BP #34: Siddhartha Reflection

Hermann Hesse does an incredible job of reaching the readers on a spiritual level through his words. It is quite amazing, because these are just words. Words cannot match or begin to explain the emotions, can they? Even Siddhartha says in the book, that words are not as real. He says the emotions are falsified a bit the instant they are spoken (Hesse 121). This makes Hesse's writing very interesting, and enchanting. He makes the non-spirituals feel as if they were spiritual, only as long as they are captive to his words. Philosophy is so hard to materialize in writing that few are even taken seriously. Luckily, Siddhartha is a successful tale of the spiritual journey. And this journey is the same one as many other stories, and the same as the one defined by Joseph Campbell. Siddhartha is on a hero's journey just as Campbell  described it. For example, he has a very distinguishable abyss when he realizes he hasn't been living his life as he is supposed to. "All that was left for him to do was annihilate himself, smash to pieced the botched structure of his life, throw it away, hurl it t the feet of the mocking gods" (Hesse 74). He wished for death, and is pushed even to let himself fall into the river to feebly die.  It is the spiritual Siddartha that resurfaces and saves him, speaking the word Om, perfection. He also has a guide and mentor in the ferryman. "Siddhartha felt what a joy it was to be able to confide in such a listener, to entrust his life, his searching, his sorrow, to this welcoming heart" (Hesse 88). Vasudeva teaches Siddhartha his craft of listening, but is always the superior listener, and help Siddhartha greatly by listening to his sorrows and his life. This leads to his enlightenment, and proves the ferryman is Siddhartha's true guide among all his teachers.

Another theme that resurfaces time and again in the second half of this novel is the fluidity of life and its relations to water and its many forms. The river is commonly mentioned, and it is no coincidence that it is a river that saves Siddhartha from his abyss. This green river was a source of life, and was a baptismal solution to the main character's problem. It is also not a coincidence that Siddhartha is told by his guide, Vasudeva, to listen more than anything to the river. "'You will learn this,' Vasudeva said, 'but not from me. It was the river that taught me to listen, and it will  teach you as well. It knows everything, the river, and one can learn anything from it'" (Hesse 89). The river teaches anything and everything and is the ultimate answer to all of Siddhartha's questions and his search for Oneness. Once Siddhartha is enlightened, he passes on this gift of knowledge to Govinda, his soul mate. " He no onger saw the face of his friend Siddhartha; instead he saw other faces, many of them, a long series, a flowing river of faces, by the hundreds, by the thousands, all of them coming and fading away, and yet all of them appearing to be there at once..." (Hesse 125). This flowing river of life is a great way to exemplify the universe in its unimaginable complexity. Everything is moving, and changing, yet it is staying the same. Everything both is, and is not. Siddhartha explains how these are both true at the same time, because its entire existence is inside the whole time. There is no time or future to show how a person or thing has changed. That change has been inside the person or thing all along. A river shows the future, past, and present, and disproves time. Hermann Hesse did a wonderful thing in this novel, and it is very emotional to the very core. I enjoyed it very much, and can only wish I had the ability to think on such a level, or to even comprehend the ideas of enlightenment.