Quotes of Siddhartha (1)

Dear all,

I’m reading Siddhartha, written by Hermann Hesse and it touches me deeply. Somehow, I feel that my life seems playing duet with the main character, Siddhartha’s.
The followings are some quotes from this book, which I haven’t finished reading yet.

”You have done so by your own seeking, in your way, through thought, through meditation, through knowledge, through enlightenment. You have learned nothing from teachings, and so I think, O Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation through teachings. …That is why I am going on my way--not to seek another and better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave all doctrines and all teachers and to reach my goal alone--or die…,” (said Siddhartha to Buddha.)

Siddhartha replied: ”Do not scold, my dear friend. Nothing was ever achieved by scolding. …” (Amongst the People, p.68)

Moreover, Siddhartha’s sympathy and curiosity lay only with people, whose work, troubles, pleasures and follies were more unknown and remote from him than the moon…He saw people living in a childish or animal-like way, which he both loved and despised. He saw them toiling, saw them suffer and grow gray about things that to him did not seem worth the price--for money, small pleasures and trivial honors. He saw them scold and hurt each other; he saw them lament over pains at which the Samana laughs, and suffer at deprivations which a Samana does not feel. (Amongst the People, p.68~69)

”Most people, Kamala, are like a falling leaf that drifts and turns in the air, flutters, and falls to the ground. But a few others are like stars which travel one defined path: no wind reaches them; they have within themselves their guide and path.” (Amongst the People, p.72)

How many years he had spent without any lofty goal, without any thirst, without any exaltation, content with small pleasures and yet never really satisfied! Without knowing it, he had endeavored and longed all these years to be like all these other people, like these children, and yet his life had been much more wretched and poorer then theirs, for their aims were not his, nor their sorrows his. This whole world of the Kamaswami people had only been a game to him, a dance, a comedy which one watched. (Samsara, p.83~84)