Part I:
The Tao Of Dani
Time is an illusion because there is no real truth to it. It has never been proven to exist. It was made up by the Romans or the Babylonians thousands of years ago so farmers could meet on a hill top at 1 in the afternoon because one farmer’s wife had a hair appointment at noon. Human beings have a born inhibition to have things simpler. Human beings also have to have explanations and reasoning. Time was born out of this. The grand old theory that time is a river. The whole river exists at once: the mouth (future), the main body (present), and the source (past). The only truth we have to time is the wear and tear on our bodies as time (sic) goes on. Technically, there is no now and there is no future because now was over a nano-second ago and the future is uncertain (but the end is always near). Which is plain truth because the end is nearer and nearer but you’ll never know it.
Bang… and everything spurts out from one central point. Flowing, clumping,
sparking, rolling across nothing to make something. A few years later, the universe is formed. Things evolve and change and yet everything stays the same. Cells become smart and grow nuclei, which form unicellular organisms, everything feeds off everything else. Things die off, some things live, animals come to be, and all of a sudden you have humans that are just as much fish as they are bacteria as they are stardust. Everything depends on everything else. The universe is me because I am human, thusforth made up of everything and doing my part to keep the world going rather I like it or not. I am the universe because I can almost control what goes on. I am also the universe because I am part of it, we move together, we live together, we love together. This “I am the universe” can also be explained in a sense of which that humans make themselves gods. We don’t hug trees, we crap on them. We don’t love animals, we butcher them. But we have to do this to survive. Then we ponder meaninglessly at the problems of overpopulation and natural disasters. You are part of natural disasters, like it or not.
The distinction between been, being, and becoming is artificial and arbitrary because if time is irrelevant, then you could never have been, or you could never become, you just are. Like the river, you are everything all at once. At any given instance, you bring all your conscious and subconscious knowledge to the table for discussion. All of your past experiences, dreams, realizations, mishaps, good hair days, etc. are with you forever as you go along. You never leave anything behind, therefore you could not possibly have ever been. (This also opens up a discussion about how every nanosecond of your life exists at once; the theory of dimensions.) Everything you are to become is already chosen for you by something called destiny, you just aren’t aware of it yet. This is also due to post experiences, etc. The distinction between the three aforementioned is that there is no distinction because of the artificial and arbitrary sense. (If something isn’t there, it doesn’t exist.) Humans make things up to make life easier. They made the theory of been, being, and becoming up to make it easier to convey thoughts. Humans learned to speak to improve their life styles. All the other organisms have been doing just since the big bang, without a spoken or written language.
Time is related to the unity of all things in the fact that over “time” the universe has evolved and change to become what it is today. In fact, the universe will still evolve and change until it reaches its limit and begins devolving. The universe is me at this moment because I am here and know that everything around me is due to me. This is just as I am due to everything around me. This is due to “time.” I know at this moment, because I am here at this moment, aware at this moment that I am the universe and the universe is me. Don’t ponder the statements, just believe. The second you start to ask questions is the second you don’t understand. The second you understand is the second “time” has chosen for you to understand, and you will ask no questions. The universe can very vaguely be explained, as the human psyche can very vaguely be explained. In the time it takes for you to understand these concepts, another three thousand people have died, another six women in the Bronx have been raped. Time is all relative because it effects you and yet it doesn’t. Maybe one of those women who was just raped died, and maybe she was the one to discover the cure to a fatal disease you will have in later life. So now you will die at 60 instead of 127. Yet, time says that this will happen, but you have no clue of this until you are on your deathbed, and maybe not even then. The universe is everything around you. Everything that changes and evolves over time. Yet, time doesn’t exist. So the simplest answer is that things happen because they happen. That’s just how the universe works.
Time is related to the distinction between been, being and becoming because if there is no time, then there is no been, being or becoming. There is only a NOW. As in
“ETERNITY IS NOW” and it is because when the hell else are you going to live? All that you can see, hear, feel, and taste, all that you know is in the present, so how could you live any other way? You can’t. You just have now, so get with it and realize that there will never be a past. It’s dreams, bits and pieces of memory. What’s done is done. Jim Morrison is never coming back (as Jim Morrison, anyway). The future cannot be told by a chick in a golden turban with gaudy jewelry on. Your future is set for you, true, but you won’t know until you get there, and when you get there, it will be the past before you know it. The only thing you can hold on to is now. So hold on to it because it’s all you have to hold on to and you can’t even do that.
