Monday, April 7, 2008
Is Kamala to blame for Siddhartha's lingering Samsara?
Siddhartha set out as a young man to achieve his own personal Nirvana. Along the way he tried different methods, such as staying with the Samanas and listening to the teachings of Buddha, but they did not satiate his thirst for inner peace. On this journey, he strayed from his initial objective. He comes to a town and sees a beautiful woman named Kamala, and he then decides he would like to learn about love from her and have her as a friend. It takes time, but he eventually becomes extremely distracted and altogether forgets his purpose for leaving home in the first place. He spends years in the town growing old, rich, and essentially miserable. "The world had caught him; pleasure, covetousness, idleness, and finally also that vice that he had always despised and scorned as the most foolish--acquisitiveness. Property, possessions, and riches had also finally trapped him." (Hesse 78-79) Siddhartha realizes that he has becomes completely absorbed in all of the things he once regarded with reproach. But what was it that drew him into this trap? He had not set out to become like any other townsman, yet he is drawn to it. Clearly, Kamala had a strong enough effect on him to alter him entirely and essentially rob him of his equanimity. Her kiss and her beauty put him in an entirely different state of mind. For a while Siddhartha lived in this state of oblivion, comparable to the game of Samsara. Only once Siddhartha felt the nausea of guilt and realized he had lost his inner voice did he decide that he needed to move on with his life. Though he loved Kamala, he rocognized that she was the sole reason he had become so absorbed in the circuitous course of Samsara. Finally, he decided to leave town and return to his journey for inner peace, and discovers a river that provides ablution for his tainted life.
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2 comments:
When Siddhartha firsts meets Kamala he is impressed with her beauty and wants to learn the art of lover from her. Siddhartha already left the teachings of Buddha and wanted to learn about himself through his own teachings and his own ways. When Kamala first meets Siddhartha she is reapproached with his apperance and tells him that if he comes back he must come back with fine clothes, shoes and money. Soon enough Siddhartha starts forgetting who he is and loses his trait of equanimity,which he learned from the Samanas. After about twenty years goes by he finally realizes that he is no longer who he was and that he is digusted with who he has become. He says goodbye to Kamala and returns to the river which he once crossed when he was a Samana.
-athena
Kamala is entirely the reason that Siddhartha is stuck in the circuitous path of Samsara. Her beauty and his love for her suck him into the life he wished to never live. He becomes a merchant and becomes wealthy. With his wealth he is able to own property, and he even becomes a drinker and a dice player. Had he never met Kamala he probably never would have strayed from his original journey. However, becoming the one thing that Siddhartha dispised allowed him to satiate his desire for inner peace and happiness.
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