Hermann Hesse : A Discontented Disciple (Sheldon Kopp)

Extracts from :

Sheldon Kopp

If You Meet the Buddha

Tale of a Discontented Disciple

Siddhartha is Hermann Hesse's lyrical novel, his poeetic retelling of one of the legends of the spiritual journey of the Buddha. This Sanskrit word, siddhartha, means "he who has achieved his aim." It is the personal name of Gotama, the most recent of the Buddhas. But Hesse tells us that the tale of Siddhartha's pilgrimage is also his own: "All these stories dealt with me, reflected my own path, my own secret dreams and wishes, my own bitter anguish."

This tale begins when Siddhartha, the beautiful son of a Brahman priest, finds that though he makes everyone else happy, he is not happy himself. He has spent much time in contemplation, in meditation, and in the silent pronunciation of Om. He has learne4 all that his father and the other wise Brahman teachers can offer him, but yet his insides are not full, "his intellect ... not satisfied, his soul ... not at peace, his heart ... not still." He is restless and discontented because his knowledge of Atman (the universal consciousness) does not satisfy him. He wishes to experience the Atman and comes to see that:

"One must find the source within one's own Self."

He and his father struggle with the anger and the sorrow of their separation, when Siddhartha decides to go into the forest with the wandering, ascetic seekers, the Samanas. These strange, self-denying men are "worn-out ... , neither old nor young, with dusty and bleeding shoulders, practically naked, scorched by the sun, solitary, strange and hostile--Iean jackals in the world of men."His loving friend and "shadow," Govinda, jOins Siddartha on his pilgrimage.

Frustrated with intellectual search, he gives himself over to three years of yoga and asceticism, abandoning the world of his senses as well, for a life of pain, exposure, and fasting. He wishes "to become empty . . . to let the Self die." By killing his memory and his senses, he learns ways of losing his Self, only to find that to the Self he returns, again and again. Govinda suffers and begs at his side. Siddhartha grows discouraged that these temporary escapes will ever allow him to achieve the tranquillity of Nirvana. He feels he has only learned tricks to deceive himself. He tells Govinda that a long time has been spent to learn a lesson that he has not yet finished learning : "that one can learn nothing."

Hearing that an illustrious Buddha has appeared who wanders the countryside preaching to his disciples, Siddhartha decides to seek out this wise man. Govinda departs with him. Together they leave the forest and journey until they find the yellow-robed Buddha in the Grove of Jetavana. They listen to the holy man's teachings. Govinda is filled with wonder and decides to become a disciple. They separate because Siddhartha chooses "to leave all doctrines and all teachers and to reach ... his goal alone -- or die." Searching for the Atman among the Samanas, he tried to escape from the Self, only to learn that it is the Self that he must discover and come to know. Now in the midst of seeking a teacher, he "has discovered that comforting secret that a teacher is unnecessary."

The psychotherapy patient must also come to this heavy piece of understanding, that he does not need the therapist. The most important things that each man must learn, no one else can teach him. Once he accepts this disappointment, he will be able to stop depending on the therapist, the guru who turns out to be just another struggling human being. illusions die hard, and it is painful to yield to the insight that a grown-up can be no man's disciple. This discovery does not mark the end of the search, but a new beginning.

So it is that Siddhartha leaves the grove (and his youth) behind, feeling himself to be a man. Now he knows that he can only learn the secret of Siddhartha by becoming his own teacher. He is as one awakened, filling his senses with the beauty of a world he had so recently termed an "illusion." He would have a new life. It is his to choose. Siddhartha looks and listens, he tastes and smells and touches. Now he is present and belongs to the world. He hungers for new experiences.

And so he travels on to the large and busy city of Sansara. There he seeks out the beautiful courtesan, Kamala, and asks that she instruct him in the art of love. (...) Kamala is delighted, and in return, she teaches him the vailed pleasures of love. They are happy together, as she shows him that "one cannot have pleasure without giving it."Kamala introduces Siddhartha to the wealthy merchant, Kamaswami. Together they instruct the young pilgrim in the ways of the world, of money and the flesh. He stays on, enjoying his growing store of riches and a variety of sensual pleasures. Lulled by a life of luxury, Siddhartha searches no more.

(...)