The unity of all things is related to been, being and becoming because everything has it’s place in the universe you see (and don’t see) right now. Everything had to come from somewhere, just as we have discussed in previous paragraphs. The details of this are obscured by clouds, so to speak, in the fact that you cannot see all the incarnations of everything at once. Unless you posses the sixth sense (or your brain works in more places than a normal human brain) you cannot see all the incarnations of this paper at once. You never will either, due to “time” moving on and on and the universe going with it. “I look up, it looks like the buildings are burning, but it’s just the sun setting; the solar system calling an end to another business day. Eternally circling signaling the rhythmic clicking on and off of computers. The pulse of the American machine. The pulse that draws death dancing out of anonymous side streets you know the ones that always get dumped on and never get plowed. It draws death dancing out of little countries with funny languages where the ground is getting harder and it was not that soft before (Ani DiFranco, “Not So Soft”).” The previous quote proves a point that I wish to make- universe is one because everything is run (at least to us Earthlings) by a sun and a moon giving us light and dark. The universe goes on and on, circling around for all eternity and we are only aware of a moment at a time. A pulse beating in another’s absence. In deep thought, the universe clicks into place as “being” everywhere at the same time… where in fact the universe just is.
Time not existing is a concept that I would like to bring up at a formal dinner somewhere, so as to confuse the people around me. My knowledge of this concept also makes a good conversation with Allan Stagg. Spiritually, it does nothing for me. Being raised in a western religious house, I never believed in one all -powerful being because thought it was stupid. I figured out at a young age that it really doesn’t matter what you do in your life. Your life is controlled by something called destiny, and nothing can change that. Time fits into this because it seemed to me that some guy living for years upon years in the clouds was bull*censored*. I came to the conclusion that everything they told me was made up by old men with small *censored*s in a bar with no lives. Hell, the Bible has been “translated,” lost, and re-written so many times and you’re going to tell me that that is the real story. That the Bible is God’s word?! How the hell do you know that? There’s no proof. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if all this “time” you’ve been believing bull*censored*?
To make a better life for myself using the second concept is simple: realizing that there was a “me” decade for a reason, and how all the Aberzombies came to be. “I am the universe and the universe is me because, like I have money, and everyone should, like, bow down to me (typical Aberzombie).” Seriously, I now understand the circle of life in a more philosophical, holistic view, which makes me a more well-rounded person. I think that everything is made up of everything, and I always have thought this. Maybe it’s because I learned it off Sesame Street. I don’t know. All’s I know is that the universe is an illusion as I am an illusion and whatever anybody else says is bull*censored*. There is no such thing as California because it doesn’t exist yet. There are lines on a map and taxes being paid, signs and roads, even an ocean for it to fall into in the near future, but California does not exist. The six degrees of Kevin Bacon exists as the six degrees of me exists- in theory. The universe was created with a bang and it goes on from there. The theories we not developed until people began to be inquisitive, when maybe it would have been simpler to not have been inquisitive at all. But we, as a human kind, have gotten ourselves here and now, and now we have to live with our past lives’ decisions.
I have never been, I will never become, I just am. I’m here, now, let’s play the game of life and get it over with. Again, this is another fun conversational piece at a formal dinner. These three concepts that do not exist, effect my life in the fact that I now know everything exists at this moment. I’ve always had the theory that for every nanosecond of your life, there is a different dimension and a million plus dimensions. “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near (Jim Morrison, “Roadhouse Blues”).” The future will never be clear and once it is, it is the past. The dead are always with us, and will never leave us. They are a part of us as long as we are all here. Their spirit stays with the living because of what they left behind- impressions on our minds. I will always be in the now, and so will everything else that popped up around here. Living in the past is something of a bad thing because you can never change your past- it’s just there. Many people live in the past and play the “what if” game. Many of these people are seek and do not seek professional attention for their problems, but should. These people are never happy and probably never will be truly happy. So why be like them and live in the past, when you can look to your future and possibly have the chance to be happy? Living in the now is what gives you the keys to life. Not just flying by the seat of your pants, but thinking things out, and having the knowledge to fly by the seat of your pants and not get, into a bad situation voluntarily. And if you do get into a negative situation, having the knowledge to get out of it and it becomes wisdom.
