01-06-2019
Quotes I liked:
Page 14: “Siddhartha had one single goal - to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow - to let Self die. No longer to be Self, to experience the peace of an emptied heart, to experience pure thought - that was his goal. When all the Self was conquered and dead, when all passions and desires were silent, then the last must awaken, the innermost of Being that is no longer Self - the great secret!”
Siddhartha’s take on how to find the meaning of life…
Page 46: “He did not seek reality; his goal was not on any other side. The world was beautiful when looked at in this way - without any seeking, so simple, so childlike. The moon and the stars were beautiful, the brook, the shore, the forest and rock, the goat and the golden beetle, the flower and butterfly were beautiful. It was beautiful and pleasant to go through the world like that, so childlike, so awakened, so concerned with the immediate, without any distrust. … All this had always been and he had never seen it; he was never present. Now he was present and belonged to it. Through his eyes he saw light and shadows; through his mind he was aware of moon and stars.”
Living in the present…
Page 60: “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 affairs of the world like the stone through the water, without doing anything, without bestirring 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.”
How to get what you want…
Page 69: “When Kamaswami once reminded him that he had learned everything from him, he replied: ‘Do no make such jokes. I have learned from you how much a basket of fish costs and how much interest one can claim for lending money. That is your knowledge. But I did not learn how to think from you, my dear Kamaswami. It would be better if you learned that from me.’”
Knowledge vs how to think…
In business, etc. sometimes that “knowledge” of prices, rates, etc. feels like everything. All of that can be learned, but how do you learn how to think?
Page 107: “That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future? ‘That is it,’ said Siddhartha, ‘and when I learned that, I reviewed my life and it was also a river, and Siddhartha the boy, Siddhartha the mature man and Siddhartha the old man, were only separated by shadows, not through reality. 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.’”
Page 107: “Was then not all sorrow in time, all self-torment and fear in time? Were not all difficulties and evil in the world conquered as soon as one conquered time, as soon as one dispelled time?”
Page 131: “Within Siddhartha there slowly grew and ripened the knowledge of what wisdom really was and the goal of his long seeking. It was nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life. This thought matured in him slowly, and it was reflected in Vasudeva’s old childlike face: harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, and unity.”
Page 140: “Siddhartha said: ‘What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.’ ‘How is that?’ asked Govinda. ‘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. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.’”
This quote kind of contradicts the quote above from Siddhartha, I think this shows how Siddhartha grew and updated his beliefs throughout the book/his life, it’s important for us to be able to do this too.
Thoughts:
I enjoyed this book and it was a quick read. It starts out slow but as the story develops it becomes more interesting. It was a fun exercise to try and relate Siddhartha’s struggles to things I experience in my life, and to think introspectively about how I can live similarly, how I can improve.