SIDDHARTHA BY HERMAN HESSE

 

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Once, Samanas had travelled through Siddhartha's town, ascetics on a pilgrimage, three skinny, withered men, neither old nor young, with dusty and bloody shoulders, almost naked, scorched by the sun, surrounded by loneliness, strangers and enemies to the world, strangers and lank jackals in the realm of humans. Behind them blew a hot scent of quiet passion, of destructive service, of merciless self-denial.

In the evening, after the hour of contemplation, Siddhartha spoke to Govinda: "Early tomorrow morning, my friend, Siddhartha will go to the Samanas. He will become a Samana."

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INTRODUCTION

Siddhartha, the son of a Brahmin (a Hindu Priest), and his best friend, Govinda, have grown up learning the ways of the Brahmins. Everyone in their village loves Siddhartha. But although he brings joy to everyone's life, Siddhartha feels little joy himself. He is troubled by restless dreams and begins to wonder if he has learned all that his father and the other Brahmins can teach him. As Hesse says, "...they had already poured the sum total of their knowledge into his waiting vessel; and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still".

We are told that Siddhartha is exceptionally skilled in the Brahmin's art. He knows how to meditate on the mantra, Om, the most sacred, and recognizes the Atman within himself. He has, we are told, learned all that the Brahmins can teach, yet he still feels unsatisfied, the peace of Nirvana still alludes him. Moreover, he has never seen nor heard of any Brahmin who has reached Nirvana. If Nirvana is oneness with Brahman and Brahman is Atman, then the path to the Nirvana must proceed inward; all other paths, all other activities, including the path of the Brahmin must be distractions. It is for this reason that Siddhartha joins the Samanas, hoping that their focus on self-purification will better direct him to Atman and to Nirvana.

It’s very pivotal at this point to follow what the words Atman and Nirvana convey to the readers. These are two key words in Hinduism with powerful meanings. Atman means the “self” and derived from this is Atma which means the “soul”. As mentioned very early in the book Siddhartha wanted to find “himself” thus he set out to do “soul searching” which will eventually take him to Nirvana. I am excited to expound on Siddhartha’s journey involving the Samanas. He had everything to live a royal life. He was everything that defines a royal warrior prince but yet he wasn’t happy. As this is so existent in real life. There are men who have accumulated every luxury in life, happy family, beautiful children but yet not happy. Why? Siddhartha was in the same predicament. His soul was not happy. He wanted to attain Nirvana, the transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of self, and the subject is released from the effects of karma and the cycle of death and rebirth. It represents the final goal of Buddhism.

Atman is discovered only after the ego is negated and the conscious and the unconscious are resolved through synthesis. References to the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas (specifically the Rig Veda) and the Chandogya-Upanishads, are made but they do not satisfy Siddhartha because they do not show him the way, even though they contain learned material. In short, it is becoming evident already that Siddhartha is a rebel; he must think for himself. He is not a ready-made disciple. The life of the Samanas was attracting him.

When Siddhartha announces his intention to join the Samanas, his father becomes very upset and forbids Siddhartha's departure. In respectful defiance, Siddhartha does not move. His frustrated father leaves him, gazing out of his window periodically to see if Siddhartha has left. The obstinate youth, though, remains motionless. Night passes. In the morning, Siddhartha's father returns to his intransigent son and realizes that while Siddhartha's body remains is present, his mind had already departed. Siddhartha's father acquiesces to his son's wishes and allows him to leave, reminded him that he is welcome back should he find disillusionment with the Samanas. Govinda joins Siddhartha as they disappear into the forest in search of the Samanas.

WITH THE SAMANAS

The two young men catch up to the Samanas by nightfall and are accepted into their group. Siddhartha gives up everything he had before as the Brahmin's son, including his clothes, his home and his daily habits. He begs for food and wears only a loincloth and a cloak, shunning the townspeople and becoming a wretched figure with unkempt hair and long fingernails. Everything that surrounds him seems to be merely an illusion, including the people and the places he visits. The secret he has sought is within, and he needs to learn merely to recognize it. Everything in the world outside of the Self is false. The only truth for Siddhartha is Atman. By shutting himself off from society, he wishes to destroy all attachment to anything, hoping that "When all the Self was conquered and dead, when all passions and desires were silent, then the last must awaken, the innermost of Being that is no longer Self - the great secret!"

In this way he begins to separate his mind and spirit from bodily sensation by not eating for long periods of time, resisting the sun's heat or the cold rain and controlling his heartbeat and breathing. He soon learns how to control the sensations in his body by using his mind. With Govinda still following behind him as his quiet shadow, Siddhartha hopes that by destroying his connection to everything in the outside world he may recognize more of what is inside of himself. As time passes, he learns from the elder Samanas how to extend his mind into nature and into death and back into life again by connecting to the natural world while meditating. Denying his Self and forgetting his own memory, Siddhartha learns to understand and embrace the life cycle in the natural world that surrounds him. In many ways, the Samanas live in self-exile, cut off from the rest of society in favor of the forest and nature.

