SIDDHARTHA ESSAY
(For Humanities)
The following is a rough draft for an assignment that is coming due on April 22, 2013. Since I'm on a road trip there is not much time to focus on this Essay but for the most part it is done...minus maybe some typos and formatting, but if you see anything that could use some editing please advise, as they say it's hardest to proof your own work. It also has a weak Thesis Statement and the work Citiations need help...struggle with structure :o)
Hermann Hesse Is Siddhartha, Everyone Is
“Now, however, in that moment as he stood still, as if a snake lay in his path, this thought also came to him: I am no longer a priest, no longer a Brahmin. What then shall I do at home with my father? Study? Offer sacrifices? Practice meditation? All this is over for me now.” (Page 33, Siddhartha.)
Everyone starts out the same, empty, born as nothing (no thing) and then acquiring a body, a personality, individuality, concepts and beliefs about who they are. One starts their journey after accumulating this information and sets sail into the world. Some think they know where they are going, there are plans made and futures being looked forward towards. However, very few know where they are going, most find out as they go along that they could have not ever imagined that it would be how it is. And then there are a few, that get stopped along the way. Something stops them in their tracks and will not allow for “the way things have always been done,” to be the road they travel. In a sense, a proverbial fork in the road appears. It is not always an easy path, for it is actually pathless and it can be very, very hard to go against the beliefs of the world, and the way things have always been done. To some this may sound easy in theory, however, there is an immense pressure in the world to do as you are told and not make waves. As this pressure is faced, head on, it lessens and the True Effortlessness of Life begins to appear. However, one will not know that, until they begin to face the pressure, once it is faced, it begins to lose it’s power.
One need not worry whether they will Awaken or they won’t, it is Awakening that is always Calling and it cannot be ignored, even the ignoring is part of the Awakening, everything is part of the Awakening. Hermann Hesse’s life is used as a prime example of how life uses itSelf to reveal itSelf to others. There are many ways that this happens, most people do not become aware of who they Are, until they are dying. Everyone has Awakening upon death. However, there are those that Shine and Radiate that same Light in Life that is Revealed in Death. It becomes brighter and brighter as the personality becomes less and less, until there is nothing that remains but the Light (and Light is not IT, because what it truly IS cannot be described with words but only can be Revealed as a Known.)
““You are the best lover that I have had,” she said thoughtfully. “You are stronger than others, more supple, more willing. You have learned my art well, Siddhartha. Some day when I am older, I will have a child by you. And yet, my dear, you have remained a Samana. You do not really love me – you love nobody. Is that not true?” “Maybe,” said Siddhartha wearily. “I am like you. You cannot love either, otherwise how could you practice love as and Art? Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can – that is their secret.”” (Siddhartha, page 59.)
Life makes room for all things to be experienced. If one denies the body, it only makes it more real, what one resists persists. One could spend lifetimes trying to get rid of something that wasn’t actually real in the first place, (See the futility in that?). And yet, when there is nothing but infinite time and space, then it matters not how many life times it takes. However, while in a lifetime, it can seem long, and when one is not exactly happy in the one they are in, thinking of more lifetimes doesn’t look like the best option. Many times the unhappiness with a lifetime is what sparks the end to more of them. Few want the party to end when it is going good (usually very few). However, when the party is going badly, then there is a turning for many, towards the Call.
“No, I am telling you what I have discovered. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. I suspected this when I was still a youth and it was this that drove me away from teachers. (Siddhartha, page 115.) (Hermman Hesse, Long Summer Part 3 of 4)
How do you tell someone that they are already Awake, if you are Hermanne Hesse, you write the book Siddhartha. You know the futility of the endeavor you follow, and yet there is nothing that can be done, because you Know, there is no individual “you” doing it. However, you know that most have not taken the time and investigation necessary to Know this for themselves. Yet your life becomes the reflection for them to see it in. At first they will think it is you and that it has something to do with you, where you were born, what your interests were, who were your teachers, and what religion did you follow, and what philosophy of life. Yet as they seek and search for the answer to these questions, it is these exact questions that lead them to the mass confusion that will eventually have them surrender to NOT-understanding. “That One exists simultaneously in you and me, and is the basis for what all paths point to when they say, “We are all One.” This Truth cannot be grasped by the mind; it is outside its realm. It can only be Known in Stillness. Those who have Realized this Truth, can point the way for their Brothers/Sisters. (Austin, Wayne, There is Only One, First There is A Mountain, page 255).
Works Cited
(Austin, Wayne, There is Only One, First There is A Mountain, page 255 or http://www.ftiam.org/60-there-is-only-one.html).
Hesse Autobiography, Nobel Prize Website,
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1946/hesse-autobio.html
(Hermman Hesse Long Summer Part 3 of 4) Video Movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxQErqMoDdg)
Siddhartha, Hermman Hesse.
