When I was in school everybody was reading (or at least carrying around a copy of) Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. I didn’t read it (nor did I carry it around to make it look as if I might be). I am not bragging about this; it is one of many wonderful things I missed while getting “my education.”
Recently The Sun magazine ran an excerpt from Siddhartha on its “Dog-eared Page” page. That’s where the editor prints “selections...from works that have deepened and broadened our understanding of the human condition.” It seemed time to read a small portion of something I’d missed, and what I read made me miss it.
Siddhartha says to his friend and fellow truth-seeker Govinda:
“Love, for me, Govinda, is clearly the main thing. Let seeing through the world, explaining it, looking down on it, be the business of great thinkers. The only thing of importance to me is being able to love the world, without looking down on it, without hating it and myself - being able to regard it and myself and all things with love, admiration, and reverence.”
I wonder if my life and outlook and “in-look” would have been different had I read and incorporated those few words forty or fifty years ago. Maybe they would not have struck me then as they strike me now, because idealism was everywhere when I was young. And they are idealistic words, are they not? ...though I wonder what viable alternative there is to them if we expect to live with ourselves and with one another in this world.