Being is something we all must deal with and in the process we must make our
own paths. There are many paths you can go by on any given day. The path you choose is
your choice. If I have learned one thing over the years it is that if it is not you who is
doing the thinking, then you are not living. You must think for yourself at all time in order
to live a fulfilling and happy life. You can not let other people drive your car if you are
driving it. Let them be uncomfortable as long as you are not. It is your life, you can do
what you want with it. You only get one chance at this game (that you know of, unless
you follow an “ism” then in which case you have many chances), better to make the best
of it than to throw your life away. “Time wasted is never regained.” That was what was
written under the clock in the band room at a school I used to attend. If you waste your
time with petty things, you will be reduced to having only petty things. Decide what you
really want and go after it. If you do not know what you want then go after a lot of things,
but do not burn yourself out. Go after what your heart desires and listen to your heart.
Live your life like you are always being followed by a camera, and remember that you are
the director and the star- nobody likes somebody who’s full of themselves. Only shallow
people will surround you if you are like that. And remember to never play the “what if”
game. The past is gone and done with. Yeah, *censored*’s going to happen. Milk will spill. Get
over it and get on with your life because you only have a short time here to prove yourself
to the audience, and if that’s what you seek, so be it. Remember, everything must come
from within, and a movie without a good, action-packed plot sucks. The past can haunt
you as long as you remember it is the past and nothing but. Suicide is a way out, but what
do you gain. True, some gain notoriety by committing suicide, but you end your life before
you have a chance to do anything. Granted, for some people who have nothing going for
them, this is the only way out. Well, then so be it. If you have self-esteem and you listened
to what they taught us in grade school, you are *censored*. You must remember to never let that
self-esteem turn your head into a balloon. The minute it does, you are gone, and very few
things can reclaim you. In turn for selflessness, you should find yourself a happy person,
and by god, people will like you. Though this can not be attained by reading a book, you
can read about it. Take things from people you know about and apply them to your life.
Other people can have experiences and share them so that you do not have to have that
experience. Share a little of yourself with the world and the world will share back.
Remember the basic hippie rules of peace and love and you should be set. But there is only
one person who can change the world and that is you. Why you? Because nobody else is
going to get up for you and say your thoughts to the world. Be guided a little, and then be
a guider. Remember that we are all one. Simply one. And being one, you are part of a
whole in which you are. So be it.
Part II:
Siddhartha
&
Hinduism
Man thinks he wants pleasure. Pleasure is something that man seeks because he
has a *censored* and needs to feed it to make it feel better. While this may not be true of all
men, I have found it to be true of most. What ever man wants, he gets because he is a
man, hear him roar. (If a woman does this she is called a bitch. Men get away with it
because they are men.) Pleasure needs to be felt in order for happiness, or so it seems.
According to the Hindu religion, pleasure is something fatal. And if you really think about
it, it is. Lust of chocolate can kill you if you eat to much over a period of time. Lust of
food can do the same. While pleasure is not lust, and lust is not pleasure, pleasure is the
effect from lust (usually). Say there is a undercover type person who is in love with
somebody. That person gives them pleasure. If the undercover type person gets into a
sticky situation, guess what the first pawn to go is- yep, the love interest. Why? Because
the most pain is mental pain. If you kill the love interest, the undercover person has no
reason to live, and will probably do anything to keep that person from being hurt. It
always happens. Man’s weak spot is pleasure. Whether it be sex, drugs, or food, they can
always break under the pressure of having it taken away.
Man also thinks he wants worldly success. Ever hear that it’s lonely at the top?
Then why the hell would you want worldly success? Worldly success is a facade in which
people can take care of low self-esteem. If the world loves you, than nothing can hurt
you. But if you do not love yourself, nobody else can love you. That’s bull because most
stars do not love themselves, yet they have girls swarming them. Although I will say that
one night stands are not truly love, but those girls will do anything for it. If you have
worldly success, the world bows down to you and you can do just about whatever you
want and not get caught. The theory is that if you have power, fame, and fortune, you can
achieve anything. And that’s true because people will do anything if you wave the right
amount of money in their face. But when you go home at the end of the day and you are
in your bed all alone, how does one feel? Sure, you’ll go on, but at the end of your rope,
if you have no one to be happy with and aren’t very happy with yourself, you’re going to
die unhappy and take all your acquired wealth, fame, and power with you. Thusforth not
attaining the one goal in the Hindu books: Nirvana. “And I am not afraid of dying.
