My thesis written while I was in the U.S. long time ago:
~SIDDHARTHA~
Siddhartha is the story of a young Indian seaching for himself, through his own experiences of self denial, love affairs with the beautiful courtezan Kamala, worldly ambition, friendship with a ferryman, struggling with his own son, to recognition of sef and unity of being. So beautifully pictured is the path of estrangement from self and others to encounter with loving human relationship and attainment of self-knowledge and peace. Especially exquisite are the presentation of a discovery of true love at the moment of Kamala’s death, life with a ferryman by the river and their sometimes speechless conversation listening to the river.
Here the river is represented as a mystic symbol of the oneness of every being in the universe, of every moment of time and of every aspect of life. It absorbs everything as its many-voiced song represents:
“It still echoed sorrowfully, searchingly, but other voices accompanied it, voices of pleasure and sorrow, good and evil voices, laughing and lamenting voices, hundreds of voices, thousands of voices…..he could no longer distinguish the different voices ー the merry voice from the weeping voice, the childish voice from the manly voice. They all belonged to each other: the lament of those who yearn, the laughter of the wise, the cry of indignation and the groan of the dying. They were all interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand ways. And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life.”
Thus is the river represented as the complete harmony, eternity and unity of the world. The irresistible attractiveness of the river is hidden in its great capacity of accepting, absorbing every contradicted thing. It is easy to explain it in such a word as “unity in diversity.” However, I feel something beyond it, something inexpressible exists in this philosophy of the river. It may be called “Oriental Mystique.” The following passages tell us about it:
“…..in evey truth the opposite is equally true. for example, a tuth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is one-sided. Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity. When the Illustrius Buddha taught about the world, he had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, into illusion and truth into suffering and salvation. One cannot do otherwise…..there is no other method for those who teach. But the world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffer the illusion that time is something real. Time is not real, Govinda. I have realized this repeatedly. And if time is not real, then the dividing line that seems to lie between this world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion…..The world, Govinda, is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it…..”
Siddhartha, though his life was full of suffering and his path had often deviated from his goal, gained at last through the river the consciousness of the unity of all life. He attained his goal, he found peace, when he ceased to seek his goal, to fight against his destiny. In other words, although he did not find the medicine to cure his wound, he found in the river a sustaining power to live with this wound. This power is a wisdom, an ability to realize the essence of all existence and also to accept the world as it is with resignation. The river accepts everything; so did Siddhartha. He merged into the reiver, he became one with the river. The face of Siddhartha who attained the goal is the incarnation of the river itself: “…..many faces, a long series, a continuous stream of faces ー hunddreds, thousands, which all came and disappeared and yet all seemed to be there at the same time, which all continually changed and renewed themselves and which were yet all Siddhartha.”
Siddhartha found peace. Some people will also find peace in this way. Nevertheless, there is a feeling of sadness and emptiness behind this peace and unity. It is a pessimistic and fatalistic outlook on life which flows out of this novel. The river also represents by its ever-flowing water that all phenomena are transitory, all is vanity in human life. The sound of running water is a deep sigh uttered from a man when he renounced everything including his hope. There is no evidence of such joyous hope as that of resurrection and glory which Christian people realize. Moreover, formless and evasive water flowing horizontally implies that no vertical relationship with God exists. Is God, too, absorbed in the river? Does He disappear into the amorphous world?
Indeed, the river calls us to the everlasting, timeless life, but it does not give us rest as Christ does. How different this call is from the consoling invitation in Christ’s “Come to Me!” But this river has still some magnetic power which allures us. Is it impossible to hear Christ’s call on the river bank? ー “Come to Me…..and I will give you rest. Take My yoke…..and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for My yoke is easy and My burden light.”(Matt., 11:28-30)
(November 19, 1973)