Siddhartha

Siddhartha

Shameka Clark

Leh 300

Prof. B. Murdaco

 

The passage I choose is as follow:

-Listen well, my dear, listen well! The sinner, which I am and which you are, is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha—and now see: these 'times to come' are a deception, are only a parable! The sinner is not on his way to become a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these things. No, within the sinner is now and today already the future Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is not possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was, is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.—These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have come into my mind.

- What I believe this passage is saying that no person can stop and look at themselves and see what changes or progress one has made without experiencing life. For one to truly experience life they must not only follow one path, but many paths to reach a center within their self. When one then reaches this center they can see all paths and learn from the steps they took in these paths to better understand who they are as a human/ person. So for Siddhartha (and others in life) he had to take the path where he sinned to complete his journey to his center to truly reflect on himself. I chose this passage because I related to it. This passage spoke volumes; because as I get older I’m learning to look back at the path I took and continue to learn from them.

 

Siddhartha questions

1. Why does Siddhartha leave his father?

- Siddhartha left his father because he needed to find a meaning to his live, and he felt the best way to do this was by having different experiences from the ones he grew up having; which as meant leaving his home and family.

2. If Siddhartha never lived with Kamala and the people in the city would he have reached Enlightenment faster?

- No, I believe the reason he reached enlightenment at the speed that he did because, living in the city with Kamala he was able to travel many paths in a shorter time frame that many don’t experience. Also not only did he have his experience to learn from, but also those of the people in the city, which he observed daily.

3. What is the significance of the river?

- I believe the significance of the river was that the river flow represented the fullness of existence because it is everywhere at once but from different paths. So like the river Siddhartha was able to experience fullness of existence by taking different path and see at that can be seen.

4. Why does Siddhartha feel the priests cannot see the true beauty of the world?

- Siddhartha feels this way because, the priests are only experience the world from one path, so in a way they are only seeing have half of the world and not its full/true beauty.

5. Why does Siddhartha decide not to follow Buddha?

- I believe Siddhartha decided not to follow Buddha because he didn’t need to follow someone else in their path to discover new experiences because when he sinned he was able to take his own path to discover his truth.