Latest / Philosophy and Faith / 04 - Awakening - Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Chapter four Awakening. When sad Arthur left the grove where
- 0:06Speaker 1: the Buddha, the perfected One, stayed behind, where Govinda stayed behind,
- 0:11Speaker 1: then he felt that in this grove his past life
- 0:15Speaker 1: also stayed behind and parted from him. He pondered about
- 0:20Speaker 1: the sensation which feeled him completely. As he was slowly
- 0:25Speaker 1: walking along, he pondered deeply, like diving into a deep water,
- 0:31Speaker 1: he let himself sink down to the ground of the sensation,
- 0:36Speaker 1: down to the place where the causes lie, because to
- 0:39Speaker 1: identify the causes, so it seemed to him, is the
- 0:43Speaker 1: very essence of thinking. And by this alone, sensations turn
- 0:49Speaker 1: into realizations and are not lost, but become entities and
- 0:54Speaker 1: start to emit like rays of light. What is inside
- 0:58Speaker 1: of them? Slowly walking along, said Arthur pondered, he realized
- 1:04Speaker 1: that he was no youth any more, but had turned
- 1:07Speaker 1: into a man. He realized that one thing had left him,
- 1:12Speaker 1: as a snake is left by its old skin, That
- 1:16Speaker 1: one thing no longer existed in him, which had accompanied
- 1:20Speaker 1: him throughout his youth and used to be a part
- 1:23Speaker 1: of him, the wish to have teachers and to listen
- 1:28Speaker 1: to teachings. He had also left the last teacher who
- 1:32Speaker 1: had appeared on his path, even him, the highest and
- 1:37Speaker 1: wisest teacher, the most holy one Buddha he had left him,
- 1:42Speaker 1: had to part with him, was not able to accept
- 1:45Speaker 1: his teachings Slower, He walked along in his thoughts and
- 1:50Speaker 1: asked himself, what is all this? What you have sought
- 1:55Speaker 1: to learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they
- 1:59Speaker 1: who have taught you much was still unable to teach you?
- 2:04Speaker 1: And he found it was the self, the purpose and
- 2:08Speaker 1: essence of which I sought to learn. It was the
- 2:12Speaker 1: self I wanted to free myself from which I sought
- 2:15Speaker 1: to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it.
- 2:20Speaker 1: Could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only
- 2:24Speaker 1: hide from it. Truly, no thing in this world has
- 2:29Speaker 1: kept my thoughts thus busy as this, my very own self,
- 2:34Speaker 1: this mystery of me being alive, of me being one
- 2:40Speaker 1: and being separated and isolated from all others, of me
- 2:45Speaker 1: being Sadartha. And there is no thing in this world
- 2:50Speaker 1: I know less about than me about Sir Dartha. Having
- 2:56Speaker 1: been pondering while slowly walking along, he now stopped as
- 3:00Speaker 1: these thoughts caught hold of him, and right away. Another
- 3:04Speaker 1: thought sprang forth from these, a new thought, which was
- 3:09Speaker 1: that I know nothing about myself. That Saddartha has remained
- 3:14Speaker 1: thus alien and unknown to me. That I know nothing
- 3:19Speaker 1: about myself, that Saddartha has remained thus alien and unknown
- 3:24Speaker 1: to me, stems from one cause, a single cause. I
- 3:30Speaker 1: was afraid of myself. I was fleeing from myself. I
- 3:35Speaker 1: searched Atman, I searched Brahman. I was willing to dissect
- 3:40Speaker 1: myself and peel off all its layers, to find the
- 3:45Speaker 1: core of all peals, in its unknown interior, the Atman life,
- 3:51Speaker 1: the divine part, the ultimate part. But I have lost
- 3:57Speaker 1: myself in the process. Saddartha opened his eyes and looked around.
- 4:03Speaker 1: A smile filled his face, and a feeling of awakening
- 4:07Speaker 1: from long dreams flowed through him from his head down
- 4:12Speaker 1: to his toes. And it was not long before he
- 4:15Speaker 1: walked again, walked quickly, like a man who knows what
- 4:19Speaker 1: he has got to do. Oh, he thought, taking a
- 4:25Speaker 1: deep breath. Now I would not let Saddartha escape from
- 4:29Speaker 1: me again. No longer. I want to begin my thoughts
- 4:33Speaker 1: and my life with Atman and with the suffering of
- 4:37Speaker 1: the world. I do not want to kill and dissect
- 4:40Speaker 1: myself any longer to find a secret behind the ruins.
- 4:45Speaker 1: Neither Yoga vada shall teach me any more, nor Athara vada,
- 4:50Speaker 1: nor the ascetics, nor any kind of teachings. I want
- 4:55Speaker 1: to learn from myself, want to be my student, to
- 5:00Speaker 1: get to know myself, the secret of Siddartha. He looked
- 5:06Speaker 1: around as if he were seeing the world for the
- 5:09Speaker 1: first time. Be beautiful was the world. Colorful was the world.
- 5:15Speaker 1: Strange and mysterious was the world. Here was blue, here
- 5:20Speaker 1: was yellow, He was green. The sky and the river flowed,
- 5:25Speaker 1: The forest and the mountains were rigid. All of it
- 5:30Speaker 1: was beautiful, All of it was mysterious and magical. And
- 5:35Speaker 1: in its midst was he Siddartha, the awakening one on
- 5:41Speaker 1: the path to himself. All of this, all this yellow
- 5:47Speaker 1: and blue, river and forest, entered Siddartha for the first
- 5:52Speaker 1: time through the eyes. Was no longer a spell of Marah,
- 5:57Speaker 1: was no longer the veil of Maya. Was no longer
- 6:01Speaker 1: a pointless and coincidental diversity of mere appearances, despicable to
- 6:07Speaker 1: the deeply thinking Brahman who scorns diversity, who seeks unity.
