Nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings

My Review of Siddharta (Herman Hesse novel)

After reading Man’s Search for Himself (book), I wanted to read stories of a person searching for himself. I then asked recommendations from the internet and it has recommended both Demian and Siddhartha. I then went to the bookstore to get them specifically and was very lucky to find both! Awesome! After reading Demian (novel), I immediately picked up Siddharta (novel).

Both of these novels feel similar despite the differences in the religious themes used. Demian is influenced by Christianity and Gnosticism while Siddhartha is influenced more by Buddhism and Hinduism.

These are some of the concepts and insights in the book, some of which I have yet to think about:

1. Words, opinions, and teachings can be worthless in search for your self. Thoughts and ideas can seem to be contradicting when expressed in words.^{[^3]} Also, truths told in words can only express one side of the whole truth. ^{[^7]} Opinions change all the time and anyone can support or discard them ^{[^4]}. Teachings can convey knowledge but never wisdom. Wisdom passed on to other people can sound like foolishness. Wisdom is something to be experienced and contemplated. ^{[^5]}
2. Being open, instead of sticking to a set goal, can be valuable in search for your self. Being fixed on a singular goal can limit your vision. It can point your eyes to something else when the answer can be right in front of you.^{[^6]}
3. The body and the mind provide great insights in search for your self. Do not ignore either one. ^{[^8]}
4. Time is not real. Do not separate your past and your future self from your present self. All of them exists simultaneously in you right now. The same is true for any other object. A stone, for example, in the cycle of time, can turn into soil, which can turn into a plant or animal or a human being, and therefore you can give it importance right now. You only have to give it consent, or make an agreement that it will do good for you. ^{[^9]}
5. No one can ever teach you about yourself, especially not teachers and their teachings. So don’t flee from yourself, your only source of knowledge of yourself. For example, only you know about how you truly felt back in sixth grade when you got bullied, or when you lost your loved one, etc. Only you can gain insight about the experiences you’ve had. ^{[^10]}

Favorite Quotes

Fleeing from the self and going to the self

What is meditation? What is leaving one’s body? What is fasting? What is holding one’s breath? It is fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short numbing is what the driver of an oxcart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of rice-wine or fermented coconut milk. Then he won’t feel his self any more, then he won’t feel the pains of life anymore, then he finds a short numbing of the senses.
p. 16. Siddhartha to Govinda. Tags: Solitude deprivation

It was the self, the purpose and essence of which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it. Truly, nothing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being separated and isolated from others, of me being Siddhartha! And there is nothing in this world I know less about than about me, about Siddhartha!
p. 36. Siddharta. Tags: Solitude deprivation, Zone out on purpose | Book Notes, You need this much solitude

That I know nothing about myself, that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown to me, stems from one cause, a single cause: I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself! I searched Atman, I searched Brahman, I was willing to dissect myself and peel off all of its layers, to find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, the life, the divine part, the ultimate part. But I have lost myself in the process.
p. 36. Siddharta. Tags: Solitude deprivation

You are like me, you are different from most people. You are Kamala, nothing else, and inside of you, there is a peace and refuge, to which you can go at every hour of the day and be at home at yourself, as I can also do. Few people have this, and yet all could have it.
p. 67. Siddhartha to Kamala. Tags: Solitude

Uselessness of words

Oh Govinda: that there is nothing to be learned! There is indeed no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as ‘learning’. There is, oh my friend, just one knowledge, this is everywhere, this is Atman, this is within me and within you and within every creature. And so, I’m starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the desire to know it, than learning.
p. 19. Siddhartha to Govinda.

But be warned, oh seeker of knowledge, of the thicket of opinions and of arguing about words. There is nothing to opinions, they may be beautiful or ugly, smart of foolish, everyone can support them or discard them. But the teachings, you’ve heard from me, are no opinion, and their goal is not to explain the world to those who seek knowledge. They have a different goal; their goal is salvation from suffering. This is what Gotama teaches, nothing else.
p. 31. Gotama to Siddhartha

You have found salvation from death. It has come to you in the course of your own search, on your own path, through thoughts, through meditation, through realizations, through enlightenment. It has not come to you by means of teachings! And – thus is my thought, oh exalted one – nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! You will not be able to convey and say to anybody, oh venerable one, in words and through teachings what has happened to you in the hour of enlightenment!
p. 33. Siddhartha to Gotama

When someone is searching, then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don’t see, which are directly in front of your eyes.
p. 127. Siddhartha to Govinda

Wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness. … Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught.
p. 129

The opposite of every truth is just as true! That’s like this: any truth can only be expressed when it is one-sided. Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with words, it’s all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness. When the exalted Gotama spoke in his teachings of the world, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into deception and truth, into suffering and salvation. It cannot be done differently, there is no other way for him who wants to teach.
p. 129

Unity of body and mind, Relationships

Now, he had to experience his self. It is true that he had already known for a long time that this self was Atman, in its essence bearing the same eternal characteristics as Brahman. But never, he had really found this self, because he had wanted to capture it in the net of thought. With the body definitely not being the self, and not the spectacle of the senses, so it also was not the thought, not the rational mind, not the learned ability to draw conclusions and to develop previous thoughts in to new ones. No, this world of thought was also still on this side, and nothing could be achieved by killing the random self of the senses, if the random self of thoughts and learned knowledge was fattened on the other had. Both, the thoughts as well as the senses, were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them, both had to be listened to, both had to be played with, both neither had to be scorned nor overestimated, from both the secret voices of the innermost truth had to be attentively perceived.
p. 45

Beautiful and red is Kamala’s mouth, but just try to kiss it against Kamala’s will, and you will not obtain a single drop of sweetness from it, which knows how to give so many sweet things!
p. 53. Kamala to Siddhartha.

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.
p. 57. Siddhartha. Tags: Productivity

… him she taught, thoroughly starting with the basics, about that school of thought which teaches that pleasure cannot be taken without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every look, every spot of the body, however small it was, had its secret, which would bring happiness to those who know about it and unleash it.
p. 62

Stop scolding, dear friend! Nothing was ever achieved by scolding.
p. 63. Siddhartha to Kamaswami

… Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him happiness and peace, but suffering and worry. But he loved him, and he preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and joy without the boy.
p. 108

Footnotes

[^1]: [[Man’s Search for Himself (book)]]

[^2]: Siddhartha: Key Facts | SparkNotes

[^3]: Siddharta (novel) p. 134

[^4]: Siddharta (novel) p. 31

[^5]: Siddharta (novel) p. 33, 129

[^6]: Siddharta (novel) p. 127. Ch 11

[^7]: Siddharta (novel) p. 129

[^8]: Siddharta (novel) p. 45

[^9]: Siddharta (novel) p. 130-131

[^10]: Siddharta (novel) p. 16, 36