There’s no reason for it. Why should I be afraid of dying? (Pink Floyd, “Any Colour You
Like.”)”
Men thinks he wants everything in the world. He has this insatiable lust for
anything and everything that is shiny and bejeweled to have for himself. He will go after
this at any cost, no matter what he has left behind in the process. Man will go after it, and
when he attains it, he will want more until the end of his life when maybe he has
everything he ever wanted, and maybe he doesn’t, but he will be unhappy. This is because
he went after meaningless objects and not after his self. To find out more about yourself,
one must look inward, not outward to the cold, harsh reality of the material world. “I bet
you fall in bed too easily with the beautiful girls who are shyly brave and you sell yourself
as a man to save, but all the money in the world is not enough. I bet you’ve long since
passed understanding what it takes to be satisfied you’re like a vine that keeps climbing
higher but all the money in the world is not enough. And all the bridges blown away keep
floating up” (Liz Phair, “6’1″”). Man obtains things on his way through life, whether he
uses them or not on his quest for liberation is his choice. Man needs to learn that it is his
choice, and no one else’s. Man will go after this until he can run after it no more and
eventually he will figure out that each time he finds something it takes more and more to
satisfy his need and hunger for whatever it his he lusts after. Then he will realize that he
has been running in the wrong direction for sixty years, and he will die an unhappy man
because he cannot change his past.
Siddhartha experiences the first of the three things that man thinks he wants in
Kamala’s pleasure garden. He and Kamala screwed each other until the high heavens
brought the monsoons back for their twentieth anniversary. And not once did Kamala get
pregnant. No, she got pregnant when Siddhartha left. (How quaint.) Siddhartha and
Kamala could never really love each other, which I thought was funny. They were
incapable of loving, but in a time period such as the one they lived in, they could get away
with just screwing each other? Something is screwed up here, no pun intended.
Siddhartha had pleasure here because he “loved” somebody, or at least had a lady friend to
spend time with. “Early one morning the sun was shinin’, he was layin’ in bed, wond’rin’ if
she’d changed at all, if her hair was still red. Her folks they said their lives together sure
was gonna be rough. They never did like Mama’s homemade dress, Papa’s bankbook
wasn’t big enough. And he was standin’ at the side of the road, rain fallin’ on his shoes,
heading out for the old East Coast, lord knows he paid some dues, gettin’ through.
Tangled up in blue. She was married when they first met, soon to be divorced. He helped
her out of a jam I guess, but he used a little too much force, and he drove that car as far as
he could, abandoned it out West. And they split up on a dark sad night, both agreeing it
was best. And she turned around to look at him, as he was walkin’ away and she said
?This ain’t the end. We’ll meet again some day, on the avenue, tangled up in blue'” (Bob
Dylan, “Tangled Up In Blue”). Okay, so the quote doesn’t fit Siddhartha and Kamala’s
relationship exactly, but the similarities are defiantly there. They met each other one night,
had a pleasurable twenty years together and then ended up splitting up because Siddhartha
had to go find himself.
Siddhartha also has pleasure in working with the Kamaswami and being a
merchant. Siddhartha becomes rich working with the Kamaswami, and obtains many fine
things: clothes, food, wine, etc. Siddhartha can gamble his money and binge drink for
days, just dwindling his money away, but he gains it back somehow. Siddhartha gains
fame and wealth here, and therefore attains power. He can do anything he wants, when he
wants, where he wants and the townspeople will go along with it because he has money in
the bank and they don’t. Siddhartha enjoys great pleasure with this, and ends up hating
himself for it in the end. But he needed the experience of what it is like to be filthy rich in
order to attain Nirvana at the end of the novel.
