Need Help Understanding Siddharta

[tabby123]

Maybe this book was just not an attention getter for me, but I passively read Siddharta and did not find the fullfilment that I usually do reading other books.

To me, everything was described clearly, but I did not find a satisfying ending.
What realizations were made by Siddharta in the end? Or was it something that Govinda realized?

To me, it just doesn't seem like the last chapter.

Can anyone help me understand the last of Siddharta so I can possibly make a connection to the rest of the book?

*edit: Does anyone see any types of symbolism in the book? I really want to pull meaning out of this book, but I can't find any symbolism!

--tabby123

[Sarasvati21]

Perhaps you should read it again, actively instead of passively. By reading actively, you are looking for clues as you read that may lead to a better, more thorough understanding of the subject matter.

Both Govinda and Siddhartha changed from the beginning of the book to the end. Siddhartha's change was quite a bit more drastic than Govinda's, and there were several distinct stages in his transformation. Nearly everything mentioned by Hesse aided his growth, from staying up all night waiting by the side of the road in the beginning, to his time with the boatman in the end. Look for the effects of each of his encounters on his outlook in life. I really would recommend reading the book again in order to do this.

Good luck.

[tabby123]

^ Thanks. I was planning on reading it again anyways.
Play clarinet? I do too. :) Sax is my main though.

[nal]

Hi Saraswati & tabby,
I also feel that the boatman plays or more precisely, portrays an important role in this book-and for Siddhartha himself. I read this book about two years back, but can relate to some of the subtle messages being a Buddhist myself. Remember the Buddha warning Siddhartha about his own cleverness being his possible enemy ?

See, in Buddhism there is a teaching that the world is the created by the mind- Basically it is our perceptions & creations inclusive of language- through which we form our knowledge about the world. Hence if we have some knowledge, & if we grasp at it as ours, ( which I felt Siddhartha was doing initially, due to his ego & his own conviction of his cleverness), it can be counter-productive as we wil see all things from the viewpoint of our tightly held view ( or ditti as it is called in Buddhism). We could discuss as we go along, if others are interested, for I don't want to give a summarised version of the Buddha's teaching :) for this is not the place to do it.

[nal]

Hi Saraswati & tabby,
I also feel that the boatman plays or more precisely, portrays an important role in this book-and for Siddhartha himself. I read this book about two years back, but can relate to some of the subtle messages being a Buddhist myself. Remember the Buddha warning Siddhartha about his own cleverness being his possible enemy ?

See, in Buddhism there is a teaching that the world is the created by the mind- Basically it is our perceptions & creations inclusive of language- through which we form our knowledge about the world. Hence if we have some knowledge, & if we grasp at it as ours, ( which I felt Siddhartha was doing initially, due to his ego & his own conviction of his cleverness), it can be counter-productive as we wil see all things from the viewpoint of our tightly held view ( or ditti as it is called in Buddhism). We could discuss as we go along, if others are interested, for I don't want to give a summarised version of the Buddha's teaching :) for this is not the place to do it.

[mikka]

Are you a christian?

Just the way you want to find a symbol in the book, or a concept.

[radu paltineanu]

Maybe this book was just not an attention getter for me, but I passively read Siddharta and did not find the fullfilment that I usually do reading other books.

To me, everything was described clearly, but I did not find a satisfying ending.
What realizations were made by Siddharta in the end? Or was it something that Govinda realized?

To me, it just doesn't seem like the last chapter.

Can anyone help me understand the last of Siddharta so I can possibly make a connection to the rest of the book?

*edit: Does anyone see any types of symbolism in the book? I really want to pull meaning out of this book, but I can't find any symbolism!

