Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Time And Voice According To The River
Siddhartha reflects on his life, and realizes it is a cycle from child to man to child again. As boy Siddhartha was obsessed with gods and sacrifices as a Brahmins son. Then as a youth he wanted to be an ascetic, to think and meditate, he was trying to find the atman in himself. As a young man, he became an ascetic and tought his body how to survive the cold, the heat and hunger. Then he found the Buddha and he learned from him but he still left the Buddha and his teachings. Siddhartha then met Kamala and learned the pleasures of love. He learned business from Kamaswami, and made money and learned to indulge in his senses. This is significant because as he thinks about his life he begins to realize that he changed from a thinker to one of the child people. He passed through so much ignorance, revulsion, disappointment, and misery just to transform from a man back to a child again. He understands that he had to experience despair and become suicidal, to truly understand grace and the meaning of the OM. He decides, “I had to become a fool to find atman in myself.”
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ReplyDeleteThis post is very well written. It helped me understand better how Siddhatha transforms from a child to and adult and then back to a child. I think the part where you talk about how many things Siddhartha had to expiriance in order to realize he would be better off to be child like. The theme of expiriance in order to learn is played out in the whole book and this example is where it is played out the most. This is where Siddhartha has reached the point in which he has expirienced enough to understand. This post really had value dedicated to the whole book, although it's only talking about one happening. Very good!
ReplyDeleteYou summarized the book very well. THe way you ended the post with a quote made it very interesting. The quote describes his what hes been through and and sums it up very well. You also used very descriptive words. I liked it a lot. :)
ReplyDeleteI loved the quote at the end, and I liked the way you summarized it. I liked how when you said he became an ascetic, you didn't stop there, but went on to tell how he trained himself to survive certain things. This definitely helps me understand how he turned back into a child again. I think this a great example of how experience in life is important, if Siddhartha hadn't experienced being depressed he never would have found OM. Great job!
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