Siddhartha.

He who seeks and he who finds.

I was assigned to read this book in high school when teachers gave it to me as summer homework. I don’t know if I was the only one, but I saw it as a task, and as a teenager, I didn’t learn anything (I’ll explain why later).

However, this small book caught my eye in my parents’ home this summer. I literally devoured it in a day.

Wow. What a book. What a depth.

Siddhartha’s Journey

Siddhartha is an Indian man of bourgeois origins with an excellent education who embarks on a journey searching for truth in this world. In search of the why. In search of himself. In search of what life really is and its most profound meaning.

Although he was at the top of his class and an excellent role model for all, the knowledge and practices he had acquired in his bourgeois life did not satisfy him. So Siddhartha begins his journey, leaving behind his family and giving up everything. He decides to start from scratch. He joins the most marginalized class, living without possessions and in hardship. Here, he learns to think, wait, and fast.

Later, he decides to join the society of what he contemptuously calls child-people. He feels so different from them, who are consumed by daily life, emotions, and desires. Yet, he envies them, unable to understand what makes them agitated over trivial matters.

Upon entering the city, he meets his greatest love, Kamala, who teaches him the art of love and passion. In the meantime, he climbs the social ladder, becoming a wealthy merchant.

Once he reaches the peak of his merchant life, he indulges in vices: wine, gambling, food, and the pleasures of material possessions. Until they empty him entirely; at that point, he finds himself lost again and decides to abandon everything. Looking again for the answer. He doesn’t know who he is. He still hasn’t found his truth.

Exhausted from wandering without direction, he collapses on the riverbank, and the river begins to speak to him.

There, he finally finds the answer.

The Truth of Life

The answer is in the present. The river, the water, is always there but constantly changing. It’s never the same. So, Siddhartha learns to listen to the river and understands the truth of life.

Love surrounds us. Hate, suffering, envy, happiness, life, and death are all around us in every moment and form.

Everything is transforming into something else.

The Essence of Seeking and Finding

“When someone seeks, then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”

Finding Wholeness

And so, you may find yourself lost at certain moments in life without direction. A life you dedicated to a purpose, to seek, but you didn’t realize that you could find the whole in every moment.

At the end of the book, you feel one with the world.

The Insignificance and Completeness of Life

You understand that you are full of possibilities but, at the same time, insignificant because one day, you will be dust, and no one will remember you.

The world will continue.

Yet, you understand that you are complete.

That’s life, and in life, there is also death.

Now I understand why I didn’t learn anything as a teenager or why you can educate yourself and learn as much as possible by reading or studying, but you will never get it entirely. Indeed, the truth is one: “Wisdom is not communicable.”

“Science can be communicated, but wisdom cannot.”

The Necessity of Experience

You must live experiences to understand.

You must fully experience pain, love, distance, intimacy, satisfaction, frustration... But if you identify with them, you would be a fool.

You are everything and nothing at the same time.

The truth surrounds you.

Life is now and here.