I’ve spent the better part of the last year establishing an at-home business, built upon a skill that comes somewhat naturally to me, writing.  The logistics of the set-up, the time spent in marketing the business, and the actual work assignments are occupying all of my time lately.  There seems to be little opportunity to do what I love best, to read books and to write from the heart, such as on this site and on my personal blog site, where I haven’t posted in nearly six weeks.  But, in the last week I managed to sneak in reading a book.  Knowing my leisure time is limited, I chose a skinny book from the shelves in my teenager’s room.  The book is Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse.

Over the course of the last five years, as I’ve adapted to diminished health, my faith has been tested, primarily by a sense of urgency (which sometimes borders on recklessness) that makes me want to hurry and get on with the thrill of living.  And, during that time, my traditional habits of attending Sunday service have fallen by the wayside.  I can’t tell you any longer what the ‘holy days’ are, those other times during the year that I am called to attend the church of my past.   Bit  by bit, the structure that was a comfort for most of my life has left me.  But, just as water will fill the hole you dig at the beach, spirituality has filled me as conformities have slipped away.

I am certain that my choice of Siddhartha from the book shelves was guided by my ongoing quest, more recently heightened, toward enlightenment, Nirvana, salvation, take your pick.  In Siddhartha, Hesse presents in the simplest story and in the simplest terms, a man’s quest to find his purpose for being.  Hesse was born in 1877 and Siddhartha was published in 1951.  But, the ideas he presents are startlingly current.  Like it or not, he debunks the concept of visualization for the purpose of actualizing (that if you focus on what you wish would be, it will be).  That practice, he cautions, causes the person to miss many opportunities that pass by peripherally.  What he proposes is that each individual be open to the experiences that life presents, and that each person be responsible for his or her response to, and wisdom acquired from, those experiences. 

In the existence Hesse reveals, the din of laughter and crying, of exclamations of joy, and utterances of pain - what Hesse defines as the collective sound of ‘Om’ - are to be reveled in as part of the experience of life.  When our voice joins with this continuum, the ‘Om’, then we are one with the source of life itself.

Oh, just one more key thing  ~  the ticket to participating in this state of being, is love.  Through our love for one another, our vocal response to the joys and sorrows, the ecstasy and pain of deeply caring for another, will join the voice of all living things, throughout all of time. 

That love is the foundation of this state of being should come as no surprise, if your personal history is grounded in any of the main religions - all of which share a common theme that our greatest purpose in being is to love one another.

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