Latest / Philosophy and Faith / 11 - Om - Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse

Transcript

11 - Om - Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse · Philosophy and Faith

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven Olm. For a long time, the wound continued
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: to burn. Many A traveler said, Arthur had to ferry
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: across the river who was accompanied by a son or
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a daughter, And he saw none of them without envying him,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: without thinking, so many, so many thousands possessed the sweetest
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: of good fortunes. Why don't I even bad people, even
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: thieves and robbers, have children and love them, and are
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: being loved by them, all except for me? Thus simply, thus,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: without reason, he now thought, Thus similar to the childlike people,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: he had become differently than before. He now looked upon
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: people less smart, less proud, but instead warmer, more curious,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: more involved. When he ferried travelers of the ordinary kind,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: childlike people, business men, warriors, women, these people did not
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: seem alien to him as they used to. He understood them,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: He understood and shared their life, which was not guided
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: by thoughts and insight, but solely by urges and wishes.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: He felt like them. Though he was near perfection and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: was bearing his final wound, it seemed to him as
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: if those childlike people were his brothers. Their vanities, desires
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: for possession, and ridiculous aspects were no longer ridiculous to him,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: became understandable, became lovable, and even became worthy of veneration
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: to him. The blind love of a mother for her child,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: the stupid, blind pride of a conceited father for his
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: only son, the blind, wild desire of a young, vain
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: woman for jewelry and admiring glances from men. All of
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: these urge. All of this childish stuff, all of these simple, foolish,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: but immensely strong, strongly living, strongly prevailing urges and desires,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: were now no childish notions for said Arthur any more.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: He saw people living for their sake, saw them achieving
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: infinitely much for their sake, traveling, conducting wars, suffering infinitely much,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: bearing infinitely much, and he could love them for it.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: He saw life, that what is alive, the indestructible, the brahmin.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: In each of their passions, each of their acts worthy
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: of love and admiration. Were these people in their blind loyalty,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: their blind strength and tenacity, They lacked nothing. There was nothing.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: The knowledgeable one, the thinker, had put himself above them,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: except for one thing, a single, tiny, small thing, the consciousness,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the conscious thought of the oneness of all life and
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: said Arthur, even doubted in many an hour whether this knowledge,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: this thought, was to be valued thus highly, whether it
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: might also perhaps be a childish idea of the thinking people,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: of the thinking and childlike people. In all other respects,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the worldly people were of equal rank to the wise
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: men were often far superior to them, just as animals too,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: can after in some moments, seemed to be superior to
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: humans in their tough, unrelenting performance of what is necessary.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in said Arthur. The realization, the knowledge,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: an ability a secret art to think every moment while
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: to feel and inhale the oneness. Slowly this blossomed in
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: him was shining back at him from Vasadeva's old childlike face, harmony,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling oneness.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: But the wound still burned longingly and bitterly. Siddarthur thought
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: of his son, nurtured his love and tenderness in his heart,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: allowed the pain to gnaw at him. Committed all foolish
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: acts of love, not by itself, this flame would go out.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And one day, when the wound burned violently, sid Arthur
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: ferried across the river, driven by a yearning, got off
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: the boat and was willing to go to the city
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: and to look for his The river flowed softly and quietly.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: It was the dry season, but its voice sounded strange.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: It laughed, It laughed clearly. The river laughed. It laughed
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: brightly and clearly. At the old ferryman. Saddarthurs stopped. He
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: bent over the water in order to hear even better,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: and he saw his face reflected in the quietly moving waters.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: And in this reflected face there was something which reminded him,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: something he had forgotten. And as he thought about it,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: he found it. His face resembled another face which he
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: used to know and love and also fear. It resembled
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: his father's face, the Brahmin, And he remembered how he,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a long time ago, as a young man, had forced
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: his father to let him go to the penitents, how
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: he had bade his farewell to him, how he had
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: gone and had never come back. Had his father not
