05-09-2022, 03:54 AM
Some weeks ago someone motivated me to read Siddhartha: A Poem of India by Hermann Hesse (here the original german version)
This is really an impressive spiritual story, describing the way to release suffering and finding to yourself.
Additional this story includes a really nice chapter, a chapter that I liked very much and that amused me.
I must think at this chapter again and again, because i can find it in the behaviour of the most people surrounding me.
What do you think about the childlike people?
This is really an impressive spiritual story, describing the way to release suffering and finding to yourself.
Additional this story includes a really nice chapter, a chapter that I liked very much and that amused me.
Quote:AMONG THE CHILDLIKE PEOPLE
Siddhartha went to see Kamaswami the businessman, he was shown into a house of opulence, servants led him past costly carpets into a chamber where he waited for the master of the house.
Kamaswami entered, a fast-moving, nimble man with very grey hair, with very clever and cautious eyes and an acquisitive-looking mouth. Master and guest offered friendly greetings to each other.
“I am told,” the businessman began, “that you are a brahmin, a man of learning, but you seek a position in the service of a businessman. Have you fallen into need then, brahman, is that why you seek a position of service?”
“No,” said Siddhartha, “I have not fallen into need and I never have had difficulties. You should be aware that I come from the samanas, among whom I lived for a long time.”
“How can you not be in need if you have come from the samanas? Do samanas not live completely without possessions?”
“I am without possessions,” said Siddhartha, “if that is what you mean. Certainly, I am without possessions. But I am without possessions by my own free will, so I am not in need.”
“What do you think you will live on if you have no possessions?”
“I have never thought about that, sir. I have been without possessions for more than three years, and have never given a thought to what I should live on.”
“You have lived on the possessions of others then, have you?”
“That is what some would say. But a businessman, too, lives on the possessions of others.”
“Well said. But he does not take the possessions of others for nothing; he gives them his goods for them.”
“That does indeed seem to be their relationship. Each takes, each gives, that is life.”
“But, if I may ask: if you have no possessions what do you have to give?”
“Each gives what he has. The warrior gives strength, the businessman gives goods, the teacher gives teaching, the farmer gives rice, the fisherman gives fish.
“Very well. And what is it, then, that you have to give? What is it that you have learnt to do?”
“I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”
“Is that all?”
“I think that is all!”
“And what is the good of that? Fasting, for instance, what is the good of that?”
“It is a lot of good, sir. If a man has nothing to eat then fasting is the cleverest thing of all that he can do. If, for instance, Siddhartha had never learnt to fast he would now have to perform some kind of service, be it for you or anyone else, for hunger would force him into it. But now Siddhartha can wait in peace, he knows no impatience, he knows no urgency, he can long withstand the siege of hunger and can laugh in its face. That, sir, is the good of fasting.”
“You are right, samana. Wait a moment.”
Kamaswami went out and came back with a roll of paper which he handed to his guest, asking, “Can you read this?”
Siddhartha looked at the roll on which a business contract was written and began to read out what it said.
“Excellent,” said Kamaswami. “And now will you write something on this sheet for me?”
He gave him pen and paper, and Siddhartha wrote and gave the sheet of paper back.
Kamaswami read, “Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.”
“You can write very well,” the businessman praised him. We will have a lot to talk about together. For today, though, I ask you to be my guest and to take up residence in this house.”
Siddhartha thanked him and accepted his offer, and now he lived in the merchant’s house. Clothes were brought to him, and shoes, and a servant prepared his bath for him every day. Twice a day a copious meal was brought in, but Siddhartha ate only once a day and he neither ate flesh nor drank wine. Kamaswami told him about his business, showed him his goods and his warehouses, let him see his accounts. Siddhartha learned many new things, he listened much and spoke little. He remembered the words of Kamala and was never the merchant’s subordinate, he forced him to see him as his equal, even to treat him as more than his equal. Kamaswami took great care over his business, often even showing passion for it, but Siddhartha saw it all as a game. He made the effort to learn the rules of the game, but the content of the game did not touch his heart.
Siddhartha had not been long in Kamaswami’s house before he took part in its owner’s business affairs. Every day, but at the time she stipulated, he would visit the beautiful Kamala, wearing fine clothes, fine shoes, and he soon began also to bring her presents. He learned a lot from her red and skillful mouth. He learned a lot from her gentle and supple hand. In matters of love Siddhartha was still a child, he was inclined to throw himself blindly and insatiably into his pleasures as if into a bottomless pit, but Kamala taught him from the very basics, she taught him that you cannot receive pleasure without giving pleasure, that every gesture, every stroke, every touch, every look, every tiny part of the body has its secret, and waking those secrets will bring happiness to whoever knows about them. She taught him that lovers should never separate immediately after the celebration of their love, not without each admiring the other, not without having conquered and having been conquered, so that neither will feel over-sated or abandoned or cross, or feel that one has misused the other or feel to have been misused. The hours he spent with this clever and beautiful artist were a time of wonder, he became her student, her lover, her friend. The value and meaning of his life now lay here with Kamala, not with the business affairs of Kamaswami.
