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The Lesson of Self-Love: A Reading of Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha"


Of all the lessons in life one has to learn, the lesson of self-love may just be the most trying. This is largely due to the distractions around us that make it difficult to focus on our own needs. We hear thousands of critical and demanding voices, see thousands of tempting and deceptive sights, day in, day out. Our lives often do not belong to us; others claim them and tell us how we must and should live. With the passing years we learn cynicism, sarcasm, violence, and hatred - all weaponry with which we protect ourselves against potential enemies. We learn that the world is full of unconscionable souls, twisted crooks, and cold-blooded highwaymen who are only out for one thing - self-preservation. To make sure that they can survive in this mad world they have to resort to mad means.

With all this negativity around (thanks to the mass media this has become an undeniable fact of modern life), it is hard to look into yourself and seek out that little child of innocence you once knew so well. He may have been long lost, buried under layers of dust. You have tried to retrieve him, but every attempt has turned out to be a disappointment. Now you have given up seeking. Perhaps the author of Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse, is right about the futility of seeking:

"When someone is seeking," said Siddhartha, "it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything ... Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal" (108).

When you are seeking, you often fail to see what is obvious. Your eyes are blind to other possibilities. When you find, however, you simply chance upon a treasure that you have always had in your possession. Hesse says that the Buddha (or another divine being of your choice) is already in you. All you have to do is to be open to him:

The potential Buddha already exists in the sinner; his future is already there. The potential hidden Buddha must be recognised in him, in you, in everybody. The world, Govinda, is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it (110).

In other (less eloquent) words, you are already perfect the way you are. Even the sins you commit, no matter how heinous, contain within them the seed of grace. If you do not see this, you will continue to sin; if you do, beauty, love, and divinity can flow from the darkest of deeds. Love was born along with you, and it resides in you. The next thing to do is not to resist it.


All page numbers refer to the Penguin Modern Classics edition.
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