An article by Sha'Tara, local writer and friend.

         
Siddhartha's Quest

[Thoughts from     ~burning woman~    by Sha'Tara]


Excerpt from "The Project Gutenberg EBook of Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse

Siddhartha had started to nurse discontent in himself, had started to feel that the love of his father, of his mother and of his friend Govinda, would not bring him joy for ever, would not nurse him, feed him, satisfy him.  He had started to suspect that his venerable father and his other teachers, the wise Brahmans, had already revealed to him the sum total of their wisdom, that they had already filled his expectant vessel with their riches and the vessel was not full, the spirit was not content, the soul was not calm, the heart was not satisfied.  The ablutions were good, but they were water.  They did not wash off the sin, they did not heal the spirit's thirst, they did not relieve the fear in his heart.  The sacrifices and the invocation of the gods were excellent--but was that all?  Did the sacrifices give a happy fortune?  And what about the gods?

Was it really Prajapati who had created the world?  Was it not the Atman, He, the only one, the singular one?  Were the gods not creations, created like me and you, subject to time, mortal?  Was it therefore good, was it right, was it meaningful and the highest occupation to make offerings to the gods?  For whom else were offerings to be made, who else was to be worshipped but Him, the only one, the Atman?  And where was Atman to be found, where did He reside, where did his eternal heart
beat, where else but in one's own self, in its innermost part, in its indestructible part, which everyone had in himself?  But where was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part?  It was not flesh and bone, neither thought nor consciousness, thus the wisest ones taught.  So, where was it?  To reach this place, the self, myself, the Atman, was there another way which was worthwhile looking for?  Alas, nobody showed this way, nobody knew it, not the father, and not the teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial songs!  They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than everything: the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the gods, they knew infinitely much--but was it valuable to know all of this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing?
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Interesting that these were the same basic question I asked myself long ago.  I made a point of teaching myself, of 'learning' from various individuals who by profession or claim, knew things I presumably did not.  I read thousands of books, joined discussion and action groups, studied documentaries.  In some cases I actually did some of the things I thought I knew how to do.  In my more fervent religious days I learned a valuable lesson: if you believe 'in' something (or someone) you will soon be a pariah if you believe that such teachings in their literal entirety are meant for practical application in the world. 

A legitimate thirst for knowledge only reveals that 'knowledge' is not a source of joy, nor of fulfillment.  It is more likely to create confusion as ideas clash against each other.
To briefly illustrate, there's been a rash of serious crimes around here lately.  Drug busts, drive by shootings, executions (presumably of drug gang members), bold theft of vehicles and equipment involving shoot-outs with the police.  I won't talk about 'white collar' crime which is also rampant, just regular street crime.  This was the stuff of movies and TV shows 30 or so years ago, not overt criminal acts perpetrated against society, certainly not here.  But there it is and society apparently helpless to stop the mushrooming of this kind of violence.  Is there some 'reason' one can apply to this brutal downfall of a society?

I think there is.  I think that 'society' as a unit believes, it "knows" that what it seeks after is what gives it its reason to exist, its security and its pleasure.  So, what does this society have?  It has shopping malls and thousands of brand new apartments and houses sprouting all over the place.  It has access to endless entertainment, at home and at places built for that purpose.  It has 24 hours drive-through eating establishments.  It has access to easy credit and drives brand new cars and trucks.  It has paved roads and health care.  It has lotteries and various other legalized forms of gambling.  It has an endless array of year-round organized sports to participate in or to watch.  It has all the latest computerized gadgetry to surf the Web, watch movies, listen to music.  It has hot tubs and pubs and parties.  It has 'freedom' in democratic government and a high profile justice system.  In short, this society is replete of, has a surfeit of, common pleasure, comfort and safety. 

Conclusion:  Since these are the things, the values, this society spends its energy acquiring, then by default this is a very happy and fulfilled society.  It logically follows that since these 'things' automatically attract crime (hedonistic societies, historically, are always plagued with crime), that the same society would gladly accept hard-core crime in order the maintain its status since you can't have one without the other. 

But this is where it breaks down.  The same society that creates a fertile condition for crime has a problem with crime.  Oh sure, it 'accepts' the fact that it can't do a damn thing to lessen, let alone stop, the growth of crime, but it resents it and fears it.  It does not understand, does not see, the necessary correlation, the symbiotic relationship, between its way of life and the crime waves such a way promotes.  It does not understand that the very things it seeks as a society are the things that feed on it; that eat its institutions and prey on its individual members.  It has never understood this and it never will.  Of course not, for societies are dumb, brute beasts with no mind, no ability to understand because they cannot reason.  Only individuals can reason but societies reject the rule of reason by rejecting individual hegemony in favor of group brute force.

Siddhartha saw this because he was more philosopher than religious.  His religion had provided him with an education that gave him the words to think himself through the performance of his duties as a son of a high Brahman.  It is in the thinking that he propelled himself to the edge of his conservative and accepting society, a society that accepted the caste system for example, and condoned overt violence against the poor and the helpless.  He began to see the raw hypocrisy of it all.  It is in seeking his own self-empowerment, even to doubting the value of worshiping various deities, that he decided to leave it all and go on his quest for the 'Atman' – the God Within. 

Society such as this modern technological world we live in is in truth nothing but a fool's paradise; a prison of small minds in charge of even smaller ones.  It's sins against nature, against life, against all decency and common sense, are so blatant, so all-encompassing, so necessary to the fueling of the System they cannot be expunged or expiated.  So they are simply re-labeled. Vice becomes virtue.

That's it in a nutshell, and that is why some individuals choose to opt out.  The most obvious of its dissident members are the homeless.  While many, it can be said, have mental problems, there are just as many who, however obliquely 'see' the silk-lined coffin they are living in and walk out.  There are other dissidents as well, misfits, individuals who don't follow the rules of society's sick game.  Wise are the ones who look for those and observe to see what makes them the way they are.