Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Four years ago, this book was strongly recommended to me by one of my good friend. I had read it in one sitting during one of my transatlantic flight. A fabulous book for someone like me who grew up believing that "growing up is experiencing and trancending".

Here's the crux of the book.

Manish.

-----

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Siddhartha is a novel by Hermann Hesse which deals with the spiritual journey of an Indian man called Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha.

"Siddhartha" means "he who has attained his goals" or "every wish fulfilled". The Buddha's name, before his renunciation, was Prince Siddhartha Gautama, later the Buddha. The main character of Siddhartha in the book is not the same person as the Buddha, who in the book goes by the name "Gautama".

Experience is the aggregate of conscious events experienced by a human in life – it connotes participation, learning and perhaps knowledge. Understanding is comprehension and internalization. In Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, experience is shown as the best way to approach understanding of reality and attain enlightenment – Hesse’s crafting of Siddhartha’s journey shows that understanding is attained not through scholastic, mind-dependent methods, nor through immersing oneself in the carnal pleasures of the world and the accompanying pain of samsara; however, it is the totality of these experiences that allow Siddhartha to attain understanding.

Thus, the individual events are meaningless when considered by themselves – Siddhartha’s stay with the samanas and Siddartha’s immersion in the world of love and business do not lead to nirvana, but yet they cannot be considered detractions, for every action and event that is undertaken and happens to Siddhartha helps him to achieve understanding. The sum of these events is thus experience.