This book had a genuinely profound impact on me. Having heard it talked about so often, I finally decided to give it a go and I have to confess I almost gave up after the first few chapters and it’s not the kind of storytelling I really engage with. Much like life, however, the power of the lessons in the book and the wisdom that it imparts is genuinely transformative.
This book is often mentioned in the same breath as Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, but where that book totally failed to connect with me, Siddhartha is already a book I know I’m going to read and reread time and time and time again. These highlights don’t do it justice at all, but are useful reminders for me of what I took away from the book.
Most importantly, a deeper understand of the value of everything in our lives, whatever it is. They are all a part of us, who we are, what we believe and how we see the world. Nothing and no one should ever be dismissed.
“That was how everybody loved Siddhartha. He delighted and made everybody happy. But Siddhartha himself was not happy.” p4
“We find consolations, we learn tricks with which we deceive ourselves, but the essential thing — the way — we do not find.” p15
“The rumours of the Buddha sounded attractive; there was magic in these reports. The world was sick, life was difficult and here there seemed new hope, here there seemed to be a message, comforting, mild, full of fine promises.” p17
“Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them.” p27
“It is not for me to judge another life. I must judge for myself. I must choose and reject.” p28
“Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.” p32
“It was beautiful and pleasant to go through the world like that, so childlike, so awakened, so concerned with the immediate, without any distrust.” p37
“Why should I not attain what I decided to undertake yesterday?” p44
“From the moment I made that resolution I also knew that I would execute it.” p49
“He is drawn by his goal, for he does not allow anything to enter his mind which opposes his goal.” p49
“Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goal, if he can think, wait and fast.” p49
“He only noticed that the bright and clear inward voice, that had once awakened in him and had always guided him in his finest hours, had become silent.” p61
“I am not going anywhere. We monks are always on the way.” p72
“Now, when I am no longer young, when my hair is fast growing grey, when strength begins to diminish, now I am beginning again like a child.” p74
“I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace,” p75
“Was it not his Self, his small, fearful and proud Self, with which he had wrestled for so many years, but which had always conquered him again, which appeared each time again and again, which robbed him of happiness and filled him with fear?” p77
“The water continually flowed and flowed and yet it was always there; it was always the same and yet every moment it was new.” p79
“The eternity of every moment.” p89
“‘You have suffered, Siddhartha, yet I see that sadness has not entered your heart.'” p90
“Siddhartha began to realize that no happiness and peace had come to him with his son, only sorrow and trouble. But he loved him and preferred the sorrow and trouble of his love rather than happiness and pleasure without the boy.” p91
“Could his father’s piety, his teacher’s exhortations, his own knowledge, his own seeking, protect him? Which father, which teacher, could prevent him from living his own life, from soiling himself with life, from loading himself with sin, from swallowing the bitter drink himself, from finding his own path? Do you think, my dear friend, that anybody is spared this path? Perhaps your little son, because you would like to see him spared sorrow and pain and disillusionment? But if you were to die ten times for him, you would not alter his destiny in the slightest.” p94
“Perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.” p108
“‘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.'” p108
“Many people have to change a great deal and wear all sorts of clothes. I am one of those, my friend.” p108
“Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.” p109
“The world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or a deed wholly Sansara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner.” p110
“Every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people — eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good – death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding.” p110
“This stone is stone; it is also animal, God and Buddha. I do not respect and love it because it was one thing and will become something else, but because it has already long been everything and always is everything.” p111