After living this way for awhile, Siddhartha begins to grow restless again, just as he had after hearing the teachings of the Brahmins in the village where he had grown up. He realizes that, despite the many times he meditates and forgets his Self, he is always forced to return to it, unchanged and as it had been before, when his meditation ends. He cannot escape from his individual identity as Siddhartha or forget his memories forever, for they always return to him. The Samana explains this to his faithful companion, Govinda. He disdainfully equates forgetting himself while meditating to the same escapism that is practiced by drunkards, gamblers, and those who are lustful with prostitutes. They, too, must always return to reality after the dice game is lost or the alcoholic haze fades. Govinda replies that the drunkard does not progress when he escapes from himself, yet he and Siddhartha do learn and get closer to the answers that they seek. He thinks the Samanas' way of life makes them move forward rather than stagnate.

Siddhartha does not see himself as getting any closer to answers than "a child in the womb," and begins a barrage of questions similar to those he had asked himself about the Vedas before leaving the Brahmins about the hypocrisy that he finds amongst the Samanas. He states plainly that the Samanas shall always be seeking and merely escaping reality without understanding it, until they die. Govinda becomes upset, declaring that life would mean nothing if there was nothing to seek, for Siddhartha believes that seeking knowledge is a "detour" away from recognizing the essence of what life really means and understanding Atman. Govinda recites a lyric line from the Upanishads for encouragement; although "Siddhartha was silent. He dwelt long on the words which Govinda had uttered. Yes, he thought, standing with a bowed head, what remains from all that is holy to us? What remains? What is preserved? And he shook his head" Chapter 2, pg. 16. He has more questions, but there are no teachers to give him answers. The restlessness grows in his breast.

Finally these two Samanas hear mixed rumors about the teachings of an enlightened man called Buddha, also called names such as Gotama, Sakyamuni, or the Illustrious One. India is in a bad condition due to poverty and sickness, yet the beliefs of this man renew the people's faith and hope, although others think he is filled with hypocrisy and corruption. Govinda urges Siddhartha to go with him to hear the teachings of Buddha, despite the fact that the other Samanas in their group do not trust the Buddha's teachings. Siddhartha is surprised that his friend, usually so passive and obedient, has actually made a decision for himself. For the sake of getting away from the now-suffocating environment he finds amongst the Samanas, Siddhartha agrees to join Govinda on a journey to see the Buddha, warning that he has become distrustful of learning from teachers.

Before they depart Siddhartha tells the eldest Samana that he and Govinda are leaving to hear the teachings of Buddha, just as he had once told his father that he was leaving to become a Samana. The old man becomes angry that they wish to leave, yet now instead of waiting for a blessing to be given, as he did for the Brahmin, Siddhartha uses his learned mental abilities to hypnotize the Samana and force him to bless their journey. Govinda is stunned to see this, declaring that Siddhartha could have become a great Samana, just as he could have become a great Brahmin had he remained with his father. In spite of this great skill, Siddhartha does not see its value, for it does not calm his restlessness to understand Atman, or stop the thirst for knowledge that urges him to move onwards. The questions must be answered somehow but not by learning others' teachings. The knowledge is already inside of his Self. The two friends leave the forest and continue towards the town of Savathi to see the Gotama, Buddha.

 

The floating question now is was Siddhartha's goal, to conquer the Self—to get rid of desires and emotion which cloud the insight into what we are, achieved after his meeting with the Samanas? Was he able to experience an “awakening of the soul”?

Siddhartha hopes the Samanas’ asceticism will help him break free of the cycle of time that was so binding in his father’s world, but asceticism succeeds only in revealing the second of Buddha’s Four Noble Truths: The cause of suffering is the craving for something that can never be satisfied. The Samanas believe that enlightenment can be found only through the denial of flesh and worldly desires. Siddhartha tries to escape from time, to become a void, and in so doing create an empty space that only the unified power of the universe will be able to fill. Hard as Siddhartha tries to escape from himself and his reality, however, he always returns to a Self that is restricted by time, and he realizes that asceticism will not bring salvation. He cannot escape the problem of time just because he wills himself to. His attempts to escape from suffering lead only to further suffering, and the denial of time roots him even more firmly in the cycle of time. He has learned that timelessness cannot be found apart from the Self, rendering the Samanas’ teaching useless for him.

The Samanas’ teachings aim to enable the seeker of knowledge to escape the physical world, but Siddhartha discovers that true enlightenment cannot come from ignoring the world around him. He explains to Govinda that what the Samanas do is no different from what a drunkard does: They escape the Self temporarily. Just as the drunkard continues to suffer and does not find enlightenment even though he continually escapes the body, the Samanas are trapped on a path that offers temporary escape from suffering but does not lead to enlightenment. As soon as the Samanas cease their spiritual practices, the real world comes rushing back, and whatever enlightenment has been achieved dissipates. Since Siddhartha is searching for a permanent answer, he cannot follow the Samanas. He understands that true enlightenment can come only when the approach used to reach it takes into account the world itself.

