One of the pivotal books that has most changed my life is a novel by Herman Hesse: Siddhartha.

I read it for the first time three years ago while traveling in Italy. At the time I was struggling to understand my place in the world when my passions and career firmly placed me in the bustling material world and my spiritual journey deeply rooted me in a consciousness that showed me the illusory nature of that material world.

My feet in both worlds, I couldn’t sell out to the mindset many of my friends and colleagues held. But I wasn’t about to spend my days meditating in a cave somewhere either. My colleagues couldn’t fathom why I stayed in hostels and “cheap places” when I traveled. My hippie friends couldn’t comprehend why I would own a BMW if I was “spiritual.” I felt I had nowhere to fit in. No one understood me. I didn’t belong.

Reading Siddhartha I discovered that my “feet in both worlds” predicament was a common theme and the book explored it beautifully. It illuminated the shortcomings of many paths (as well as their grace and beauty) and demonstrated how sometimes the most enlightened, peaceful and happy people are the quiet ones you’d never notice whose sole and sacred purpose is to ferry you from one side of the river (one aspect of our dual nature) to the other side (your divine nature beyond the dual).

What I loved most about the book was this ferryman did not tell people which path to seek once they reached the “spiritual” side of the river. They were free to explore and choose their own path.

Reading Siddhartha helped me wrap my head around, and accept, my greatest fear and hope: to liberate people from the ties that bind them and carry them into a space where they can begin their own search for meaning, spirit, and purpose.

Here in Las Vegas, where I’m currently visiting for a few conferences and meetings, I came across the following passage painted on the wall of my favorite raw cafe here. Reading it brought me back to that day, on the roof of this quaint hostel in Ischia, when I finished the book and exhaled deeply feeling I had finally begun to guess at where I’d one day belong…

I would not interfere with any creed of yours, or want to appear that I have all the cures.

There is so much to know… so many things are true… The way my feet must go may not be the same for you.

And so I give this spark of what is light to me, to guide you through the dark, but not to tell you what to see.

Author Unknown