--tabby123

Obviously, the best thing you could do is to read it all over again and grasp all the insights of the novel. It is indeed a beautiful novel and I realized that Siddharta's personal search for freedom of soul and body and the finding of his innermost part, which is Atman , may concern all of us more or less. What you should really look up in the novel while you read it is repetition. Siddharta is not a linear novel , where events go on with time and they never come back. In this novel everything seem to repeat, characters, places, etc. The river is the most powerful image of Siddharta's life and this is where he'll finally find Enlightenment( The Middleway between the ascetic life he led and samsara, which is the luxury life, and the Earthly pleasures -the state in which we're most of us). The River flows , as our lives do, but the bed of the River remains the same, and this represents our body. As Siddharta looks in the River, he is able to reach Enlightenment through having a human emotion and remembering all the people that helped him and led him to his final goal.This final part of the novel it's a real mix if I can say so between Buddhism and Christianity dogmas. Siddharta is basically a very good novel for the West to better understand the East.
You'll definitely want to read it again.

[ryan jaMes]

I think it is important to know things about Hermann Hesse's life when looking at his works. He was a Protestant who grew up with much exposure to Easter philosophy, Buddhism, Hinduism etc. However, his being a Protestant doesn't have as much to do with Siddhartha as his interest in psychoanalysis, Jungian, to be more precise. For example, one could look at his references to Govinda as his 'shadow'. Govinda could be interpreted as the higher Self and Siddhartha the mortal self...or in Jungian terms Govinda represents the unconscious and Siddhartha the conscious. The shadow isn't always the adversary, it can also be the servant, as is the case here, however they do quarrel from time to time. "A conversation with the shadow may indicate that one is concerned with conflicting desires or intentions" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)].

And in Buddhism there is no external gods as is typically viewed in the West. It is the 5 Skandhas (form, feeling, perception, mental formation, and consciousness) that keep us in the cycle of birth and death, or Samsara. So the whole book can be seen as an inner struggle where the Siddhartha ultimately realizes his folly-that the thing he refuses to give up-intellect-is the separation of the Buddha within; this is what keeps him 'coming back' to the Self. Siddhartha was stubborn, and this is pointed out several times: when he stands in one place for a whole night, his refusal to go with the Buddha, and his unexpressed wish that someone could tell him what liberation was.

It may also help to know that Hesse had an unrelenting, and unashamed suspicion of the material world around him and knew since he was a boy that material things were fleeting, transient, empty. This is reflected early in the book when Hesse points out that Siddhartha is sad-for he know that his love for his family was also fleeting and transient. He was cognizant of the growing industrialization of the world and this conflicted with his love of nature which he thought was more pure, at least less transient and where god could be found. He struggled in his life to consolidate the 2 realities. He preferred to create imaginary worlds, give his protagonists powers in his books. This reflected his thoughts as the young boy who thought that "reality is a conspiracy of the adults." In fact, Hessse, in his autobiography, talks about seeing and learning from deities hiding in his cupboard when he was growing up. Whether they were or not is irrelevant as is his sanity, what is relevent is that he believed strongly in something higher than what we percieve with our senses.

Remember, if you read the Sutras, it says over and over again that Buddha is within. Buddha is a title, a state of being, not just the name of a particular man. The fact that Siddhartha Gautama was the Buddha's name gives reference that the characters in the book are symbolic for aspects of the same person. Everyone has access to the Buddha, but the barrier is the intellect because it can't cope with the simplicity of wisdom. The warning Gotama gave to Siddharth about his cleverness is a reference to this. Jungian and Freudian psychology say pretty much the same thing: but they say our ego's, suppressed thoughts\behaviours\desires, guilt, personas, etc get in the way of our conscious freedom. All of these things are either in our conscious or subconscious mind-or manifestations preventing our psychological freedom.

Jungs collective consciousness can also be related in Buddhism. (all religions actually, at least from a certain point of view).

So if one were to look at this book as an inner struggle with the archetypes of Jungian psychology, and the Buddha's teaching the same way-with metaphor instead of our "reality", then you may find what you're looking for.

But, we are always going to get something different out of art, even our own. So, having said what i have said, it is still up to you to find what you get out of it.