Siddhartha
#learningIsAGift ?
#rituals of #theBeautifulJourney 
Whenever I go to a National Trust estate, I like buying a book there, with the intent of reading it and then giving it away. This is my ritual.
During/after reading it, I enjoy taking notes, extracting the takeaways from the book, ideas that can be helpful for me in various situations in life. This is my design.
Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse, is a very pleasant, short novel about a man’s spiritual journey of self-discovery. I found it inspiring and packed with wisdom, therefore I took some notes that I’ll share with you here. Now it is time to say: massive Spoiler Alert!
What were the different stages Siddhartha went through?
- Joined the Samanas – becomes an ascetic living in the woods – he thinks, waits, fasts
- Went to hear the teaching of Buddha, but did not follow him – he needs to discover the world through his own experience, not through teachings
- Going into the world to experience it – women, richness
- Losing contact with his Self – no longer thinking, fasting, waiting
- Leaving richness behind and wanting to commit suicide, but stops at sound of his inner voice
- Becomes a ferryman, listens to the river, learns to love the world, learns to let go, lets things and people follow their own path
Each stage of the journey has taught him something. As an exercise for myself, I’ll try to extract some of that “something”.
1. The ego can disguise itself and grow silently under apparent selfless acts, under the allure of a spiritual pursuit of knowledge.
“Too much knowledge has hindered him; too many holy verses, too many sacrificial rites, too much mortification of the flesh, too much doing and striving. He had been full of arrogance, he had always been the cleverest, the most eager, always a step ahead of the others, always the learned and intellectual one, always the priest or the sage. His Self had crawled into this arrogance, into this intellectuality. It sat there tightly and grew, while he thought he was destroying it by fasting and penitence.”
2. One cannot learn from teachings without living the experience of the lesson.
“Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.”
“Now he understood and realized that the inward voice had been right, that no teacher could have brought him salvation.”
(talking to Buddha) “You have done so by your own seeking, in your own way, through thought, through meditation, through knowledge, through enlightenment. You have learned nothing through teachings, and so I think that nobody finds salvation through teachings. To nobody, can you communicate in words and teachings what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment.”
2.a) Rather than seeking, be open to finding. (Avoid confirmation bias.)
“When someone is seeking, 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 are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.”
3) Love is a wise guide through life and life itself.
“Love is the most important thing in the world. […] it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.”
“She taught him that lovers should not separate from each other after making love without admiring each other, without being conquered as well as conquering, so that no feeling of satiation or desolation arises nor the horrid feeling of misusing or having been misused.”
4) The world can sweep you off your feet. In a sea of distractions, entertainment and achievements, the Self thrives for meaning, for time for Self.
5) Life is a miraculous gift. Living it only in our heads creates the danger of too much belief in one’s mind. The mind might want to give up for good, but the Self could not do that. Do not attach great importance to thoughts and words.
d o n o t b e l i e v e e v e r y t h i n g y o u t h i n k
6) There is abundance in silence, in listening. There is love in letting go. There is wisdom in nature. Beware of your good intentions.
Gentleness is stronger than severity
Water is stronger than rock
Love is stronger than force
When can all of the above become punishments?
e.g. when you use them to keep someone in captivity, while their calling, nature, upbringing, is fit for a different world/company than yours.
“And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life. When Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to this song of a thousand voices, when he did not listen to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om – perfection.”
What he learned from the river:
* learn to listen – the voices can no longer be distinguished – they lose their grief, passion, torment etc, they all belong to each other
* learn that there is no time – the river is at the source, at the waterfall, at the sea, at the ocean, there where you look at it
What would all this mean in (even) more practical terms?
- make time for yourself, reconnect to your Self and meaning, e.g. meditate
- be introspective to build self-awareness
- be patient, just breathe and trust yourself and life’s wisdom
- fast, take care of your body
- learn by doing/exploring/living the lesson, put in the time to practice
- go outdoors, explore nature
- show admiration, be kind and respectful to yourself and others (give yourself/them praise, give yourself/them space, talk to yourself/others nicely)
- love making love, and after, take your time, caress, kiss, embrace, adore through your eyes
How to start doing these things? See Mini Habits.