siddhartha...and Hesse

When I was much younger I began reading the works of Herman Hesse...and was drawn by his imagery...but also something else...his humanity. And some of his views...molded mine...like these:

Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

"Despair is the result of each earnest attempt to go through life with virtue, justice and understanding and fulfill their requirements. Children live on one side of despair, the awakened on the other side."

But it was the story of Siddhartha that struck me more than the others...why? Well there was this...The search for the meaning of life...

Hesse's works are largely confessional and autobiographical and deal with questions of "Weltanschauung," of a philosophy of life. Typically, as in Siddhartha, the individual's search for truth and identity through what Hesse called the "inward journey" is draped around the plot. Siddhartha, the obedient son of a rich Brahman, awakens one day to the realization that his life is empty and that his soul is not satisfied by his devotion to duty and strict observances of religious ordinances. He leaves home with his friend Govinda to begin his journey. First, he becomes an ascetic mendicant, but fasting and physical deprivation do not bring him closer to peace. Subsequently, he speaks with Gotama Buddha, who has attained the blissful state of Nirvana.

This concept of Nirvana...struck many in my generation...bliss...but what is weltanshauung..really?

Well it is a German term for "World-view," a general outlook on human life and its place in the greater order of the universe.

I was thinking about this on the way home from work...the world view...and then I remembered Hesse...

Strange how we read...and then the work becomes part of our inner thoughts...just like him...to have written a book about internal journey to make me think...how little we really know about ourselves...maybe that is why I really liked this man's work so much.


Thanks Herman...for letting me remember...something I read so long ago...and found




And we all search...journey...and then journey again...

If you haven't read this man's work...do.

Love,
The Lass