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: also suffered the same pain for him, which he now
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: suffered for his son. Had his father not long since
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: died alone without having seen his son again, did he
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: not have to expect the same fate for himself? Was
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: it not a comedy, a strange and stupid matter, this repetition,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: this running around in a fateful circle. The river laughed. Yes,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: so it was everything came back which had not been
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: suffered and solved up to its end. The same pain
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: was suffered over and over again. But said Arthur went
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: back into the boat and ferried back to the hut,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: thinking of his father, thinking of his son, laughed at
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: by the river, at odds with himself tending towards despair,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and not less tending towards laughing along but himself and
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the entire world. Alas the wound was not blossoming again,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: his heart was still fighting his fate. Cheerfulness and victory
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: were not yet shining from his suffering. Nevertheless, he felt hope,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and once he had returned to the hut, he felt
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: an undefeatable desire to open up to Vasudeva, to show
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: him everything. The master of listening to say everything, Vasudeva
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: was sitting in the hut and weaving a basket. He
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: no longer used the ferry boat. His eyes were starting
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: to get weak, and not just his eyes, his arms
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and hands as well, unchanging and flourishing. Was only the
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: joy and the cheerful benevolence of his face. Sir Arthur
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: sat down next to the old man. Slowly he started
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: talking what they had never talked about. He now told
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: him him of his walk to the city at that time,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: of the burning wound, of his envy at the sight
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of happy fathers, of his knowledge of the foolishness of
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: such wishes, of his futile fight against them. He reported
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: everything he was able to say, everything, even the most
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: embarrassing parts. Everything could be said, everything shown. Everything he
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: could tell, he presented his wound. Also told how he
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: fled today, how he ferried across the water, a childlike runaway,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: willing to walk to the city, How the river had
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: laughed while he spoke, spoke for a long time while
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Vasudeva was listening with a quiet face. Vasudeva's listening gave
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Siddartha a stronger sensation than ever before. He sensed how
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: his pain, his fears flowed over to him, secret hope
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: flowed over came back at him from his counterpart. To
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: show his wound to this listener was the same as
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: bathing it in the river until it had cooled and
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: become one with the river. While he was still speaking,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: still admitting and confessing, Siddarthur felt more and more that
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: this was no longer Vasadeva, no longer a human being
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: who was listening to him, That this motionless listener was
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: absorbing his confession into himself like a tree the rain.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: That this motionless man was the river itself, that he
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: was God himself, that he was the eternal itself. And
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: while Siddarthur stopped thinking of himself and his wound, this
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: realization of Vasudeva's changed character took possession of him, and
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the more he felt it and entered into it, the
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: less wondrous it became. The more he realized that everything
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: was in order and natural, that Vasudeva had already been
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: like this for a long time, almost forever, that only
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: he had not quite recognized it. Yes, that he himself
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: had almost reached the same state. He felt that he
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: was now seeing old Wassudeva as the people see the gods,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and that this could not last. In his heart, he
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: started bidding his farewell to Vasudeva. Through all this he
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: talked incessantly. When he had finished talking, Vasudeva turned his
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: friendly eyes, which had grown slightly weak, at him, said nothing.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Let his silent love and cheerfulness, understanding and knowledge shine
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: at him. He took Sir Arthur's hand, led him to
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the seat of the bank, sat down with him, smiled
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: at the river. You've heard it, laugh, he said, But
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: you haven't heard everything. Let's listen, you'll hear more. They
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: listened softly sounded the river singing in many voices. Sad
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Arthur looked into the river, and images appeared to him
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: in the moving water. His father appeared lonely, mourning for
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: his son. He himself appeared lonely, he also being tied
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: with the bondage of yearning to his distant son. His
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: son appeared lonely as well. The boy greedily rushing along
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the burning course of his young wishes, each one heading
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: for his goal, each one obsessed by the goal, each