Siddhartha experiences wanting everything in the world throughout his time in the
village where Kamala lives. This is due to him being of mind and state to be able to attain
almost anything he wants. He can ask ask and ask and ask for things, and most of them
will come to him because he has wealth and fame and power. He can satisfy his needs for
material objects because he has money. He can gamble all his money away because there
will always be more money that will come into his hands. More money that he can do
whatever he wishes to do with it. Siddhartha has wealth and fame and power he and can
attain whatever he wants except for the fact that he’s out to attain Nirvana and he will not
attain it by wanting material items. Having money and nice possessions is nice, but he
needs to become one with god, and god has no possessions. God is everything.
Siddhartha realizes that his relationship with Kamala was good and evil, and they
meet again when she comes to the river to go on her pilgrimage to the Buddha. She
brings with her Siddhartha, her son. Siddhartha tries to love his son, but his son will not
love him back, and this is the final thing that Siddhartha must realize: his son will never
love him, as he will never love his father. Siddhartha realizes what his life is for and
realizes what he met Kamala for. “He had a job in the great north woods, working as a
cook for a spell. But he never did like it all that much and one day the ax just fell. So he
drifted down to LA, where he reckoned he tried his luck, workin’ for a-while in an airplane
plant loading cargo onto a truck. But all the while he was alone the past was close behind.
He seen a lot of women but she never escaped his mind and he just grew tangled up in
blue. She was workin’ in a topless place and I stopped in for a beer. I just kept lookin’ at
the side of her face in a spotlight so clear. And later on as the crowd thinned out, I’s about
to do the same. She was standing there in back of my chair, sayin’ to me ?What’s your
name?’ I muttered something underneath my breath, she studied the lines on my face. I
must admit I felt a little uneasy when she bent down to tie the laces of my shoes. Tangled
up in blue. She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe. ?Thought you’d never say
hello,’ she said, ?You look like the silent type.’ And she opened up a book of poems and
handed it to me, written by an Italian poet from the thirteenth century. And every one of
them words rang true. And glowed like burning coal, pouring off of every page like it was
written in my soul from me to you, tangled up in blue. He was always in a hurry; too busy
or too stoned. And everything she ever planned just had to be postponed. She thought
they were successful; he thought they were blessed with objects and material things, but I
never was impressed. And when it all came crashing down I became withdrawn. The only
thing I knew how to do was to keep on keeping on like a bird that flew. Tangled up in
blue. So now I’m going back again, got to get to her somehow. All the people we used to
know, they’re an illusion to me now. Some are mathematicians, some are doctor’ wives.
Don’t know how it all got started. Don’t know what they’re doin’ with their lives. But me,
I’m still on the road, heading for another joint. We always did feel the same. We just
started from a different point of view. Tangled up in blue” (Bob Dylan, “Tangled Up In
Blue”).
Siddhartha leaves the path of desire when he leaves the village and goes walking.
Siddhartha decides that to become one with god and Atman-Brahmin, he must leave the
village after twenty years of dealing in the dirty material world. Siddhartha decides to go
sit under a tree and think about what his life means to him- about what his life is for. He
falls asleep (much like the real Buddha, also named Siddhartha) under a tree and realizes
all he has just done. Since you must experience bad things to attain Nirvana, he did good,
but his soul is tarnished and he must cleanse it somehow. His old friend Govinda comes
along and they speak for a while about what they’ve been doing with their lives.
Siddhartha is disillusioned and must find a way to cleanse his soul, so he goes walking
further and he finds the ferryman, Vesudeva.
Man really wants liberation because man must be alone to be truly at peace. Other
people screw up your karma by giving you negative vibes. Think about it logically, if you
are by a person you do not like all that much, what do you do? Act like you love them?
No, generally you can feel the tension because you don’t like being around that person.
That’s what “bad vibes” are, the tension you feel around something you don’t like. Your
karma does not need this tension, it needs to feel loved. To attain Nirvana, you must love
everything to become one with everything. You must understand that to be one with
everything is to love yourself because you are the universe and the universe is you.
Therefore if you do not love that person, you are feeling that tension because your karma
is trying to love that person. Your karma wants you to attain Nirvana, it doesn’t want you
to be an amoeba in your next life because, let’s face it, being an amoeba isn’t all that much
fun.
Siddhartha comes to the realization that he needs liberation when he is under the
tree. He decides that the way to self-enlightenment is through going inside one’s self and
finding god. Finding everything that has ever harmed you and laughing at it. Becoming
one with evil and good at the same time, and thusforth liberating one’s body and mind.