- 6:15Speaker 1: Blue was blue river, was river, and if also in
- 6:19Speaker 1: the blue and the river in Siddartha, the singular and
- 6:24Speaker 1: divine lived hidden. So it was still that very divinities
- 6:29Speaker 1: way and purpose to be here yellow, here blue, their sky,
- 6:36Speaker 1: their forest, And here Siddartha, the purpose and essential properties
- 6:44Speaker 1: were not somewhere behind the things, They were in them,
- 6:49Speaker 1: in everything. How deaf and stupid have I been, he thought,
- 6:55Speaker 1: walking swiftly along. When someone reads a text once to
- 7:00Speaker 1: discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and
- 7:04Speaker 1: letters and call them deceptions, coincidence and worthless hull. But
- 7:11Speaker 1: he will read them, he will study and love them,
- 7:14Speaker 1: letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the
- 7:18Speaker 1: book of the world and the book of my own being,
- 7:21Speaker 1: I have, for the sake of a meaning I had
- 7:23Speaker 1: anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters. I
- 7:28Speaker 1: called the visible world a deception, called my eyes and
- 7:33Speaker 1: my tongue coincidental and worthless forms without substance. No, this
- 7:39Speaker 1: is over. I have awakened. I have indeed awakened, and
- 7:44Speaker 1: have not been born before this very day. In thinking
- 7:49Speaker 1: these thoughts, Siddartha stopped once again, suddenly, as if there
- 7:54Speaker 1: was a snake lying in front of him on the path,
- 7:58Speaker 1: because suddenly he had also become aware of this, he
- 8:04Speaker 1: who was indeed like someone who had just woken up,
- 8:07Speaker 1: or like a newborn baby, He had to start his
- 8:11Speaker 1: life anew and start again at the very beginning. When
- 8:16Speaker 1: he had left in this very morning from the grove Jetavana,
- 8:21Speaker 1: the grove of that exalted one, already awakening, already on
- 8:26Speaker 1: the path towards himself, he had every intention regarded as
- 8:31Speaker 1: natural and took for granted that he, after years as
- 8:35Speaker 1: an ascetic, would return to his home and his father.
- 8:40Speaker 1: But now only in this moment, when he stopped, as
- 8:44Speaker 1: if a snake was lying on his path, he also
- 8:48Speaker 1: awoke to this realization. But I am no longer the
- 8:52Speaker 1: one I was. I am no ascetic anymore. I am
- 8:57Speaker 1: not a priest anymore. I am no o brahman any more.
- 9:02Speaker 1: What should I do at home and of my father's place? Study,
- 9:06Speaker 1: make offerings, practice meditation? But all this is over all
- 9:12Speaker 1: of this is no longer alongside my path, motionless, said
- 9:18Speaker 1: d Arthur remained standing there, and for the time of
- 9:21Speaker 1: one moment and breath, his heart felt cold. He felt
- 9:25Speaker 1: a cold in his chest, as a small animal, a
- 9:29Speaker 1: bird or a rabbit would when seeing how alone he was.
- 9:34Speaker 1: For many years he had been without home and had
- 9:38Speaker 1: felt nothing. Now he felt it still, even in the
- 9:43Speaker 1: deepest meditation. He had been his father's son, had been
- 9:47Speaker 1: a Brahman of a high caste, a cleric. Now he
- 9:53Speaker 1: was nothing but sid Darthur, the awoken one. Nothing else
- 9:58Speaker 1: was left. Deeply, he inhaled, and for a moment he
- 10:03Speaker 1: felt cold and shivered. Nobody was thus alone as he was.
- 10:09Speaker 1: There was no nobleman who did not belong to the nobleman,
- 10:13Speaker 1: no worker that did not belong to the workers and
- 10:17Speaker 1: found refuge with them, shared their life, spoke their language.
- 10:22Speaker 1: No brahman who would not be regarded as Brahmans and
- 10:26Speaker 1: lived with them, no ascetic who would not find his
- 10:29Speaker 1: refuge in the caste of the Samanas. And even the
- 10:33Speaker 1: most forlorn hermit in the forest was not just one
- 10:37Speaker 1: and alone. He was also surrounded by a place he
- 10:41Speaker 1: belonged to. He also belonged to a caste in which
- 10:45Speaker 1: he was at home. Govinda had become a monk, and
- 10:49Speaker 1: a thousand monks were his brothers. Wore the same robe
- 10:52Speaker 1: as he believed in his faith, spoke his language, but
- 10:57Speaker 1: he said, Arthur, where did he belong to? With whom
- 11:01Speaker 1: would he share his life? Whose language would he speak?
- 11:06Speaker 1: Out of this moment when the world melted away all
- 11:10Speaker 1: around him, when he stood alone like a star in
- 11:13Speaker 1: the sky. Out of this moment of cold and despair,
- 11:18Speaker 1: Siddartha emerged, more a self than before, more firmly concentrated.
- 11:24Speaker 1: He felt this had been the last tremor of the awakening,
- 11:29Speaker 1: the last struggle of this birth. And it was not
- 11:33Speaker 1: long until he walked again in long strides, started to
- 11:38Speaker 1: proceed swiftly and impatiently, heading no longer for home, no
- 11:43Speaker 1: longer to see his father, no longer back end of
- 11:49Speaker 1: chapter four