The An Indian Tale: SIDDHARTHA.

 An Indian Tale: SIDDHARTHA.
                   
           By Hermann Hesse

There are three major influences on the development of west in the Middle Ages and into our own era. One is the Judaeo/Christian tradition; the second is culture of barbarian Germanic tribes that poured into 

the empire in the last centuries of its existence in the west; and the third is the Graeco/Roman tradition. The Judaeo/ Christian tradition is dominated by the Christian/ Roman Catholic Church. The tradition was mostly based on the old testament which directed the lives of Jews and tribes of the Middle East , while the New testament was more on the teachings and life of Christ. Christianity throughout the Middle Ages based it doctrines on its interpretation of the Bible and its own concepts of how the Christian society should be ordered in order to ensure that as many souls were saved. The Judaeo/ Christian tradition contributed both good and bad elements to western society. Among the Good element were concepts of free will, charity and love. Among, the bad element was concepts of exclusivity, guilt and persecution. The Germanic tribes that came into the empire both as it was collapsing and after the imperial armies had withdrawn from Europe, were pagan. They had some semi-democratic elements, such as the election of war leaders and they worshipped many gods. The worship of one God created more unity among the people and made it easier to diverse tribal groups around a leader as he tried to put together a kingdom and gain authority over more people. The Roman ideals of loyalty, devotion to family and a reverence to gods blended well with some Germanic and Christian ideals. Hermann Hesse, the Author in, An Indian Tale: SIDDHARTHA observed the rise to power of Nazism in Germany. One of his main goal, was to work against Adolf Hitler’s (ruled from 1933-1945) suppression of art. He in totality condemned the Nazi party through his gift of poetry, writing. The Nazi Party had their ideology and practice for humanity which was known as Nazism. Nazism believed in the supremacy of their fore headed gods, known as the Aryan. The Nazi formally focused on anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist brought shame to the right-wing political system through corruptive financial initiation with industrial owner, this act was called stab-in- the –back legend. This act helped the German army succeed in World War 1 while betraying the civilians on the home front.

     After World War I, soldiers were disillusioned and there was a great existence of human suffering. The end of World War I shaped the attitudes and thoughts of soldier’s going home. A rhetoric that was used during this time was connoted: The lost Generation. This generation began to question their parents’ generations. During the Enlightenment, the lack of certainty, direction and purpose led many people to venture in search of deeper meaning and truth for living. Many expatriate expressed their resentment towards the materialism pursuit during this era.  One of the Philosophers in the era was Immanuel Kant who main objective was to unite reason with experience.

      Siddhartha’s is a well-off Brahmin’s son raised in the West to some day take after his father’s tradition in worshipping Atman. Instead, of accepting his fathers’ tradition;he choose to run off in joining the Semana (Holy men) in search of enlightenment “sidddhartha knew many venerable Brahmans, chiefly his father, the pure one, the scholar, the most venerable one. His father was to be admired, quiet and noble were his manners, pure his life, wise his words, delicate and noble thoughts lived behind its brow —but even he, who knew so much, did he live in blissfulness, did he have peace, was he not also just a searching man, a thirsty man? Did he not, again and again, have to drink from holy sources, as a thirsty man, from the offerings, from the books, from the disputes of the Brahmans? Why did he, the irreproachable one, have to wash off sins every day, strive for a cleansing every day, over and over every day? Was not Atman in him, did not the pristine source spring from his heart? It had to be found, the pristine source in one's own self, it had to be possessed! Everything else was searching, was a detour, was getting lost” (Siddhartha, 5). Like the generations of the era, he wanted to explore the randomness of life in the Eastern World. One of his ultimate goals was to unselfish though by emptying his joy, thirst, dreams and sorrows and wishing. He condemned teachers as not having anything to teach him and that he could only obtain knowledge through experience “There is indeed no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as `learning'. There is, oh my friend, just one knowledge, this is everywhere, this is Atman, this is within me and within you and within every creature. And so I'm starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the desire to know it, than learning” (Siddhartha, 11). This is a common Nihilist belief whereby our instincts are directly irreconcilable with our conscious will and values.

      The climax, begins when Siddhartha becomes agitated with his affluent lifestyle, and decides to start a new life as a wise Ferryman. In his new life style as the Ferryman he discovers a way of reaching a purpose for life by the river. Many years past, Govinda a very close friend of Siddhartha, who in search of meaning of life choose the religion of Buddah but never found answers. Found, his long lost friend, Siddhartha by the river who looks blissful. Siddhartha tries to shine knowledge into his friend head by letting him know he has found perfection but like always he felt his words sounded foolish to Govinda, saying “Wisdom always sounds like foolishness to another person”. Hence, it will be hard for Govinda to comprehend Siddhartha new found appreciation for perfection: OM(God is omnipotent which means all powerful and almighty)

       The passage that stuck out to me the most was "Listen well, my dear, listen well! The sinner, which I am and which you are, is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha—and now see: these 'times to come' are a deception, are only a parable! The sinner is not on his way to become a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these things. No, within the sinner is now and today already the future Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is not possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was, is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.—These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have come into my mind."(Siddhartha, 65) He uses this passage to show appreciation for creation and to reach to the conclusion that God has created everything in oneness, in his own image. God created man from dust and to reach and breathe him we have to show love to all his creations of the heaven and the earth. This passage shows how the worship of one God in Germany created more unity among the people and made it easier to diverse tribal groups around a leader as he tried to put together a kingdom and gain authority over more people.  From personal experience, I have always believed as you continue your communications with God a time will come when he will tell you the plan for your life. This plan will awaken the seed completely and you will be given great power to carry the plan out. This plan will seem so fantastic that you will know that you are incapable of doing it. Remember, if you use God's power, you can do anything. With God all things are possible. All you have to do is take one step at a time and God will make the plan come true. This was what Siddhartha tries to comprehend in the above passage; that with God’s power the Germans were able to plan their life.