“Listen well, my dear, listen well! The sinner, which I am and which you are, is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha—and now see: these ‘times to come’ are a deception, are only a parable! The sinner is not on his way to become a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these things. No, within the sinner is now and today already the future Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is not possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was, is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.—These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have come into my mind.”
Ummm, no. I’m afraid I can’t quite agree with this philosophy. However, I am always glad I’ve read books like this so I can be knowledgeable about the ideas they espouse. I’ve long wanted to read more by German authors so that was a plus as well. In addition, I can also count it for the 1001 list. So although I did not care for the philosophy of the book, it did meet several of my goals.
1922, 102 pp.
I read this book back in college. I agree with a lot of Buddhist teachings and I think Siddhartha’s life and the life of Jesus of Nazareth have a lot of parallels which I found fascinating (although there were notable differences, as well.) This book was not my favorite though. If this is your first book about Siddhartha I would recommend trying another. I really enjoyed Coffee with the Buddha by Joan Oliver Duncan.
I cannot read so much philosophy.
It’s hard to review a book when you disagree with the philosophy of the author isn’t it? I loved this book though because I thought it was so beautifully written and raised questions about life and death that every Christian should not only consider but understand from a Buddhist perspective if we are to be ready to give a reason for the hope we have in Christ. But whether you agree with the philosophy or not, you have to agree that the writing style is perfect for the subject matter… no?
I loved this book, in fact I read it twice. I don’t know much about Buddhism, but it was interesting to learn something about Siddhartha and his philosphy of life. I’m sorry it wasn’t exactly your philosophy, but it doesn’t have to be so! I would like to read a similar book about Mohammed, even though I don’t necessarily agree with his teachings…
@Rebecca: I just googled “Coffee with the Buddha”. It’s from a series of “Coffee with…” (Marilyn Monroe, Hemingway, Aristotle…). If I were to find this series in a bookshop (unlikely, seen that I live in Italy) I would think it is one of those books that ruins philosophy or authors making them thoughts simplistic, but maybe I’m wrong. I came across a book recently, something like “The ABC of religions” and it was just a little bit more than 100 pages long. How can you dismiss religions like Islam or Buddhism in one or two pages? I hope these nice little books that you mention are not of the same kind.