Through his dream, Siddhartha becomes aware that the path of luxury and sensual pleasure is as foolish as that of asceticism. Greed and gambling have possessed him without fulfilling him. (...) After leaving the city, he wanders aimlessly through the forest. Tired and hungry, he finds himself at the river. Filled with despair, empty of purpose, he thinks to commit suicide by drowning himself. He is stopped by some stirring of his old self, as "from a remote part of his soul, from the past of his tired life. he heard a sound ... the holy Om." Realizing the folly of seeking peace by destroying his body, he reaches for the inward perfection of the silently pronounced "Om," and falls into the refreshing, dreamless sleep of enlightenment.

He wakes to see a yellow-robed monk with shaven head. who turns out to be his old friend, Govinda. He finds it hard to believe that anyone dressed so elegantly as Siddhartha can possibly be on a pilgrimage. Siddhartha tries to explain that he has lost his riches, but Govinda is dubious, and goes on alone. The welldressed pilgrim reflects on his situation and realizes that he has lost his worldly self just as, long before, he had lost his ascetic self. Now he has nothing ! He knows nothing ! He has learned nothing ! Now, though no longer young, he must begin like a child again. But, rather than feeling grief, he :

"felt a great desire to laugh, to laugh at himself, to laugh at this strange, foolish world. Things are going backwards with you, he said to himself, and laughed, and as he said it, his glance lighted on the river, and he saw the river also flowing continually backwards, singing merily."

He is like a joyful child-person once more. Laughter is the sound of freedom. Siddhartha "no longer merely knows about, he understands the evils of the worldly life" and so he is free of them. His petty, prideful self has died, and he is well rid of it. Siddhartha the Brahman has died. Siddhartha the Samana has died. Siddhartha the profligate sensualist has died. Siddhartha lives! He decides to live by the lovely river and to learn from it. The wise ferryman, Vasudeva, befriends him and helps him to learn the many secrets of the river. He has already learned the value of seeking the depths. He also comes to realize that the river is everywhere at the same time, in the mountains, through the land, and in the sea. It teaches that ''there is no such thing as time."

So too, Siddhartha the boy, Siddhartha the youth, and Siddhartha the man are only separated by shadows, not by reality. So too, is it with Life and Death. "Nothing was, nothing will be, everything has reality and presence. " This understanding frees Siddhartha from sorrow. He learns to open himself to listening to the river and hears its many voices. He hears the voice of every living creature and its voice, and when he can hear all him as the sound of Om. In this, he "learns of the totality and simultaneity of all being-man and nature

alike."

(...)

After a time, Siddhartha learns to live with things as they are, beside the river, ferrying other pilgrims. He learns that wisdom is "nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling, and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life." He and Vasudeva continue to listen to the river. Siddhartha hears the voices of his youth, of all the people he had cared about and lost. He hears the voices flow to the sea, sees the river water become vapor, rise up to the sky and fall again as rain and dew. He sees that no thing and no one is lost. He hears the Om of the perfect unity of all things. Vasudeva goes off to the woods to die, and Siddhartha does not mourn him.

Govinda, his old friend, stops by. He questions Siddhartha about his enlightenment and is puzzled to discover that he claims to have learned what he knows from a beautiful courtesan, a rich merchant, a diceplayer, and a boatman, and from listening to the river. Govinda asks him for some knowledge, but Siddhartha tells him: "Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish." There is nothing to tell because the distinctions between things are illusions. "Truth cannot be taught ... the paradox of paradoxes is that of each truth the opposite is equally true."

Govinda bends to kiss his friend, and in Siddhartha's face, he sees a continuous stream of other faces, faces of other people, of animals, of things. He sees that Siddhartha has achieved the Buddha-hood, for his smile reminds Govinda of "everything that he has ever loved in his life, of everything that had ever been of value and holy in his life."

Before Siddhartha could discover that he needed no teacher, he first had to exhaust his longing for others to guide him, to take charge of his life. So too, with the patient in psychotherapy and with every one of us. Unwilling to tolerate life's ambiguity, its unresolvability, its inevitability; we search for certainty, demanding that someone else must provide it. Stubbornly, relentlessly, we seek the wise man, the wizard, the good parent,

someone else who will show us the way.

(...)

Finally, Siddhartha learns to be still and to listen to the river of life. Patients learn in the course of telling their tales that they can discover themselves by becoming curious about the other struggling human beings with whom they live in the world. The only times that

we can have what we long for are those moments when we stop grasping for it. At such times, all things are possible: "to a mind that is 'still' the whole universe surrenders."

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