Siddhartha does this by listening to the river for eleven years. He listens carefully to
everything, and takes people back and forth on the river all day. He works in the field for
his and Vesudeva’s food some days. He becomes a good humble man because he is
listening to the river, and the river is telling him that all things are one. Like the river and
time, everything is one in itself because everything is of god and god is of everything.
How can one come about Nirvana? By realizing that while a river is a river, it is at all
places at one time. Beginning, middle, and end, all at the same time, what a concept. The
concept that Siddhartha understands and learns from when his son wretches his heart from
him. Siddhartha must let go and let other people find their paths. He must find his own
path, as will his son in time.
Siddhartha experiences the fourth want of man as a ferryman. Siddhartha becomes
liberated from the river by the river, and then Govinda comes along and sees his friend.
We realize that Siddhartha is knowledgeable and his karma is good. Govinda sees this,
too, and wants to attain Nirvana and be like the person he idolized for so long as a child
and young adult. Govinda learns quickly that he cannot leech off of somebody else for
Nirvana, that he must find his own way. And Govinda does this by kissing Siddhartha’s
forehead. He realizes that he must go his own way at that point, and so he does.
The limitations of infinite joy are physical pain, frustration and the thwarting of desire, and
boredom with life as a whole. If you have infinite joy and you break your leg, that is
physical pain. For example, when a gymnast has a stress fracture. The gymnast still loves
what they do, but the physical pain of it is when they land on that bone. They feel the pain
of being happy. The gymnast feels physical pain because of the limitations of joy. You
can only have joy as long as you are not in pain, because if you are in pain, you aren’t
happy and joyous. (Unless, of course, you like that sort of thing, then in which case, you
are a psychopath.) The psychological pain that this gymnast is feeling after that stress
fracture is great because the gymnast cannot perform how they used to perform, and may
(depending on how bad the stress fracture is, where, and how long the gymnast has been
ignoring it) never be able to perform again and have that joy again. Now this gymnast
feels like crap because their parents spent all kinds of money on training and now the
gymnast cannot do anything. Now the gymnast must find other joy in their life, which is a
hard thing to do. The frustration that the gymnast feels is because they let everybody
down. They can not be liberated from these people because two of them (and maybe
more) the gymnast’s family members. The gymnast’s own flesh and blood. These people
gave up their lives so that the gymnast could go have the possibility to go to the Olympics,
and now they have nothing. The gymnast feels frustrated for themselves because one can
not just go to the local K-Mart and pick up a new way to have joy. (Although, shopping
may be it, but we learned before that material objects are no-no’s on the path to
self-enlightenment.) The last limitation of joy is boredom. Eventually we will all become
bored. You think you’ve seen it all, done it all, and now you want something else. You
ask the question “Is this it?” and wait for an answer which you won’t receive. The answer
must come from within. Boredom, or ennui, hits everybody because you are not doing
anything to stop it. Anybody in any position can be bored, it just happens. Why? Well,
because one’s karma decides that you aren’t feeding it right, and it wants you to change
your lifestyle. If you think everything is boring, you should get out and live; try to
challenge yourself at a new game in the game of life. Eventually you will not be bored,
and you may even have joy back in your life, which would be a good thing.
The second limitation of life is ignorance. If you ignore things, they generally do not go
away, they get bigger as they snowball into a larger, more complicated problem. To do
away with ignorance in your psyche, one must become knowledgeable, and must attain
more wisdom. Truth be told, if you have knowledge, who cares about the details, as long
as you can explain things to others. Overcoming ignorance is quite easy. Read a little,
listen harder, find out things for yourself. If you are ignorant to something, you are stupid. Not because you do not know anything, but because you fail to learn anything. You fail to try to learn from the tools given to you.
. Everyday, you must learn things. Most people do. Even when you are out of school,
your thirst for knowledge should not be quenched just because you have a diploma. Your
thirst for knowledge should die the day you die.
The third limitation is infinite being. “It would make more sense if we were to
gauge a man’s being by the size of his spirit, that is, the range of reality with which he
identifies himself. A man who identifies himself with his family, finding his joys in theirs,
would have that much reality; now who could really identify himself with mankind as a
whole would be proportionally greater. By this criterion, if a man could identify himself
with being in general, being as a whole, his own being would be unlimited (Smith, The
Religions of Man: Hinduism pg. 30-31).” Your infinite being may be obtained by the
realization that you are the universe and the universe is you. We are the universe as much
as this computer, paper, and CD that I am listening to. Everything is one, and this is
infinite being.
