0:07

Welcome to Weird Studies, an

0:10

arts and philosophy podcast with

0:12

hosts Phil Ford and J.

0:14

F. Martel. For more episodes

0:16

or to support the podcast,

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go to WeirdStudies.com. Welcome

0:44

to Weird Studies, this is J. F.

0:47

This week's episode is on Herman

0:49

Hesse's classic spiritual novel, Siddhartha. Set

0:52

in India during the time of the Buddha, Siddhartha

0:55

tells the story of a young

0:57

Brahmin son who decides early on that

0:59

the life of scholarship and priestly

1:01

duty, his birthright, isn't for him. Instead,

1:05

he sets out to seek enlightenment in the

1:07

rough and tumble world, initially in

1:09

the company of his best friend Govinda. Together

1:12

they become Samanas, wandering aesthetics who

1:14

reject worldly ways to live

1:16

a life of renunciation and meditation.

1:19

Rumors of a new teacher named

1:22

Gotama, the Buddha, eventually

1:24

lure them away from the Samanas. After

1:26

Govinda decides to take shelter in the

1:28

Buddha's teachings, Siddhartha continues his

1:30

journey alone, convinced that

1:32

enlightenment can only come

1:34

through direct experience. He

1:37

embraces the ways of the world, becomes

1:39

a wealthy merchant, gets lost in

1:42

the whirlwind of samsara, but

1:44

eventually returns to the spiritual path

1:46

in the nadir of his despair. Finally,

1:50

he finds his place as the apprentice

1:52

to a simple peasant, whose only

1:54

teacher is the river he

1:56

ferries travelers across. Siddhartha

2:00

a seminal novel whose influence

2:02

on what Eric Davis calls the

2:04

cultures of consciousness in the West

2:06

would be difficult to quantify.

2:08

In the conversation you're about

2:10

to hear, we reflect on

2:12

this influence, discussing the ways

2:14

in which Hesse was able

2:17

to tap into humanity's fundamental

2:19

desire to find knowledge, wisdom

2:21

and peace amidst the turmoil

2:23

of existence. Two brief announcements

2:25

before we start. First, starting on

2:28

February 6th. 2025. I'll be

2:30

teaching a new course on the

2:32

weirdosfer learning platform. It's called

2:34

It's All Real, an inquiry into

2:36

the reality of the supernatural.

2:38

If you're thinking this will be

2:40

a jam on ghosts, spirits,

2:43

aliens, fairies, angels, demons, and

2:45

monsters, you're absolutely right. Our goal

2:47

will be to think philosophically

2:49

and rationally about things we are

2:52

often told nobody can think

2:54

philosophically and rationally and

2:56

rationally. This is an invitation

2:58

then to reimagine our relationship

3:01

to the unknown and the

3:03

extraordinary. The course will run for

3:05

six weeks with one 90-minute lecture

3:08

and one group discussion every

3:10

week. For more information and to

3:12

register, please do not

3:14

hesitate to visit weirdosphier.org

3:17

and click on the big button. And

3:19

there's more going on on

3:21

weirdosphear. On February 1st, for

3:23

instance, we're hosting a screening of

3:26

the new and singular Canadian film

3:28

data, followed by a Zoom discussion

3:30

where Phil and I will talk

3:32

to writer-director Aaron Poole about his

3:35

visionary work. The screening is

3:37

free for weirdosphere members, and

3:39

an affordable way to join the

3:41

community if you're not yet a part

3:43

of it. For more information about

3:46

the film, visit Game

3:48

Theory films.com/data. That's D-A-D-A.

3:50

You'll find a link

3:52

for purchasing tickets for

3:55

the Weirdosphere event in the

3:57

show notes. All right then, on Herman

3:59

Hess's... Siddhartha, without

4:03

further ado.

