Turn The Page: Siddartha by Herman Hesse

As with a lot of the works by Herman Hesse this book is not large in regards to the number of pages but the largeness of the spirit contained within is immeasurable.

Sometimes you read a book and you feel that serendipity has delivered it to you, so closely does it seem tailored to the needs you have at that moment. Your life mirrors the life of the main character — perhaps not in exact details, but there is enough of a commonality for it to strike you oddly. My wife was reading a book and the name Siddartha appeared there too — with a message that seemed pertinent to us both.

Over the last year I and my wife have discussed back and forth many ideas concerning the nature of what we are and where we fit in the universe. For her, she stumbled upon certain keys in the book The Secret. In the same way that two people looking at a piece of art can see different things — I saw that book in a different light and did not take much from it. I understand, having reached the end of this book by Hesse, the similarities between the ideas that are being expressed.

It took this text to communicate the ideas to me. In a book that talks about how you may not learn wisdom from another; that only knowledge may be shared, I think I found some perceptual tools with which to attain some of the wisdom which Siddartha finds. Is that arrogant? You may perceive it to be that way — I do not think so.

I commented to someone that I lacked the attention span to concentrate on this book and get it finished, which given its length is faintly ridiculous. I was assured that it was a page turner, and indeed it is, but to fully appreciate it and absorb the lessons which are there I needed to have occasional pauses to let the information get sorted; to process it and fully understand it. This is not a book that you just read — it is a book that you engage with. It is an important book. I read somewhere that to express the complex in a simple manner is a mark of genius — well here, once again, is evidence of that special genius which Hesse possesses.

It has already changed my thought patterns. is informing the way I am thinking about the future and the travails of the everyday. Sometimes all you need to do to open your eyes is to open your eyes.