us has his own personality and each of us is affected by different things from others. And each of us needs to know himself, understand himself, and know his needs.

As much as I was enthusiastic about the novel after my previous encounter with Hermann in Narcissus and Goldmund, as much as I felt disappointed here. I could not identify with it, and although his style is poetic, he could not move my thoughts and feelings with him. And I sometimes felt bored. The style of the novel is neither easy nor difficult, it is a mixture of both. I sometimes reread some sentences either to admire them or to try to understand them better. The novel is not bad, but in short, it is not for me.

We have another encounter with Hermann, and I hope it will be better.

I rated it between 2 and 3.

The novel is not my favorite type, but at the same time it is good in general.

My rating is 2.5.

17/1/2021

Set on the Gangetic Plain approximately 2,600 years ago, Siddhartha delves into one man's arduous search for enlightenment. Siddhartha, the son of a Brahmin, even in the very presence of Gautama Buddha himself, struggles to find a way that is solely reliant on the teachings of others. He comes to firmly believe that there is no single illuminated path that all men and women can uniformly follow.

We must each, without exception, make our own mistakes. We are all destined to suffer, and no amount of warning against it will ever truly assist us. For living a life of bizarre comfort that attempts to prevent suffering simultaneously precludes our ability to find peace. The novel becomes especially illuminating if one has some understanding of the Vedic Religion and how it influenced the developments in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism.

The writing style is highly honed, lean, and devoid of abstruse digressions. It satisfies for me the fundamental requirement of all good fiction: that it reveals a fully imagined world. And isn't that precisely what we truly require from a narrative? That it takes us out of ourselves; that, to paraphrase John Gardner (The Art of Fiction, Grendel, Mickelsson's Ghosts, Nickel Mountain, October Light, etc.), it perpetuates the dream? It is highly recommended. I much prefer it to Steppenwolf. Up next are Journey to the East and The Glass Bead Game.

For years, and when I say years, it is actually more like decades.

I have seen this classic book from time to time, but I have never read it.

It's not a very long book, but I just never took the time to try it out.

One of my Goodreads groups is reading it this month, so I figured that now is as good a time as any to give it a go.

I decided to listen to it, and it kind of felt like I was listening to a story around the campfire.

The biggest thing it reminded me of was when I was a kid at the museum in Cincinnati, hearing Native American legends about how the constellations got in the sky.

I am not sure how close to any actual lore Hesse's version is, but it was interesting to listen to.

I saw some comments out there about this book being slow.

It certainly isn't action packed, and there are many philosophical digressions that move away from the story into a spiritual realm.

These parts of the narrative can be slow, but they do add to the atmosphere of Siddartha's journey.

Do I recommend it?

If you are really into stories about philosophy and spirituality, yes.

If you are into reading all the classics, yes.

Otherwise, maybe or maybe not - I can't say for sure.

Overall, "Siddartha" offers a unique and thought-provoking experience.

It challenges the reader to think about life, purpose, and the meaning of existence.

While it may not be for everyone, those who are open to exploring these deep themes will likely find it a rewarding read.

Whether you choose to read it or listen to it, give this classic a chance and see where it takes you.

Siddhartha is a remarkable German novel penned by Hermann Hesse.

It delves deep into the story of Siddhartha's arduous and profound quest for spiritual illumination.

This book has the power to spiritually enlighten you in ways you may never have imagined. It patiently teaches you to identify love in its purest form and to love the world with unwavering certitude.

As you turn the pages, you'll be captivated by the beautiful prose and the profound wisdom it imparts.

The quote, "Gentleness is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than force," serves as a powerful reminder of the true essence of life.

It encourages us to approach the world with kindness, to let love guide our actions, and to believe in the power of the human spirit.

Siddhartha is not just a book; it's a journey of self-discovery and a source of inspiration for all those seeking a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them.

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