Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Finished June 28, 2026

I liked this, then hated it, then ended up liking it by the end. Super short book, quick and easy read.
Have some quotes~

I thought we were off to a good start:

And in days to come, when Siddhartha would become a god, when he would join the glorious, then Govinda wanted to follow him as his friend, his companion, his servant, his spear-carrier, his shadow.

Kidding. I knew it wasn’t that type of book. No, it’s this type of book:

And Siddhartha said quietly, as if he was talking to himself: “What is meditation? What is leaving one’s body? What is fasting? What is holding one’s breath? It is fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a brief numbing of the senses against the pain and pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short numbing is what the driver of an ox-cart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of rice-wine or fermented coconut milk. Then he will not feel his self any more, then he will not feel the pains of life any more, then he finds a short numbing of the senses. When he falls asleep over his bowl of rice-wine, he’ll find the same what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape their bodies through long exercises, staying in the non-self. This is how it is, O Govinda.”

I liked how he called out that posery bullshit, even though he’s a poser himself half the book. Because then this and that happens and he decides to go learn the “teachings of love” or whatever the hell he called it, and he chose to learn from the best. And for a second even she was surprised he talked her into it:

“[…] Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is, able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.”

Kamala listened to him. She loved his voice, she loved the look from his eyes.

“Perhaps it is so,” she said quietly, “as you say, friend. But perhaps it is also like this: That Siddhartha is a handsome man, that his glance pleases the women, therefore good fortune is coming towards him.”

Totally correct. Dude thinks he’s an enlightened genius and actually he just has pretty privilege.

Anyway, after years of sex, great food, riches & gambling, he gets back on track…by thinking he wants to die and then after a good nap he decides no, everything is actually great:

“I had to pass through so much stupidity, through so much vice, through so many errors, through so much disgust and disappointment and woe, just to become a child again and to be able to start over again.”

I shouldn’t tease; some of this stuff is legitimately good and insightful. And I think it pretty accurately follows the course of enlightenment—trying to learn everything, thinking you’re so smart, then the “smarter” you get you realize everything is useless and why don’t we just die, being all dramatic, then having a good rest and realizing shit isn’t really so bad.

Now Siddhartha also got some idea of why he had fought this self in vain as a Brahman, as a penitent. Too much knowledge had held him back, too many holy verses, too many sacrificial rules, too much self-castigation, so much doing and striving for that goal! Full of arrogance he had always been, always the smartest, always working the hardest, always one step ahead of all others, always the knowing and spiritual one, always the priest or wise one. Into being a priest, into this arrogance, into this spirituality, his self had retreated, there it sat firmly and grew, while he thought he would kill it with fasting and penance. Now he saw it and saw that the secret voice had been right, that no teacher would ever have been able to bring about his salvation.

Yes. This is true. It continues later when Govinda (after going separate ways with Siddhartha, chasing Buddha) reunites with Siddhartha and he recognizes that Siddhartha has figured it out:

“Would you like to tell me something, O honourable one?”

Quoth Siddhartha: “What should I possibly have to tell you, O venerable one? Perhaps that you are searching far too much? That in all that searching, you don’t find the time for finding?”

“How come?” asked Govinda.

“When someone is searching,” said Siddhartha, “then it might easily happen that is the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that is he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, O venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don’t see, which are directly in front of your eyes.”

Not to sound horribly pretentious, but I have had similar conversations with people (minus the “O venerable one” bit) more than once so I really liked that part. Yes, “it’s the journey, not the destination” but also if you’re in love with—if your identity is—the seeking, how can you ever “find”? It’s like Henri the painter and his neverending boat building.


Overall, this book reminded me a lot of A Course in Miracles (especially with the whole “time isn’t real” thing, which I did not include, somewhat ironically, because of time) and also of the Jed McKenna books (and plenty of others) with the whole peel away the identity/who is the self thing. It’s always fun finding stuff that wasn’t written “recently” that tells us the same stuff people insist is new and revolutionary.

Rating: Probably deserves 4 stars but I’m gonna give it 3