Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse

This is going to be the toughest review so far as the content is related to wisdom and enlightenment,in which I'm a naive person..:-) Siddhartha quotes 'The word wisdom is only to be experienced but can not be revealed'...
Whats the purpose of life ?? What is knowledge ?? What is called enlightenment ?? What is Wisdom ?? The book Siddhartha gives beautiful and convincing answers for all these questions..I was always thinking that this is the story of Buddha,but it is actually, a different story.

"Knowledge can be conveyed but not wisdom.it can be found"

Siddhartha is the story of a Brahman boy and his search for enlightenment...Siddhartha along with his friend Govinda leaves home and joins a group of ascetics (people who renounces the material world) in the forest called Samanas..For few years he does all the typical practices in the forest as a Samana,Nevertheless his thurst of knowing the inner being remained unsatisfied..There he acquires some magical powers and the 3 qualities - to think,to fast,and to wait...One day he learnt about the exalted Gotama (Buddha),the enlightened man and his teachings..Though Govinda becomes disciple of Gotama,Siddhartha still continues his search claiming that the true wisdom is only to be acquired by an individual,and it can not be given by a guru...

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Siddhartha addressing Kamala,
"When you throw a rock into the water, it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water. This is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution. Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like a rock through water, without doing anything, without stirring; he is drawn, he lets himself fall. His goal attracts him, because he doesn't let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal. This is what Siddhartha has learned among the Samanas"

"Writing is good, thinking is better. Being smart is good, being patient is better."

To unwrap the secrets of life,first one should live it...enjoy it...and experience it...But instead,he denied the natural characteristics of human life and went on searching for wisdom,some where else in the forests. Being certain about this fact Siddhartha changes his path and headed towards the material world...

Here is the wonderful description of his thoughts while leaving Samanas,
""How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along. "When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world a deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental and worthless forms without substance. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have indeed awakened and have not been born before this very day."

After making his presence in the human society,he met Kamala,the courtesan of pleasure garden and fulfills all the worldly desires...Kamala introduces him to a businessman Kamaswamy,who educates him in commerce..Slowly the 'Samana life' fades away with time..Siddhartha starts living life of a common man who strives to acquire the earthly things..He makes money,owns a house and spends the remaining time with Kamala..Gradually with the growing age and time, he fed up with this life too...There is a Sanskrit proverb "To attain Salvation one should initially lead a lustful life "....After leading a lustful life (Sansara) he leaves Kamala and all his possessions unaware of the thing,that Kamala is carrying his baby in her womb..

His journey takes a new turn when he meets a ferryman Vasudeva near a river...Vasudeva is a wise man who learns from river..Here the river represents 'Life' which hides so many secrets in it...Siddhartha starts residing with Vasudeva in a small hut...The two old men listens to the river at silence..

The river lesson Siddhartha learnt,
"He saw:The water ran and ran,incessantly it ran,and was nevertheless always there,was always at all times the same and yet new in every moment.."

When Siddhartha's son come to stay with them,Siddhartha develops deep love and affection towards him....When he experienced 'Love',which he never felt towards his father or Kamala or anyone else,the life mysteries got resolvd one by one for him....Now he understood the childlike people,their bonding and affections with the material world..But the son dislikes the boring life of a saint and he ran away from them..Siddhartha's deep suffering and longing to see his son for one last time,comes to an end at the moment he listens to the "Aum" sound coming from the river and he finds enlightenment....

Siddhartha speaks to Govinda about love,
"But I'm only interested in being able to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it and me, to be able to look upon it and me and all beings with love and admiration and great respect"

Nevertheless Siddhartha's way of finding enlightenment is seeming to be a bit contradictory to Buddha's who only preached benevolence, clemency, sympathy, tolerance, but not love..Buddha forbade his followers to tie their hearts in love to earthly things..But both the ways destined to the ultimate goal that is Salvation.
Siddhartha realises the fact that life is nothing but a process of transformation which is inevitable,either its a stone or a pebble or water or human body...The good today can be bad some other day..Today,A beautiful human body,can be transformed in to a skeleton some other day..A stone,after a certain time, perhaps turn into soil, and will turn from soil into a plant or animal or human being...This is an endless cycle.All we have to do is Love, Love and Just Love..This is Siddhartha's message.