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: one suffering. The river sang with a voice of suffering longingly.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: It sang longingly. It flowed towards its goal lamentingly. Its
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: voice sang, Do you hear Vasudiva's mute gaze asked, Saddarthur nodded,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: listen better, Vasudiva whispered. Sadd Arthur made an effort to
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: listen better. The image of his father, his own image,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the image of his son merged. Kamala's image also appeared
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: and was dispersed, and the image of Govinda, and other images,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: and they merged with each other, turned all into the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: river headed, all being the river for the goal, longing, desiring, suffering,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and the river's voice sounded full of yearning, full of
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: burning woe, full of unsatisfiable desire for the goal. The
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: river was heading. Sad Darthur saw it, hurrying, the river
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: which consisted of him and his loved ones, and of
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: all people he had ever seen. All of these waves
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: and waters were hurrying, suffering towards goals, many goals, the waterfall,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the lake, the rapids, the sea, and all goals were reached,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: and every goal was followed by a new one. And
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the water turned into vapor and rose to the sky,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: turned into rain and poured down from the sky, turned
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: into a souce, a stream, a river headed forward once again,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: flowed on once again, but the longing voice had changed.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: It still resounded full of suffering, searching. But other voices
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: joined it, voices of joy and of suffering, good and bad, voices,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: laughing and sad ones, A hundred voices, a thousand voices,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: sadartha listened. He was now nothing but a listener, completely
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: concentrated on listening, completely empty. He felt that he had
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: now finished learning to listen. Often before he had heard
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: all this, these many voices in the river. Today it
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: sounded new. Already he could no longer tell the many
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: voices apart, not the happy ones from the weeping ones,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: not the ones of children from those of men. They
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: all belonged together, the lamentation of yearning and the laughter
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: of the knowledgeable one, the scream of rage and the
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: moaning of the dying ones. Everything was one. Everything was
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: intertwined and connected, entangled a thousand times, and everything altogether
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: all voices, all goals, all yearning, all suffering, all pleasure,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: all that was good and evil. All of this together
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: was the world. All of it together was the flow
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: of events, was the music of life. And when Sir
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Arthur was listening attentively to this river, this song of
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: nor the laughter. When he did not tie his soul
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to any particular voice and submerged his self into it.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: But when he heard them all perceived the whole, the oneness.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: a single word, which was om the perfection. Do you
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: hear Vasudeva's gaze, asked again, brightly, Vasudeva's smile was shining,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: floating radiantly over all the wrinkles of his old face,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: as the olm was floating in the air, above all
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the voices of the river. Brightly, his smile was shining
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: when he looked at his friend, and brightly the same
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: smile was now starting to shine on Siddarthur's face as well.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: His wound blossomed, his suffering was shining, his self had
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: flown into the oneness. In this hour, Sir Arthur stopped
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: fighting his fate, stopped suffering. On his face flourished the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: cheerfulness of a knowledge which is no longer opposed by
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: any will, which knows perfection, which is in agreement with
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the flow of events, with the current of life, full
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: for the pleasure of others devoted to the floe belonging
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: to the oneness. When Vasudeva rose from the seat by
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: the bank, when he looked into Sir Arthur's eyes and
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: saw the cheerfulness of the knowledge shining in them, he
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: softly touched his shoulder with his hand in his careful
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and tender manner, and said, I have been waiting for
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: this hour, my dear, and now that it has come,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: let me leave. For a long time. I've been waiting
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: for this hour for a long time. I've been Vasudiva
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the fairy man. Now it's enough. Farewell, Haut, farewell, river, farewell,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: said Arthur. Said Arthur made a deep bow before him,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: who bid his farewell. I've known it, he said quietly,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: you'll go into the forests. I am going into the forests.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: I am going into the oneness, spoke Vasudiva, with a
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: bright smile. With a bright smile, he left. Said Arthur.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Watched him leaving with deep joy, with great solemnity. He
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: watched him leave, saw his steps full of peace, saw
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: his head full of luster, saw his body full of light.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eleven.