Siddhartha: your soul is the whole world

Okay, this is a hard one. Because... I read a lot of books in my life and it's kinda difficult choosing just one. I mean, it's not like movies or TV, where I got a clear idea of what I like and what I don't. With books it's so hard to pick just one choice. But because I don't have much time to think... I'm going to pick a book that, I consider the deepest (in terms of content) that I ever read.

So, as you can guessed already, I'm going to talk about Hermann's Hesse Siddhartha.

This novel is setting in the time of Gautama Buddha and is about a young man called Siddhartha, who always had an easy and comfortable life. Being the son of a Brahmin he never starved, never suffered and he always had everything that he wanted.

But one day he realized that all his possessions doesn't made him a better person, and decided to become into an ascethic along with his best friend Govinda. So they leave their homes and join the Samanas, a religious movement that believes in the liberation of people from the vicious circle of hedonism through self-mortification and poverty.

However, Siddharta and Govinda discover that the style of life of Samanas it's just as bad as the materialistic life they used to have, and realized that the man needs to search a middle ground. So they went to talk with Buddha itself, who told them that they need to choose their own way to find the Nirvana, and invite them to join their order. Eventually Govinda joins Buddha, but Siddhartha decides to search for the illumination alone and go down the river to start his spiritual journey.

Hermann Hesse published this book in 1922 in a time where he was itself in a self discovery journey. He is known for his novels about self-discovery and spirituality, and certainly this is one of their best and most representative works. With a message of being patient and learn to realize your mistakes and fix them, but at the same time being aware about your achievements.

I personally recommend this book to you. And that's pretty much it.