Siddhartha overcomes infinite joy by leaving Kamala, the Kamaswami, and the
town behind and going into the forest. He overcomes ignorance be seeking after any
knowledge he can. He sought after the Samsaras to attain their knowledge, which he did
well. We know this because he hypnotized the old man into letting Siddhartha and
Govinda go on their way to the Buddha. He sought after knowledge pretty much from the
day he was born, or page one of the novel. Siddhartha attained infinite being by realizing
that he was not of his family, but of himself, of the universe. He did this by listening
intently to the river and learning it’s voice and tricks of the trade. Siddhartha overcame all
of the limitations, and achieved Nirvana.
Part III:
Hinduism
Through The
Eyes of The
Swami-Swami-
Swami
(Dude In Orange)
Applied To
Siddhartha
OM- the infinite word that means everything and nothing at all. Siddhartha says
this word inwardly when he is mediating. I suppose it helps him clear his soul. It helps my
friend and me study for our math test. Whatever floats your boat. Siddhartha says this
word a lot throughout the novel, and at the end when he finally attains Nirvana, that is all
he hears. Om is supposed to be the sound that everything makes when complied together.
This is when Siddhartha hears the river speaking it at the precise moment he attains true
self-enlightenment. If you hear om, then you have no questions, your thirst for knowledge
is complete. You are one with yourself and the universe and know it.
Vasana- everything in Siddhartha’s past. Not just his life before a given point, but
his past lives. All the mistakes he made as a stupid human being in a past life. The way he
died as an amoeba. The way he died as a vampire bat. The way he died as a squirrel in a
tree. As a bird. Siddhartha’s vasana is full of experiences that cannot and will not be
forgotten or misplaced. Everything his soul has ever seen, heard, felt, or thought is
imbedded into his vasana. The only time that Siddhartha knows his vasana to be true is
when he attains Nirvana and it all comes rushing back to him. That is when he can see all
the past experiences that made him the man he was. That made him do what he did. That
made him attain Nirvana.
Body- One of Siddhartha’s largest obstacles that he must overcome in order to
attain Nirvana. The body is fake. It is simply a vessel in which the soul lives until the body
dies and the soul must move on to another vessel or attain Nirvana. The body is not real
because it is material- made up of elements, chemicals, and cells that allude the senses
(which are also not real) into thinking the body is real. The body is an illusion from the
greater knowledge that all reality is spiritual. The body can not help you attain Nirvana, it
will only stand in your way, because everything the body is is not real.
Mind- the mind makes up decisions that are very important about how Siddhartha
(and the rest of us) will live his life. Siddhartha’s mind made him stand up against his
father and leave home to become a Samana. His mind decided when it was time to leave
the Samanas and take Govinda to the Buddha to find his own path. Siddhartha’s mind then
decided that he should go on his own journey and he ended up with Kamala for twenty
years. Then, when his mind grew tired of that, he left and went to the river to live with
Vesudeva and finally attain Nirvana.
Intellect- your intellect, like Siddhartha’s, tells you what knowledge you will use to
do what. When you will perform these feats, and how they will be carried out. This is all
due to the intellect. The knowledge and wisdom you acquire in all of your lifetime and
past lives is brought forth to the table whether you know it or not. You use this
knowledge and wisdom in the form of intellect to do what you will do- live. Throughout
your life you will acquire more and more knowledge and wisdom, and your intellect will
become stronger as you find yourself. The intellect is very important because it tells us
what we can and can not do.
Perceiver- the perceiver allows you to perceive things. This is how you use your
body and intellect to see things in different lights. This is also how you remember things.
How you perceive things is everything. If you perceive something wrong, the whole
shebang goes to hell. If you perceive something right, then you are on the right path.
