Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (Book Summary and Review) - Minute Book Report

This is a quick summary and analysis of Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse. This is a story about a man named Siddhartha
who wants to find enlightenment as a monk. He leaves his family and travels with his
friend, Govinda, to learn from samanas, or wise monks, who are living in the forest. Over time, Siddhartha dislikes the teachings
and teachers and wants to learn more on his own, so he leaves behind Govinda, who stays
back to learn from Gautama, the Buddha.

Siddhartha finds his way into a town and meets
Kamala, a beautiful woman. He is attracted to her, but she wants a man who is wealthy.
Because he knows nothing of business, Siddhartha seeks the help of a local merchant, who trains
him. Soon, Siddhartha gains wealth and wins over Kamala. However, Siddhartha loses his passion to find
enlightenment and indulges himself in gambling, possessions, and women.

He realizes that he
has strayed from his original path towards enlightenment and gives all of his possessions
away, leaving Kamala behind with a son. Siddhartha encounters a ferryman named Vasudeva,
who seems to have found peace and enlightenment on the river. Siddhartha stays with him and
he learns to find inner peace. One day, Siddhartha encounters Kamala and
her son, Siddhartha, near the river.

Kamala gets bitten by a snake and dies, leaving the
boy with Siddhartha to raise. However, the boy runs away and Siddhartha doesnt know
what to do. After Vasudeva leaves, Siddhartha stays as
a ferryman and is visited by Govinda. In the end, Siddhartha has found enlightenment
and shares a glimpse of it with Govinda.

As always a lot can be said about this story,
but what draws my interest and attention is the idea of the self needing to die to progress
growth. And this has nothing to do with suicide, but rather a dying of character within ourselves,
which then pushes us to change and become the person we are trying to become. Siddhartha realizes that in order for him
to fully achieve enlightenment, he would need to forget the many lessons he learned as he
started as a samanas. And as a way of unlearning those ways, he had to kill his former self
and all of the ways of thinking that went with that self.

This was accomplished when
he became a merchant and discovered greed. Think of it this way. Theres a caterpillar
and then a butterfly. In order for the caterpillar to become a butterfly, it has to kill the
part of itself that is a caterpillar and becomes something different, something that is unrecognizable,
which is the cocoon or pupa.

And when the caterpillar ceases to be a caterpillar, it
emerges and is now something totally different, a butterfly. And as a butterfly, it doesnt
think the same as the caterpillar. It is something completely new. And so in this same way, for a lot of us,
we need our former selves to die in order to become something greater, or at least something
different.

For Siddhartha, it took him his entire life to realize this. That what he
was chasing, which was enlightenment, could never be attained in the state that he was
in. He could only attain it after he had experienced more of life and ultimately became a different
person. So, let me know what you think of the story
in the comments below.

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