Ryo Cain
Per. 07
The
Circle of the Inward Journey
At one time or another, every child must make a
realization. This realization, or truth, can only be discovered personally. A
young adult must pull himself out of the known comfort of childhood and into the
unfamiliar world of adults to achieve the goal of life, whatever that goal may
be. Every individual has a personal goal, and every goal comes along with its
own obstacles. Once this ultimate goal is achieved, if it is truly the ultimate
goal, the personal journey and the realization will be enough to last a
lifetime. This trial is the most arduous test the new coming adult will ever
face, but that is the whole point. The discovery of the self can never be fully
achieved. It is always enduring, rotating in a constant circle that repeats
itself. To venture out into the mysterious in search of understanding is not
always a physical path taken, sometimes both the challenges and the reward are
seated inside the person. This unending inward search for peace and ultimate
realization is best illustrated through Hermann Hesse’s celebrated novel, Siddhartha. Through the eyes of a young
Brahmin living in India, Hesse brings to life the ideas of the hero’s circle,
the cycle of life, and the internal journey of the individual. A youth not
afraid to accomplish his goals, the young Siddhartha is an unspoiled model of
human’s prerequisite to know.
The story opens on a very young Siddhartha living with
his father in a Brahmin community. Since he was just a baby, Siddhartha was
predicted to do great things. His father is a great leader in the commune, and
he is said to be one of the more “spiritual” adolescents of his age. Siddhartha
enjoys meditating with his best friend Govinda around the village, and like all
others in the municipal, is eager to find inner peace. Enlightenment is a
common aspiration for the Brahmins, and Siddhartha is trying his best to
achieve it. But even as happy and attainable Siddhartha seems to be, he is
struggling more and more on the inside every day. He is impatient. Siddhartha
feels like he is being filled up with false knowledge, and that even the most
earnest Brahmins of his community can no longer sustain him. “All of the wise
and wisest men he knew and whose teachings he enjoyed, not a single one had
succeeded in reaching it, this heavenly world; not one had quenched that
eternal thirst.” (Hesse, 7) Siddhartha sees no point in following an instructor
that has never been down the path which is preached, those Brahmin don’t know
true enlightenment any more than he does. Siddhartha sees that there is more
than what just the Brahmin in his own hometown have to offer. Siddhartha needs
wisdom, because wisdom is out there waiting for him. “Such was the nature of
Siddhartha’s thoughts; this was his thirst, his sorrow.” (Hesse, 7)
Siddhartha’s long journey is only beginning. He has chosen to dawn a new life
before himself, and one that only he can travel by. Siddhartha will tread alone
on his own personal path to Nirvana. Govinda will join him as he takes the
first steps, but only physically. After a long night of meditation Siddhartha
leaves to live with the Semanas in the forest by his village and to learn their
ways, in hopes of a quicker path to enlightenment. Before long, Siddhartha and
Govinda are practical Semanas. They follow the ways of fasting, and the idea of
simplifying all things appeals to Siddhartha. Govinda is skeptical to this new
way of life, but before long he is beginning to feel satisfied by the studies.
Govinda is glad he trusted Siddhartha in this new way of being. But after an
extensive reflection, Siddhartha runs into the same problem. A roadblock in his
path to knowledge impedes Siddhartha’s mind. He finds the same snag with the
Semanas that he did with the Brahmins: none of the teachers have achieved
enlightenment. There is an extent to the knowledge being provided to
Siddhartha, and all of it ends long before the vital Nirvana. “I am suffering
from thirst, Govinda, and upon this long Semana path I have found nothing to
slake it. Always I have thirsted for knowledge, always been filled with
questions.” (Hesse, 17) Siddhartha feels the same deprivation of communication
to Atman he had before while living with his father. He has improved much with
the Semanas, but he can now see the bottom of the well of experience.
Siddhartha needs to move on from this stepping stone in his path to
enlightenment if he is to find Nirvana and achieve his goal. Dwelling in the
past will never improve him, and now it is time to apply all that he has
learned. Govinda trusts Siddhartha once again, and they both leave the Semanas.
Keen to find the next milestone, Siddhartha has exemplified the commencement of
the hero perfectly. Taking the first step into the unknown and having complete
self-confidence is the hardest part of the hero’s cycle. Siddhartha was brave
in his start, and he isn’t afraid to continue it either. A hero is defined by a
courageous act, and Siddhartha has already been a fearless pioneer in his own
challenge.
