Siddhartha?

[Eric Wright]

Has anyone here read "

Siddhartha

Siddhartha

" By.

Hermann Hesse

Hermann_Hesse

?
I thought it had an very good overall message, and was just wondering what others that have read it thought.
Also recommend the book, if you have not read it. Even though it is written by a German, it can be classified as Eastern Philosophy, but with an universal message.

[ZEK S 854]

The work was required reading in a literature course I took in High School in the 70s and was also very popular among university students in the 60s and 70s. In classroom discussion, I recall the teacher stating that Hesse was one of the authors whose works were burned in the giants pyres of works consigned to the flames during the book burning presided over by Dr. Goebbels in the forecourt of Berlin University on May 10th 1933.

I re-read it every few years for its portrayal of humility, self-discipline and the unity of all things. A wonderful story beautifully told, even in English translation.

The edition displayed in the thumb-nail photo accompanying the entry for the work in Wikipedia is that of the edition I read in 1977 and is an edition which still sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year.

Despite the works of Hesse being officially censured by National Socialist Germany, Siddartha is truly a great work. One cannot help but think that had Siddartha contained a message of racial, cultural, political and biological integrity in addition to the core message of humility and the unity of all things, Siddartha would have been hailed in National Socialist Germany as a great work.

Just as an aside, other great works we encountered and studied in High School in the 70s were "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Solzhenitsyn, "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck and in Philosophy, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Friedrich Nietzsche as well as other works of his. Something tells me the curriculum for high schools has changed since the 70s.

[Eric Wright]

The work was required reading in a literature course I took in High School in the 70s and was also very popular among university students in the 60s and 70s. In classroom discussion, I recall the teacher stating that Hesse was one of the authors whose works were burned in the giants pyres of works consigned to the flames during the book burning presided over by Dr. Goebbels in the forecourt of Berlin University on May 10th 1933.

I am not sure if it is still standard reading for high school, but I would highly doubt it.

I re-read it every few years for its portrayal of humility, self-discipline and the unity of all things. A wonderful story beautifully told, even in English translation.

Yes, also another main theme of the book, being: Learn from many teachers. Glad to see someone else here "got it", and enjoyed it.

Just as an aside, other great works we encountered and studied in High School in the 70s were "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Solzhenitsyn, "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck and in Philosophy, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Friedrich Nietzsche as well as other works of his. Something tells me the curriculum for high schools has changed since the 70s

.
What freak of a teacher was laying "Thus Spake" on a bunch of high School kids? Pretty heavy stuff;' those days are long gone. I finished a college Philosophy 101 class not too long ago, and Nietzsche was not even brought up!

[ZEK S 854]

Hello Eric! In addition to those works of literature mentioned in my previous post I have been able to draw from my memory four other works of literature we encountered in High School in the 70s: we examined both "Heart of Darkness" and "The Secret Sharer" by Conrad, "Of Mice and Men", a great work of American literature by Steinbeck, and "Who Has Seen the Wind?" by Canadian author William Ormond Mitchell. Great works!

[Antiochus Epiphanes]

The author Hermann Hesse was friends with Chilean diplomat, yogist, gentleman and esotericist Miguel Serranno. If you have not heard of him ask around.

There is a book you can get off amazon about this friend ship and also his friendship with the great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung

Amazon.com: C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse (9783856305581): Miguel…

Amazon.com: C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse (9783856305581): Miguel…

[Eric Wright]

Originally Posted by Antiochus Epiphanes

The author Hermann Hesse was friends with Chilean diplomat, yogist, gentleman and esotericist Miguel Serranno. If you have not heard of him ask around.

There is a book you can get off amazon about this friend ship and also his friendship with the great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung

Amazon.com: C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse (9783856305581): Miguel…

There is also an old thread I started about this. Here. http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.p...ght=siddhartha

If you did a key word search of this forum you would probably get another twenty threads.

Also consider reading Julius Evola's book The Doctrine of Awakening, which is about the original or primitive Aryan iteration of Buddhism.

Ask Kievsky about these things, he is still around here I see.

I have "The Doctrine of Awakening" and it is on my "Evola list to read" after "Metaphysics of War". So in due time.
I am actually surprised to hear Hesse Was friends with Serranno. From the little I know of Hesse and the some I knew of Serranno, I wouldn't have expected them to be friends. Thank you, and Zek for the informative responses.