Siddhartha

[Admin]

I was like wise confused.

I think that the fellow he meets was a buddha, but then he(Siddhartha) became The Buddha. But remember also its historical fiction, not historical fact.

I liken it to Caesar. There was one Caesar, but all rulers after him were named Caesar also. (and even in other lands the name Caesar became a title).

So its like that, but in reverse. Buddha was a title given to enlightened people, but one supreme enlightened individual (siddhartha) changed the title into a name.



_________________
Chris Beasley
Administrator

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Admin on 2001-08-14 11:08 ]</font>

[Admin]

Well it was 3 years ago when I read this book so my memory isn't fresh.

But remember one core buddhist belief is that our spirits are reincarnated again and again and that all life is related.

[Pondering_Teenager]

When I read Siddhartha, on the discription it said that Siddhartha was the name sometimes given to Bhudda(i think thats the correct spelling) but about 1/4 of the way through he meets The Bhudda. Im not clear on what H. Hesse was attempting to get across with the boys name.
Please help with your oppinions.

[Pondering_Teenager]

Ah. Thank you.

[Pondering_Teenager]

I have one more question about Siddhartha. when he talked about time bieng fake, i thought i understood what he ment, that it is a man made idea, but when he talked about biengeverything you have ever been, are and will be at the same time is where he lost me.

[Pondering_Teenager]

Ah, thankyou for the advice.

[Pondering_Teenager]

thank you for your help

[vladline]

One way to look at this idea is the law of finite matter and energy!

In physics we are taught that in the universe, energy and matter can not be destroyed it can only be transformed from one physical state to another, only to become energy and matter once again.

Perhaps what Buddhism, Hinduism, and some of the other religions of the world relate to us through reincarnation is similar to this law of physics. Basically stating that the energy force which is the human spirit is never destroyed but becomes a part of the universal conciousness, wether it be a living being or pure energy. That is just my insight on that subject.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: vladline on 2001-09-04 03:59 ]</font>

[jayanti]

1) Siddhartha is the name which was given to buddha by his parents when he was born..... he was called by this name till he attained Enlightenment.
On attaining Enlightenment he was called Buddha.... the phrase "he met Buddha" implies he met the Enlightenment he was seeking.

2) In hindus and Buddhists its beleived soul is the essential part of this universe and is never destroyed... only the body is..... thus the essence of time is illusion.....as the soul is timeless.
thus a person can and has been into a variety of selves thro the transient body

[Zeno]

It is like this, Herman Hesse simply uses names that fit the personality of his charecters so that the name Vasudiva (forgive spelling errors and i read along time ago,dont have the book here) means something like worldly and the name kamala means beutifull or something like that and sahdartha is the name of the historical budda which the charecter sadartha meets in the story, and whom he resmbles in personality. I beleive Sahdarthas friends name i forget what it was, means the shadow ie his shadow follower.

In Narcicus and Goldmund for instance one of Hesseses other novels again you can see the way he uses names Goldmund meaning literaly gold mouth.


I beleive Hesse was trying to show what an inlightened person would see and understand althought he admited that not haveing become inlightened himself he had difficulty in the last part of the novel.

[vladivo]

Life may be like a book: to find its meaning you have to go from the first page to the last, word after word, day after day, even if the whole story already exists, "AT THE SAME TIME". It may be just an ordinary-human limitation to experience existence in this way. Maybe God, an enlightened person,or simply a dead one, are able to grasp the entire book in one single look.
There´s a great book, by Jorge Luis Borges: "Historia de la eternidad";there is an english translation.

[Tabac]

Another book by Hesse that I enjoyed much more than the one under discussion here.

[Zeno]

Demian is good book about youth and Jungian concepts but I like Narccius and Goldmund much beter.

[Sitaram]

Here is my favorite passage from Hermann Hesse' "Siddhartha."


