siddhartha, Hesse.

It is the temerity of human thought to put the truth in words. Yet, at the same time it is the noblest aim of human thought to discover the path towards the truth. The great Indian poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore had once remarked that human thought is very potent and a human is unique in that he is self-conscious. What does this word indicate? A dog or an ant remembers (either by instinct of by experience) a number of facts like if you go near a fire, it burns or if you jump off a wall, you go down. But the human thought tries to discover the universal truth, for example gravitation, he need not remember a million facts. It is the same truth that Hesse is trying to convey in his book Siddhartha. But he is trying not to teach, but merely state in human language (or words) how this truth appears in one person to the outside world. He is trying to distinguish the true self (or the inner self) from the self that we identify ourselves with the surroundings. Many comments above have pointed out how he has hit on the point of ancient Indian philosophy of advaita (a -prefix of negation, dvi-two or dual; so advaita means non-dualism). While I am not an expert at that, I would like to concur on the general theme or concept of unity and harmony. Yes, Hesse has narrated a modicum of truth in simple words and even today many are spell bound by the simplicity, yet profound meaning in his words. He is urging humans to discover their true self within them. All the knowledge of the world is within oneself, since self is the ultimate truth. So, don't let the ego come in between. His discourse is not religious, in fact the spirituality he is talking about starts where religion ends. Since in his path, there is no teacher, there are no rules, there are no guidelines, not even the "faith" that one hears often. It is discovering the infinite knowledge within the self. When I talk about self-conscious, it means that the human is burning with questions of what role (however insignificant) does he play in the grand cosmic plan. Because he sees nothing but infinite dark space punctuated by light and energy and yet, by realizing that self is nothing but the entire (cosmos), his ultimate question is experienced rather than answered. I believe that Hesse must have felt these transformations and at some point in his life met with his 'self', otherwise truth would not have come out in any simpler (yet incomplete) words. Even his book Narcissus and Goldmund is book of discovering the path to the truth, which is the true nature of the self and yet he leaves it without a tangible end. He leaves it as a question for other humans to discover the path themselves. In fact, it strikes a chord with another beautiful story called 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' by Richard Bach. It is an even simpler and shorter book to read, but the meaning is beyond words can express (it is available at http://www.42.dropbear.id.au/jls.html) My personal opinion is that I am glad that there are people who have tried to answer these questions that have troubled the human mind ever since he has become self-conscious. I mean, there have been philosophers who advocated from materialism to atheism and there are people who advocate the truth of god in the name of religion. But few people recognize that anything that tries to capture the truth with the impurity of words or ideas is incomplete, far from the truth. The truth can only be experienced, cannot be spoken, cannot be written, cannot be taught, cannot be seen. I guess, that was what Hesse was speaking about when he spoke about Nirvana. It is the discovery of the self within the cosmos and discovery of the cosmos within the self. Philosophers probably do a good job at answering many of these questions, but they only come close and never to the truth! I have a great respect and admiration for Hesse.