Awakening awareness:
becoming, being, changing.
Contemplating creation's chain,
continuous, complete.

Delving downward, deeper depths -
discovering: destiny,
duality, deliverance.

Desire extinguished,
ego eliminated,
enlightenment embraced.

Experience flows:
graceful, harmonious, healing.
Inward journey:
karma, knowledge.

Listening: lamentations, laughter -
life's music.
Learning life's magical meaning.

Nature - Nirvana.
Om - Oneness.
Patience, peace, promise, perfection.

Questing,
Reflecting.

River's revelations -
River's silence -
River's secrets.
Realizing self.

Seeking synthesis, simultaneity,
shade, sunshine,
stillness, serenity, spirituality,
timelessness.

Truth transcends teaching.
Understanding unteachable.

Unity:
unbroken universe.

Visionary wanderer -
wisdom within.

Experience exceeds expectations.
Examine yourself.
Zen.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse was a most popular book among students and the counter-culture in the 1960's. In a time when youth were trying to find themselves and reject the voice of authority, Siddhartha spoke to their central concerns.

Siddhartha, the gifted son of a Brahmin, lives when Buddha first preaches. This gifted young man, born into India's highest caste, is destined for great things, but he has his own dreams and sets out to find his own destiny.

Along his journey he tries out various experiences, at one time becoming a beggar and another time becoming a rich merchant. He encounters the Buddha, whom he respects immensely, but he still moves on to seek his own vision.

In his final years, Siddhartha encounters a ferryman and learns from his experiences on the river the lessons to be found in the water. He discovers how to "listen with a still heart, with a waiting, open soul." When he dies, he dies with a peaceful smile of one who has finally found what he sought on his own terms.

No wonder this book became almost a Bible for a generation of hippies and rebels. Today, it still speaks to those who seek their own understanding of life.