Herman Hesse

Born in Calw, Germany, Herman Hesse was exposed from childhood to his parents’ devout Pietism, a religious movement that stresses Bible study and personal religious experience. He also had access to books on Eastern philosophy and religion, for his maternal grandfather was a missionary and Indologist.

Hesse underwent psychoanalysis with Dr. Josef Lang, a disciple of Carl Jung, to help him cope with an emotional crisis triggered by illness and death in his family and the horrors of World War I. He emerged from these sessions with the ambition to follow "Weg nach Innen," or an inward journey, which he hoped would result in increased self-knowledge and fulfillment of his artistic potential. Inspired also by the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, Hesse vowed to reject traditional religion and morality and to lead a life of isolation and individualism.

Hesse’s interest in Eastern philosophy and religion is most evident in the novella Siddhartha: Eine indische Dichtung (Siddhartha). He conceived of Siddhartha in 1911 following his extended visit to southeastern Asia in search of the peace of mind that he believed Oriental religions could offer. Instead, Hesse found only abject poverty and vulgarized Buddhism, and he left before reaching his final destination, India. In Siddhartha, the title character is an exceptionally intelligent Brahmin, the highest caste in Hinduism, who leads a seemingly well-ordered existence yet feels spiritually hollow. He renounces his life of ritual and asceticism to embark on a quest for wisdom and God. With his friend Govinda he seeks Gotama the Buddha, who reputedly has achieved perfect knowledge. After speaking with Buddha, however, Siddhartha realizes that he cannot accept his doctrine of salvation from suffering. Siddhartha then immerses himself in material and carnal pursuits but comes no closer to knowledge. Disillusioned that all these paths have failed, Siddhartha becomes a ferryman and during repeated crossings of a river he experiences total bliss. Bernard Landis commented: "[Siddhartha perceived the river] to be the mirror of all life, past, present, and future. All was One, and One was All. Spirit and flesh, mountain and man, blood and stone were all part of the one continuous flow of existence. True peace was obtained in the only way possible, through a unity of the self with the universal, eternal essence."

Der Steppenwolf (Steppenwolf), Hesse’s best-known novel, arose out of the failure of his second marriage, a major crisis in his life. Full of self-loathing and hungry for wild life, Hesse frequented the bars and dance halls of Zurich, Switzerland, in hopes of losing himself in alcohol, jazz, and sex.

Hesse’s fiction has profoundly affected readers worldwide, especially the young, who sympathize with many of his preoccupations: the quest for truth and self-discovery, the dualistic nature of existence, the conflict between spirit and flesh, the individual’s

need for freedom, and the primacy of art and love. 

Your Ferry Captain is Buddha

Excerpts from Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse

When Siddhartha had finished and there was a long pause, Vasudeva said: "It is as I thought; the river has spoken to you. It is friendly towards you, too; it speaks to you. That is good, very good. You will learn it, but not from me. The river has taught me to listen; you will learn from it, too. The river knows everything; one can learn everything from it. You have already learned from the river that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek the depths. The rich and distinguished Siddhartha will become a ferryman. You have also learned this from the river. You will learn the other thing, too."

After a long pause, Siddhartha said: "What other thing, Vasudeva?"

Vasudeva rose. "It has grown late," he said, "let us go to bed. I cannot tell you what the other thing is, my friend. You will find out, perhaps you already know. I am not a learned man; I do not know how to talk or think. I only know how to listen and be devout; otherwise I have learned nothing. If I could talk and teach, I would perhaps be a teacher, but as it is I am only a ferryman and it is my task to take people across this river. I have taken thousands of people across and to all of them my river has been nothing but a hindrance on their journey. They have traveled for money and business, to weddings and on pilgrimages; the river has been in their way and the ferryman was there to take them quickly across the obstacle. However, amongst the thousands there have been a few, four or five, to whom the river was not an obstacle. They have heard its voice and listened to it, and the river has become holy to them, as it has to me. Let us now go to bed, Siddhartha."

Siddhartha stayed with the ferryman and learned how to look after the boat, and when there was nothing to do at the ferry, he worked in the rice field with Vasudeva, gathered wood, and picked fruit from the banana trees. He learned how to make oars, how to improve the boat and to make baskets. He was pleased with everything that he did and learned and the days and months passed quickly. But he learned more from the river than Vasudeva could teach him. He learned from it continually. Above all, he learned from it how to listen, to listen with a still heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinions.

He lived happily with Vasudeva and occasionally they exchanged words, few and long-considered words. Vasudeva was no friend of words. Siddhartha was rarely successful in moving him to speak.

He once asked him, "Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?"

A bright smile spread over Vasudeva’s face.

"Yes, Siddhartha," he said. "Is this what you mean? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future?"

"That is it," said Siddhartha, "and when I learned that, I reviewed my life and it was also a river, and Siddhartha the boy, Siddhartha the mature man and Siddhartha the old man, were only separated by shadows, not through reality. Siddhartha’s previous lives were also not in the past, and his death and his return to Brahma are not in the future. Nothing was, nothing will be, everything has reality and presence."

Siddhartha spoke with delight. This discovery had made him very happy. Was then not all sorrow in time, all self-torment and fear in time? Were not all difficulties and evil in the world conquered as soon as one conquered time, as soon as one dispelled time? He had spoken with delight, but Vasudeva just smiled radiantly at him and nodded his agreement. He stroked Siddhartha’s shoulder and returned to his work.

And once again when the river swelled during the rainy season and roared loudly, Siddhartha said: "Is it not true, my friend, that the river has very many voices? Has it not the voice of a king, of a warrior, of a bull, of a night bird, of a pregnant woman and a sighing man, and a thousand other voices?"

"It is so," nodded Vasudeva, "the voices of all living creatures are in its voice."

"And do you know," continued Siddhartha, "what word it pronounces when one is successful in hearing all its ten thousand voices at the same time?"

Vasudeva laughed joyously; he bent towards Siddhartha and whispered the holy Om in his ear. And this was just what Siddhartha had heard.

As time went on his smile began to resemble the ferryman’s, was almost equally radiant, almost equally full of happiness, equally lighting up through a thousand little wrinkles, equally childish, equally senile. Many travelers, when seeing both ferrymen together, took them for brothers. Often they sat together in the evening on the tree trunk by the river. They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, of perpetual Becoming. And it sometimes happened that while listening to the river, they both thought the same thoughts, perhaps of a conversation of the previous day, or about one of the travelers whose fate and circumstances occupied their minds, or death, or their childhood; and when the river told them something good at the same moment, they looked at each other, both thinking the same thought, both happy at the same answer to the same question.

Something emanated from the ferry and from both ferrymen that many of the travelers felt. It sometimes happened that a traveler, after looking at the face of one of the ferrymen, began to talk about his life and troubles, confessed sins, asked for comfort and advice. It sometimes happened that someone would ask permission to spend an evening with them in order to listen to the river. It also happened that curious people came along, who had been told that two wise men, magicians or holy men lived at the ferry. The curious ones asked many questions but they received no replies, and they found neither magicians nor wise men. They only found two friendly old men, who appeared to be mute, rather odd and stupid. And the curious ones laughed and said how foolish and credible people were to spread such wild rumors.

Excerpted from Siddhartha, tr. Hilda Rosner. New York: New Directions, 1957. London: Vision Press, 1954.