The businessman delegated the writing of important letters and contracts to him, and formed the habit of seeking his advice on all important decisions. He saw quickly that Siddhartha knew little about rice and wool, about shipping and commerce, but he saw that what he did brought good luck, he saw that Siddhartha knew far more than he about peace and equanimity, about the art of listening, and saw his acumen in understanding strangers. “This brahmin,” he said to a friend, “is not a proper businessman and he never will be, his soul never goes into affairs with any passion. But he has the secret of people to whom success comes of itself. Maybe it is because he was born under a good star, maybe it is magic, and maybe it is something he learned when he lived with the samanas. He only ever seems to be playing at business, business never seems to penetrate him, never to be his master, he never fears failure and he is never bothered by making a loss.”
The friend advised the businessman, “Give him a third of the profit of all the business he does for you, and let him bear the same proportion of the losses when they happen. That will make him more enthusiastic.”
Kamaswami followed this advice. But Siddhartha seemed little bothered by it. If he made a profit he accepted it with indifference; if he made a loss he would laugh and say, “Oh look, that did not go well!”
It did indeed seem that he was indifferent to affairs of business. One day he went out to a village to buy up a large harvest of rice, but when he arrived the rice had already been sold to another handler. Siddhartha nonetheless remained for several days in the village, making the farmers his guests, giving copper coins to their children, attended a wedding ceremony, and came back from his journey entirely happy and content. Kamaswami accused him of squandering time and money by not having come straight back. Siddhartha answered, “Do not tell me off, my friend! Nothing has ever been achieved by telling anyone off. If I have caused you to make a loss just let me bear it. I am very satisfied with this journey. I met many new people, a brahmin is now my friend, children played on my knees, farmers showed me their fields, no-one treated me there like a businessman.”
“That sounds all very nice,” exclaimed Kamaswami grudgingly, “but I should have thought that a businessman is what you actually are! Or did you go out there just for your own pleasure?”
“Certainly,” laughed Siddhartha, “certainly it was for my own pleasure that I went there. Why else would I have gone there? I have met new people, seen new places, enjoyed trust and friendliness, found friendship. Listen my friend, if I were Kamaswami I would have hurried back as soon as I saw that my attempt to purchase was in vain, I would have been full of annoyance, and in that case then time and money really would have gone to waste. As it is I have spent several days well, I have learned things, I have enjoyed the company of friends, I have done no harm to myself or anyone else either by getting cross or by being in too much of a hurry. And if I ever go there again, to buy a harvest in advance for instance or for any other reason, I will have a friendly welcome from cheerful people, and I will congratulate myself for not having been rushed or bad tempered this time. So leave things well enough alone, my friend, don’t harm yourself by telling me off! If the day ever comes when you see that Siddhartha has brought you any harm then just say the word and Siddhartha will go on his way. But till then let us just be content with each other as we are.”
The businessman tried to persuade Siddhartha by saying he was eating his, Kamaswami’s, bread, but this too was in vain. It was his own bread that he ate, or rather both of them ate the bread of others, the bread of everyone. Siddhartha never had an ear for Kamaswami’s worries, and Kamaswami made many worries for himself. If a deal was in process that might go badly, if goods dispatched seemed to have been lost, if a debtor seemed unable to pay, Kamaswami was never able to convince his co-worker that it would be of any use to speak words of anger or concern, to furrow one’s brow, to lose any sleep. One time when Kamaswami reproached Siddhartha the claim that everything he knew he had learned from him, Siddhartha replied, “Don’t be so ridiculous! What I have learnt from you is the price of a basket of fish and how much interest you can exact for money you lend. Those things are your kind of knowledge. You have never taught me to think, my dear Kamaswami, it might be better if you wanted to learn thinking from me.”