I tried to collect together passages similar to this which represent what I have tried to term "spatiotemporal montage."



http://toosmallforsupernova.org/page019.htm




"While Govinda with astonishment, and yet drawn by great love and expectation, obeyed his words, bent down closely to him and touched his forehead with his lips, something miraculous happened to him. While his thoughts were still dwelling on Siddhartha's wondrous words, while he was still struggling in vain and with reluctance to think away time, to imagine Nirvana and Samsara as one, while even a certain contempt for the words of his friend was fighting in him against an immense love and veneration, this happened to him:



He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha, instead he saw other faces, many, a long sequence, a flowing river of faces, of hundreds, of thousands, which all came and disappeared, and yet all seemed to be there simultaneously, which all constantly changed and renewed themselves, and which were still all Siddhartha. He saw the face of a fish, a carp, with an infinitely painfully opened mouth, the face of a dying fish, with fading eyes--he saw the face of a new-born child, red and full of wrinkles, distorted from crying--he saw the face of a murderer, he saw him plunging a knife into the body of another person--he saw, in the same second, this criminal in bondage, kneeling and his head being chopped off by the executioner with one blow of his sword--he saw the bodies of men and women, naked in positions and cramps of frenzied love--he saw corpses stretched out, motionless, cold, void-- he saw the heads of animals, of boars, of crocodiles, of elephants, of bulls, of birds--he saw gods, saw Krishna, saw Agni--he saw all of these figures and faces in a thousand relationships with one another, each one helping the other, loving it, hating it, destroying it, giving re-birth to it, each one was a will to die, a passionately painful confession of transitoriness, and yet none of then died, each one only transformed, was always re-born, received evermore a new face, without any time having passed between the one and the other face--and all of these figures and faces rested, flowed, generated themselves, floated along and merged with each other, and they were all constantly covered by something thin, without individuality of its own, but yet existing, like a thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, a shell or mold or mask of water, and this mask was smiling, and this mask was Siddhartha's smiling face, which he, Govinda, in this very same moment touched with his lips. And, Govinda saw it like this, this smile of the mask, this smile of oneness above the flowing forms, this smile of simultaneousness above the thousand births and deaths, this smile of Siddhartha was precisely the same, was precisely of the same kind as the quiet, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps benevolent, perhaps mocking, wise, thousand-fold smile of Gotama, the Buddha, as he had seen it himself with great respect a hundred times. Like this, Govinda knew, the perfected ones are smiling.


Not knowing any more whether time existed, whether the vision had lasted a second or a hundred years, not knowing any more whether there existed a Siddhartha, a Gotama, a me and a you, feeling in his innermost self as if he had been wounded by a divine arrow, the injury of which tasted sweet, being enchanted and dissolved in his innermost self, Govinda still stood for a little while bent over Siddhartha's quiet face, which he had just kissed, which had just been the scene of all manifestations, all transformations, all existence. The face was unchanged, after under its surface the depth of the thousandfoldness had closed up again, he smiled silently, smiled quietly and softly, perhaps very benevolently, perhaps very mockingly, precisely as he used to smile, the exalted one. "

[KUUIPOMAKALANI]

When Sidhartha met Buddah . He met his higher self. Thus he became Buddah , The Prodigal Son. And accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour.
~Kuuipo Makalani Alii Huna Priestess O' Hawaii~ Prophetess~Seer~Divine Messenger of Jesus Christ Lord and Saviou~

[russellb]

My understanding of Siddhartha's turning away from the buddha is that this reflects a sort of 'individualism' in hesse. Towards the end of the book when he and his companion help people across the river, it seems to me that hesse is wanting to provide a symbolism of bodhisattvas, those who delay their entry into nirvana so as to assist others in their passage to enlightenment. At the end siddhartha's companion goes off and this may be to 'paranirvana' the highest stage of salvation. Such is my imperfect memory of a book read a long time ago and cradled in fragments of buddhist philosophy i've scraped up from life. What i loved about the book was that it had such a beautiful clarity. It is on my bookshelves waiting to be read again and someday hopefully it will be...

[Paulclem]

When Sidhartha met Buddah . He met his higher self. Thus he became Buddah , The Prodigal Son. And accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour.
~Kuuipo Makalani Alii Huna Priestess O' Hawaii~ Prophetess~Seer~Divine Messenger of Jesus Christ Lord and Saviou~

I'm more with russelb. I didn't get the sense that he followed the Buddha's own path. I think your reference to Jesus has no textual support.

The content of Siddhartha does contain a mixture of Hinduism and Buddhism. At the time of Hesse's writing, the two were often confused.