The confrontation between Siddhartha and the elder Samana suggests that enlightenment cannot come from teachers but must be realized within, a fact Siddhartha will discover repeatedly on his quest. Siddhartha leaves the Hinduism of his father because of its flaws, just as he leaves the teachings of the Samanas because they do not lead him to enlightenment. Siddhartha encounters resistance when he tries to leave both his father and the Samanas, but in both cases he leaves with their blessings, which suggests that these elders are in error and that Siddhartha’s path is justified. Teachers may not be able to give Siddhartha enlightenment, but they do, in their own ways, set him on a path that will help him find enlightenment for himself. Although Siddhartha looked to both instructors for knowledge of enlightenment, both fail to give him what he needs, and Siddhartha realizes that these paths will not lead him to the enlightenment he seeks.

Despite the flaws Siddhartha finds with the Samanas’ teachings, his interaction with them is essential to his quest for enlightenment, since through them he realizes that enlightenment must not discount the physical world. Siddhartha’s Brahmin upbringing led him to search for an enlightenment based purely in spiritual knowledge, specifically the idea of a universal force, Om. With the Samanas, Siddhartha experiences his most purely spiritual existence to date, but his failure to achieve enlightenment suggests to him that enlightenment cannot be a purely spiritual. The material world consistently intrudes, and Siddhartha must take it into account as he continues his search. Though the Samanas’ path does not lead to the enlightenment Siddhartha seeks, it does lead to an essential revelation that enables him to eventually find enlightenment. Without the Samanas, Siddhartha may have continued in his purely spiritual pursuits, perpetually removing himself from the physical world and failing to reach his goal. Though the Samanas don’t lead him to enlightenment, they help him eliminate the purely spiritual path, thereby leading him closer to finding a path to success.

The mesmerizing gaze Siddhartha gives the Samana elder is never explained in the text, but the fact that Siddhartha apparently has a certain power over the Samana suggests that he is already spiritually superior. Not only did the Samanas not lead Siddhartha to enlightenment, but Siddhartha is closer to it than they are, even if neither he nor the Samanas realize it yet. Siddhartha’s gaze renders the Samana speechless, which facilitates Siddhartha’s departure. Just as he steadfastly waited in his father’s room when he wanted to leave the Brahmins, he gazes steadily here to obtain his goal. This gaze seems magical, but it also suggests something very real and human: Siddhartha’s astonishing strength of will and unwavering determination to reach enlightenment.

 

CONCLUSION

During his encounter with the Samanas, Siddhartha meditates by attempting to reproduce the life-cycles of all things. He is attempting to capture the general archetypes of life itself in the same way as we can sometimes understand someone's personality when we are suddenly put in exactly the position that they are in. How is it that we can become more broadminded? How do we recognize what are the common characteristics of all persons?

We see how other persons act. We could study other people as a psychologist or a novelist would.  However, this process doesn't capture the "soul" or "spirit" of other people. In addition, we understand ourselves by understanding other people by recognition or intuition, not formal study. John Gardner once said that if you want to know what other people are thinking, try using their gestures. The behaviorists often say "what we think" follows "how we act."  (E.g., if you want to be happy, smile more. If you want not to be depressed take a walk, wash the dishes—do something; do anything.)

Siddhartha and Govinda attempt to gain salvation through asceticism. Using as a premise the ascetic idea that the sensual world is transitory and illusory, Siddhartha attempts to void his self and thus void with it all the torments of the senses. He resolves that if he can let the self die, then something deeper than the self will surface — that is, Being. Siddhartha, however, finds the process of trying to void the self a vicious circle because even though the ascetic meditation of which the aim is emptying the self involves the assuming of different forms, it inevitably leads him back to self again. All the paths leading away from self eventually lead back to it and are particularly tormenting because, like the life cycle, they are imbued with a sense of time. Thus Siddhartha regards this as just another form of escapism, in this case through self-denial, just as drinking is escapism through self-indulgence. Even though Govinda states that he is still learning, Siddhartha asserts that he himself is far from knowledge and wisdom.

After the imperceptible passage of three years with the Samanas, Siddhartha resolves to leave them. Not only does Siddhartha again object to discipleship and assert the impossibility of learning things second-hand, he asserts that learning impedes knowledge. Govinda is, of course, troubled by Siddhartha's lecture. At this point, we learn of the arrival of Gotama Buddha, who has conquered sorrow and brought the cycle of rebirth to a standstill. He has attained Nirvana; he remembers former lives and will never return to the cycle. Govinda enjoins Siddhartha to go and hear the teachings of Buddha. Siddhartha is amazed that Govinda (heretofore always Siddhartha's shadow) is initiating a course of action, and since Siddhartha desires to go, they both decide to leave the Samanas. Here we have another time expansion, a kind of enlargement of a particular day when a specific allusion is made to "the same day," and Siddhartha draws the angry Samana teacher into the same hypnotic spell that the teacher himself had taught.

Important in this section is the fact that living among the ascetics dissatisfies Siddhartha for the same reason that Brahmism never really satisfied his father. As the rules and rituals of the Brahmin priests did not provide knowledge through experience, likewise the Samana rules and ascetic observances do not either. Instead, they are merely a kind of escapism. Supremely important is the fact of Gotama Buddha's having attained Nirvana, transcending and suspending the transmigratory life cycle and the agony of time.