Herroz,
So I re-read Siddartha. Read it first when I was a freshman in high school. It was the book that kinda got me interested in … well… books … and writing. It got me interested in the eastern philosophies too.
So the first time I read it I was like… HOLY SHIT THIS BOOK IS AWESOME. I was totally on board with the buddhism idea and basically Siddhartha was my new hero.
This time when I read it, it was… different. I have always hated the idea of re-reading books because I feel like when you finish a book, you’ve made some kind of progress, either mentally or spiritually. So re-reading a book is like you didn’t get all the messages out of the book you were supposed to the first time. Well I sucked up my pride and re-read it. I’m actually really glad I did.
On the second read, I was a lot more skeptical about the whole buddhism/taoism idea, mainly because I’ve become much more cynical over the years and see taoism as one of those magical philosophies that doesn’t deal with real life. After trying to live a peaceful and serene life and utterly failing, I’ve realized taoism doesn’t solve all your problems (at least not right now). Also, I think Siddhartha is a pompous and conceited ass at many points in the book and I hate myself for liking and revering him.
However, after reading it the second time, it’s still one of my favorite books. I think I like the idea that that’s it’s the story of a man’s lifetime and I kind of identify with him. I guess a lot of people do because the book is relatively popular. I am at heart some type of traveler, seeking fulfillment and, in Siddhartha’s case, “enlightenment,” and I have a sinking feeling that I’m going to have to wear many different types of clothes and try a lot of different things that may not turn out well in order to be fulfilled. I guess it’s probably not going to be found in the place I expect it to be either.
The writing style of this book is very strange, but also encouraging. It’s much more summary of Siddhartha’s life rather than scene. Writing teachers tell you summary is the devil, but I guess it can obviously work in some cases.
I just wanted to get this poast up before I left tomorrow. I’m going home for christmas and there is supposed to be a snow storm! Here some quotes I underlined and love! I’ll probably write more on this book later because I think it’s going to play a big part in my life.
“Your soul is the whole world” (humanity)
“One must find the source within one’s own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking–a detour, error.” (I disagree with the error part…)
“You show the world as a complete, unbroken chain, an eternal chain, linked together by cause and effect”
“But there is one thing that this clear, worthy instruction does not contain; (he’s talking to the Buddha. Siddhartha is not Gotama, the Buddha) it does not the contain the secret of what the Illustrious One himself experienced — he alone among hundreds of thousands.” (only you can reach your goal, you can’t do it by following a teacher)
“Be on your guard against too much cleverness.”
“I wanted to rid myself of the Self, to conquer it, but I could not conquer it, I could only deceive it, could only fly from it, could only hide from it. Truly, nothing in the world has occupied my thoughts as much as the Self, this riddle, that I live, that I am one and am separated and different form everybody else, that I am Siddhartha; and about nothing in the world do I know less than about myself, about Siddhartha.”
“I will learn from myself, be my own pupil.”
“Meanings and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.”
“My friend, many people want to know that. You must do what you have learned and obtain money, clothes and shoes for it.”
By knowing poverty, you will not be concerned with troubles.
“Then he suddenly saw clearly that he was leading a strange life, that he was doing many things that were only a game, that he was quite cheerful and sometimes experienced pleasure, but that real life was flowing past him and did not touch him.”
“He envied them the one thing that he lacked and that they had: the sense of importance with which they lived their lives, the depth of their pleasures and sorrows, the anxious but sweet happiness of their continual power to love.”
“There is no such thing as time… the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”
Everything has to be in two places at once?
“Do you really think you have committed your follies to spare your son them?”
“It was true that he had never lost himself in another person to such an extent as to forget himself.”
“He did not understand or share their thoughts and views, but he shared with them life’s urges and desires.”
“Within Siddhartha there slowly grew and ripened the knowledge of what wisdom really was and the goal of his long seeking. It was nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment in life. This thought matured in him slowly, and it was reflected in Vasudeva’s old childlike face: harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world an unity.”
“The picture of his father, his own picture, and the picture of his son all flowed into each other. Kamala’s picture also appeared and flowed on, and the picture of Govinda and others emerged and passed on. They all became part of the river. It was the goal of them all, yearning, desiring, suffering… the river flowed on towards its goal.”
“You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.”
“The potential of everything must be recognized in everybody. The buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin.”
“Learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it and be glad to belong to it.”
“This stone is a stone, it is also animal, god and buddha. I do not respect and love it because it was one thing and will become something else, but because it has already long been everything and always is everything.”
“It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate eachother, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all being with love, admiration and respect.”
“Not in speech or thought do I regard him as a great man, but in his deeds and life.”
“But his glance and his hand and his skin and his hair all radiate a purity, peace, serenity, gentleness and saintliness which I have never seen in any man…”
“How strange his life had been, he thought. He had wandered along strange paths. As a boy, I was occupied with the gods and sacrifices, as a youth with asceticism, with thinking and meditation. I was in search of Brahman and revered the eternal in Atman. As a young man I was attracted to expiation. I lived in the woods, suffered heat and cold. I learned to fast, I learned to conquer my body. I then discovered with wonder the teachings of the great Buddha. I felt knowledge and the unity of the world circulate in me like my own blood, but I also felt compelled to leave the Buddha and the great knowledge. I went and learned the pleasures of love from Kamala and business from Kamaswami. I hoarded money, I squandered money, I acquired a taste for rich food, I learned to stimulate my senses. I had to spend many years like that in order to lose my intelligence, to lose the power to think, to forget about the unity of things It is not true, that slowly and through many deviations I changed from a man into a child? From a thinker into an ordinary person? And yet this path has been good and the bird in my breast has not died. But what a path it has been! I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. But it was right that it should be so. My eyes and heart acclaim it. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace or hear Om again, to sleep deeply and to awaken refreshed again. I had to become a fool again in order to find Atman in myself. I had to sin in order to live again. Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spiral, perhaps circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow.”
“You have found peace.”
The Thought Hole 