“Didn’t see, I had no idea, I never heard it before. And I said, ?What good are you? Yeah,
well, ‘Why don’t I?’ is the question of the year.’ You used to be my favorite toy, but what
happened to my rocket boy? Rocket boy, where are you gonna land? I said, ?Go, don’t
stop it, go, don’t stop it, how we all understand.’ You used to be my pride and joy, now
you’re just my rocket, rocket boy. They don’t know, my friends; we got off again. How
am I gonna get myself to sleep? I’ve got stains on my sheets and my nails are torn down
to the bone. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an ordinary girlfriend? Laughing ’bout it makes it
real. It makes it happen to me. Well, I can reach you. Didn’t see, I had no idea, I never
heard it before. ?Well,’ I said, ?what good are you? Why don’t I, no sense of fear?’ You
used to be my favorite toy but now you’re just my little rocket boy. Rocket boy, when are
you gonna land? I said, ?Go, don’t stop it, go, don’t stop it, now may all understand.’ I
said, ?Rocket boy, when are you gonna land?’ I said, ?Rocket boy, they just don’t
understand.’ (Die is cast and the dice are rollin’, I’m feelin’ like *censored* ’cause she’s feelin’ like
gold). You used to be my pride and joy, my boy you had me, (Liz Phair, “Rocket Boy”).”
This reminds me of Siddhartha because he used to be young and able, and then he gets old
and begins to perceive things in a different light. The rocket boy isn’t going to land
because he has achieved a higher status. Perceiving things has to do with the body
because you must see or feel things to perceive them. It has to do with intellect because
you must react to the things around you. The way you perceive things and the way you
act makes you who you are.
Feel- one of the five senses, feeling is almost everything. If you cannot feel, then you are
basically screwed. Either you have no heart and can became a cold-blooded killer (then in
which case, I think any government has a job for you), or you cannot feel the paper you
are holding, you need to feel. There is a reason feeling is one of the five senses. It is also
as bad as it is good, because everything is like that. “I’m gonna tell my son to join a circus
so that death is cheap and games are just another way of life. And I’m gonna tell my son
to be a prophet of mistakes because for every truth there are half a million lies (Liz Phair,
“Whipsmart”). Feeling for something that doesn’t feel the same way back is bad. But if
it’s right, it’s right. What a crazy little world we live in. Feeling allows one to perceive
the world around them throughout one’s body. It’s truly an eternal thing. Siddhartha feels
in an odd sort of way. He feels for Kamala, yet he doesn’t. He feels for his son, most
likely because he help create him, but then he must learn not to feel for his son. So I guess
the lesson here is to use your mind, perceiver, and intellect to help you pick and choose
what to feel for.
Think- other than being an Aretha Franklin song, thinking is nothing if you do not
have the power to perceive. If you cannot think, then what the hell are you doing as a
human. I know it is illegal to kill you and all, so could you just accidentally fall off a
bridge or something? I know that that is bad for my karma, so here: I love you, now
please do away with yourself. Thinking is something that more people need to learn how
to do, and Siddhartha realized this which is why he made Govinda go off on his own.
Siddhartha was a great thinker himself. A learned man, he thought of hypnotizing the old
Samana to get away from him. Siddhartha was also good at being wealth and fame and
power. He could gamble well (or else he wouldn’t have been rich for very long) and he
could sweet talk his way into any deal. Thinking is crucial to everyday life.
Objects- are not crucial to anything and should be taken for granted at all costs
because they get in the way of your true self, your true being, your Atman-Brahmin.
Objects can do nothing but harm you because your initial want for them is considered
karma-tarnishing. You should only want things from within. Things like Nirvana and
peace. Siddhartha looses all his objects when he joins the Samanas. Their creed is that
one who has nothing can attain Nirvana easier, which is bull because most of the old
Samanas hadn’t attained more then hypnotism, which is only going to help you if you want
to rule the world. Hypnotism is bad, and if you have this power, you shouldn’t use it
because it is tarnishing your karma as we speak. Siddhartha then gains thousands of great
objects, but he realizes his happiness does not lie there. So if happiness doesn’t lie in
objects, and it doesn’t lie in not having objects, then where does it lie? It lies within.
Objects are just useless details.
Emotions- emotions are “my body allows me to feel emotions (Swami-Swami-
Swami-Dude-In-Orange-God-Is-On-The-TV).” Siddhartha is a male. Therefore his
emotions are all screwed up because he is not out drinking with the boys. So how do I tell
you about Siddhartha and e