It was true that Siddhartha’s heart was not in business. Business was good for him to obtain money for Kamala, and he obtained much more than he needed. Moreover, Siddhartha was only concerned with people. Their business, craft, worries, pleasures and follies had earlier been as strange and distant as the moon, but now he took an interest in them. He had no difficulty in talking with everyone, to live with everyone, to learn from everyone, but the easier this was the more he became aware that there was something that separated him from them, and that was because he had been a samana. He saw how people lived their lives in a way that was like children or animals, something he both loved and despised. He saw their strivings, saw their sufferings and saw them turn grey about things that seemed to him not worth that price, about money, about petty pleasures, matters of petty honour, he saw them shouting and insulting each other, he saw them lamenting for pains which a samana would merely smile at, and for losses which a samana does not feel.
He was open to everything that these people brought him. The businessman was welcome who brought canvas for him to buy, the debtor was welcome who came asking for a loan, the beggar was welcome who spent an hour to tell him the story of his poverty but who was not half as poor as any samana. He behaved toward the rich foreign businessman in the same way as to the servant who shaved him or the street seller, and would allow him to cheat him of a few petty coins when he bought bananas. When Kamaswami came to him to lament his troubles or to accuse him of having handled a deal badly he listened to him with cheerful interest, wondered about him, tried to understand him, acknowledged that he was right on some small points when he had to, and then he would turn away to the next person who wanted his attention. And there were many who did want it, many who came to do business with him, many who came to cheat him, many who came to obtain information from him, many who wanted his pity, many who wanted his advice. He gave advice, he showed pity, he gave advice, he allowed himself to be cheated, slightly, and all this game, and all the passion with which all these people played it, occupied his thoughts just as much as, at one time, thoughts about the gods and about Brahman.
From time to time he would feel, deep in his breast, a faint and tender voice that gently admonished, gently complained, so gentle he was hardly aware of it. Then he would become aware for an hour of what an odd life he was leading, that he was doing all these things just as a game, that although he was cheerful and felt moments of pleasure his real life was flowing past without touching him. He played with his business affairs and the people he came into contact with in the same way as a sportsman plays with his ball, he watched them and found fun in so doing; in his heart, in the source of his being, he was not present. There was a place where that source flowed, but how far that place was from him, flowing and flowing out of sight, no longer had anything to do with his life. And there were times when he was alarmed at thoughts of this sort, and he wished he too could be granted a passion for all the childish to activity of the day, to take part in it with his heart, truly to live, truly to do, truly to enjoy life instead of just standing at one side of it as an onlooker. But he always went back to the beautiful Kamala, learned the art of love, practised the cult of lust by which, more than anywhere else, giving and taking become the same thing, he talked with her, learned from her, gave her his advice, accepted her advice. She understood him better than Govinda once had, she was more like him than Govinda had been.
One day he said to her, “You are like me, you are different from most people. You are Kamala, nothing else, and deep inside you there is peace and a refuge where you can go at any time and feel that that is your place, just as I can. Few people have that, though all people could have it.”
“Not all people are clever,” said Kamala.
“No,” said Siddhartha, “that is not what it is about. Kamaswami is just as clever as I am, but he has no place of refuge within himself. Others have one, people whose understanding is like that of a small child. Most people, Kamala, are like a leaf falling through the air and is blown from side to side, it twists, it staggers, till it hits the ground. There are others, though not many, who are like the stars, they follow a fixed course, no wind blows them, they have their laws and their path set within themselves. All the learned men and all the samanas - and I have known many of them - had one of this sort among them, a perfect one, and I can never forget him. He is Gotama, the noble one who disseminated that teaching. Thousands of young men listen to his teachings every day, they follow his precepts every hour of every day, but each one of them is a falling leaf, they do not have law and teachings within themselves.”
Kamala looked at him with a smile. “You are talking about him again,” she said, “you have your samana thoughts again.”
Siddhartha was silent, and they played the game of love, one of the thirty or forty different games that Kamala knew. Her body was as supple as a jaguar’s, and as the bow of a hunter; whoever learned the art of love from her came to know many joys, many secrets. She played long with Siddhartha, she drew him close, pushed him back, manipulated him, enveloped him: he enjoyed his mastery until he had been defeated and then, exhausted, he would rest at her side.
The courtesan leant over him, looked long into his face, into his now tired eyes.
“You are the best lover,” she said thoughtfully, “I have ever known. You are stronger than the others, more supple, more willing. You have learnt my art well, Siddhartha. One day, when I am older, I would like to have a child from you. But, my love, you have never stopped being a samana, and that means you do not love me, there is no-one whom you love. Am I right?”
“You might well be right,” said Siddhartha, tired. “I am like you. You do not love either - if you did, how could you carry on with love making as a craft? Perhaps people like you and me cannot love. The childlike people can; that is their secret.”
I must think at this chapter again and again, because i can find it in the behaviour of the most people surrounding me.
What do you think about the childlike people?
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