Siddhartha is strong in his search for enlightenment, but
there is still something that he hasn’t quite come to terms with himself about.
He has chosen to ignore the one thing he is looking for. Siddhartha is still
living the illusion of a physical path to happiness. There is no road to travel
down that leads all people to Nirvana, for every person’s idea of contentment
is different. Inner peace cannot be taught or preached. Siddhartha is trying to
rush his way into enlightenment, and if he continues this way he will never
achieve it. The cycle of life is a never-ending circle, one that goes on and on
forever. A being is born, lives its life, and dies to be reborn as another
creature again. To achieve enlightenment is to break this cycle and free the
soul of the individual. Siddhartha believes he can speed up this process when
really, true enlightenment can only happen when it is made to happen. The soul
departs on its own, the body cannot force it to. Siddhartha doesn’t grasp this
concept fully until he departs from his studies with the Buddha Gautama and
leaves his friend Govinda behind, taking the next step in his journey alone.
“Gripped by this thought, the slowly walking thinker stopped short, and at once
a further thought sprang from the first one, a thought that was new to him.”
(Hesse, 34) This is when Siddhartha really begins to look outside the world
that he was given as a Brahmin, and when the real path to Nirvana begins for
him. Teachers are a thing of the past now, he has learned as much as he could from
them. No one can help Siddhartha with what only he can do. He has chosen a
course that must be traveled only personally. All of Siddhartha’s instructors
had told him that the path to enlightenment was measured in miles, when it is
really measured in years; Siddhartha has begun to take his own direction. “From
this moment when the world around him melted away and left him solitary as a
star in the sky, from this moment of cold and despondency, Siddhartha emerged,
more firmly Self than before, solidified.” (Hesse, 37) What Siddhartha seeks is
not always hard to find, sometimes it is right in front of him. The teachers he
hoped could bring him closer to enlightenment had actually been holding him
back the whole time. Now, with a newly inspired sense of self confidence and
trust, Siddhartha has broken free of the well-worn path of other enlightenment
seekers and is blazing his own. “Siddhartha learned new things with every step
along his path, for the world was transformed and his heart was enchanted.”
(Hesse, 41) Siddhartha was given a head start by his father, the Brahmin, but
now he is past that. His intellectual and spiritual well-being is more advanced
than any of those who tried to teach him, simply because he wasn’t afraid to continue
his journey without them. Siddhartha is just beginning to understand the cycle
of life, but a beginning nonetheless. Nothing can hold him back now that he has
this realization of personal truth.
Now that Siddhartha has chosen to trust himself on his
own spiritual journey, many twists and turns of fate await him. His inward
journey is going to be rough, and there is no promise that it will come out in
his favor. Siddhartha is in the middle of the longest battle he will ever
fight, the battle of life. Siddhartha is off to a good start, but before long he
is tempted into the life of the child people by a beautiful young woman named
Kamala. Siddhartha spends many years with Kamala, and before he is even ready
to admit it he finds himself an old man, swept up in a life of greed and false
pleasure. Siddhartha numbs himself with drinking, gambling, and money. He has
become the very thing he meant to avoid. Depressed and alone, Siddhartha feels
that he no longer deserves his life. Nirvana is so far away that he will never
accomplish it. What Siddhartha doesn’t realize is the real benefit of all this.
It may not have improved Siddhartha as a seeker of spiritual guidance, but that
was never really what he wanted anyway. There was no setback in his life, for
all the things he did were necessary. If he had not gorged and taken part in
the lives of the child people, Siddhartha could have never seen the errors in
those ways. By sampling a different outlook on life, Siddhartha has learned a
lot about himself. Siddhartha never could have discovered those aspects of
himself if he didn’t try them first, and by doing so he advanced greatly in
spirit. He has become independent through the indulgence of the child people.
“He shared their life, which was governed not by thoughts and insights but by
drives and desires; he felt like one of them.” (Hesse, 108) The journey
Siddhartha has been enduring since he first began it as a young Brahmin is
coming to an end. He has seen all aspects of the world he wished to, and he is
close to himself in spirit. He is leaning to understand his own emotions. When
Siddhartha’s son left, he initially felt sad and alone. But, after some
guidance from the wise ferryman, Siddhartha has learned to take the world as it
is. He left his father when he was very young, and his own son has done
likewise. The sadness he feels is natural, and like all things, will soon pass.
Siddhartha has finally learned to comprehend and admit to the world he lives
in. “Slowly blossoming, slowly ripening within Siddhartha, was the realization
and knowledge of what wisdom and the goal of his long search really was. It was
nothing but a readiness of the soul, a capacity, the secret art of being able
at every moment, without ceasing to live, to think the thought of Oneness, to
feel Oneness and breathe it in.” (Hesse, 109) Siddhartha is at peace with the
world. He has learned to love everything that the universe has offered to him,
and he knows he can’t change his own destiny. Siddhartha is just along for the
ride of life. There is no way to change the outcome, because it has already
been determined for him. Siddhartha’s life is his own, but his actions are
already defined. It has taken him more than forty years to finally admit the
one thing he has been trying to settle his entire existence: enlightenment
cannot be forced. His Nirvana is waiting for him, and no matter how long he
fasts and meditates, he would be no closer to it than he would be by doing the
opposite. His truth has been right in front of him the entire time, all he had
to do was accept it. Finally, after everything Siddhartha has been through, he
realizes that he never needed to go anywhere to find peace. Enlightenment was
always inside him. A spiritual path was required nonetheless, but it was only
his own conscious that was holding him back from Nirvana. Siddhartha has come
to terms with himself and the universe. He knows that he is no different from
any other thing, living or dead, which resides inside himself and everything he
has ever known. The past is the past, the future is its own entity. All beings
are effected by each other, and each one has its own final destination. To
spend a lifetime trying to change that is pointless. All things are the way
they are for a reason. Nothing is wasted, and everything has a purpose no
matter how insignificant it seems to be. Siddhartha has completed his role
within the ongoing play of the universe. “In this hour Siddhartha ceased to do
battle with fate, ceased to suffer. Upon his face blossomed a gaiety of
knowledge that is no longer opposed by any will, that knows perfection, that is
in agreement with the river of occurrences, with the current of life, fill of
empathy, dill of fellow feeling, given to the current, part of the Oneness.” (Hesse,
114) Siddhartha has achieved Nirvana through one simple moral: be happy with
what you have, because what you really want is coming. Never try to avoid fate,
because fate is inescapable. Learn to be happy without sacrifice, and
enlightenment will come. This is the ultimate truth, and Siddhartha’s final
attainment of life. Happiness is not given, only accepted.
In the end, Siddhartha breaks free from his circle of
life and his soul is released from his body. With no desire, no need, and no
want, Siddhartha is free from himself. His own restrictions and boundaries have
been broken. His happiness has been found. Siddhartha is a hero, a guide in the
circle of life, and an internal crafter of the soul. What Siddhartha did isn’t
something that can be followed step by step, it varies from person to person.
Siddhartha cannot lead someone to their destiny any faster than that person can
do it for themself. The individual journey to the center of every man and
woman’s soul is a lone road. No one fully achieves happiness or true intellect,
because those principals are always ongoing ethics of life. Once a person
surrenders themselves to the idea that they are perfect and all knowing, they
are probably as far from it as they will ever be. Life is a mystery, all that
is left is to let it come out the way it was meant to be. Trying to change fate
is vain and futile, because ultimately the fates of the other beings around it will
push that fate back into place. There is too many destinies, all working
together with incomprehensible precision that to try and avoid the flow of life
will leave the soul deprived and sad. Avoiding the inevitable is wasted energy,
and in due course it will only hurt the abstaining entity. Happiness is, and always has been, inside.
Material possessions meant to simulate the feeling of joy distract the body
from the aching soul and are a temporary fix to the pain. There is no direct
line to happiness, and it is not always found. Through the abyss of hardship,
sadness, and resentment, a soul may find its own Nirvana. Enlightenment is a
delicate denomination, and is often contradictory. All babies are born carrying
death, sin is passed through by grace, and truth is a matter of perspective.
The allusion of time as a perfect reverence will bring the destruction of the
self, and the ultimate agony of an unending reign of sadness towards the soul.
Patience, is the only virtue necessary for happiness. They go hand in hand.
Once this is understood the rest will come naturally. Nirvana, the ultimate
enlightenment and true happiness of the soul, can only be achieved if it is
meant to be, and if the seeker is sincerely ready. The precincts of fear will
hold the soul back, but only enough to keep what is right in front of it just
out of reach. Those who are not afraid can take it for themselves, it is not a
matter of strength. Siddhartha, a true producer of his own happiness and a
leading spiritual adventurer, has mastered this concept. Siddhartha is a
completed soul, and an impeccable model for mankind’s eternal desire to know.
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