4:05

You've been

4:07

thinking about this

4:10

book. You've been

4:13

thinking about this

4:15

book. You've been

4:18

thinking about this

4:21

book. I'm very

4:23

curious to know. What's going on

4:25

there? So why don't you start

4:28

us off? Well, I'm not going

4:30

to pretend to be some kind

4:32

of expert on Siddhartha. I mean,

4:34

for one thing, I haven't really

4:36

been writing. I've been thinking about

4:39

it in conjunction with a couple

4:41

of pieces of music. So I've

4:43

picked up a job of writing

4:45

for the Aspen Summer Music Festival

4:47

program book, an essay discussing several

4:50

pieces of music that they're

4:52

programming, one of which... is

4:54

an opera by Christopher Theophanides

4:56

based on Siddhartha. So, you

4:58

know, in preparation for writing

5:00

those notes, I've been reading

5:03

Siddhartha, unsurprisingly, and

5:05

also, you know, thinking about

5:07

Halst the planets and Wagner's

5:10

Parsifal, both of which are going

5:12

to also be performed as part

5:14

of the Aspen Festival. And

5:16

so, actually, a lot of what

5:18

I've been thinking about has been... a

5:21

throughline for my essay, thinking

5:23

about what it is that might

5:25

connect these different pieces of music,

5:28

which are rather different as pieces

5:30

of music, and also are coming

5:32

at the spiritual from rather

5:34

different directions. The planets is

5:37

a very well-known suite of

5:39

pieces, but most people don't

5:41

realize that Halst was not

5:43

actually writing about the physical

5:46

planets up there in the

5:48

sky, but writing character studies

5:50

of... the astrological planets, the planets,

5:52

as they are understood as

5:54

persona, as sort of celestial

5:57

persona. If we're thinking about

5:59

astrolog... in the way that

6:01

the planets play a role

6:03

in our lives. A lot

6:05

of the thinking is thoroughly

6:07

magical, or at least we

6:09

can understand it as an

6:11

extension from esoteric thought in

6:13

which our bodies and our

6:16

minds are sort of consubstantial

6:18

with the universe, as above

6:20

so below what is there

6:22

in the planets. is also

6:24

reflected down here in our

6:26

bodies and minds. And so,

6:28

for instance, Mars, we might

6:30

say it's a symbol of

6:32

the baser passions in human

6:34

life, but even calling it

6:36

a symbol is not quite

6:38

right because that degree of

6:40

consubstantiality indicates a more intimate

6:43

sort of degree of relationship.

6:45

It's not even right to

6:47

say that in an astrological

6:49

or magical framework. the planets

6:51

symbolize different faculties of the

6:53

human. The human has an

6:55

attraction, a gravitational tug towards

6:57

these planets because they're sort

6:59

of a continuity of being.

7:01

And that continuity of being

7:03

ultimately points to sort of

7:05

an in-sold universe. And from

7:07

thinking about that in the

7:10

planets, I've been thinking about

7:12

Siddhartha, which is coming at

7:14

the spiritual from a totally

7:16

different direction. This is a

7:18

novella that Hermann Hesse began

7:20

in 1916 and finished several

7:22

years later that engages his

7:24

own fascination for and reading

7:26

in Eastern culture, particularly Eastern

7:28

philosophical and religious texts, his

7:30

knowledge of Buddhism, I mean.

7:32

His knowledge has mediated by

7:34

what was available in German

7:37

translation in his time, but

7:39

nevertheless. And it is a

7:41

sort of boot, not Buddhist,

7:43

but boot. Bish. Boudish. I

7:45

like that. Yes, it's a

7:47

Boudish kind of book. I

7:49

can't believe it's not Buddha.

7:51

You know, it's close enough

7:53

for rock and roll in

7:55

some ways, but also bearing

7:57

the imprint of Hesse's own

7:59

particular personality and his interests

8:01

and and indeed. things going

8:03

on in his life at

8:06

the time. And so if

8:08

you sort of thinking like,

8:10

okay, well, what's a connection

8:12

that I might make between

8:14

the planets and Siddhartha, and

8:16

I haven't even talked about

8:18

Parsafal, but I'm going to

8:20

leave that off to one

8:22

side, one thing it seems

8:24

to me that they have

8:26

in common is that is...

8:28

not our standard issue, scientific

8:30

naturalist, modern take on what

8:33

the universe is. What we

8:35

think of the universe is

8:37

a vast array of inanimate

8:39

things of objects, a cold

8:41

indifferent cosmos of objects set

8:43

against we subjective. living creatures

8:45

where we have to find

8:47

our meaning and our fate

8:49

within this alien and uncomprehending

8:51

world. That is very far

8:53

removed from pretty much any

8:55

magical or religious worldview or

8:57

spiritual worldview you cared a

9:00

name. I'm sure that there

9:02

are examples of religious or

9:04

spiritual or occult worldviews that

9:06

would deviate from this. I

9:08

think that what you just

9:10

described, which really kind of

9:12

summarizes the kind of modern

9:14

way, materialist way of looking

9:16

at the universe, it echoes

9:18

one side of a very

9:20

religious way of looking at

9:22

the world. You know, you'll

9:24

have moments in religious literature

9:27

where the... monstrosity of the

9:29

divine is emphasized. It's just

9:31

that it's also not counterbalanced,

9:33

but contradicted or challenged by

9:35

this other side, the kind

9:37

of oneness or pantheistic or

9:39

interconnected side. So it seems

9:41

like it's not that the

9:43

modern way is wrong so

9:45

much as it's from a

9:47

religious perspective one-sided, right? Yeah.

9:49

Yeah. Fair enough. But yes.

9:51

Your point is stance, you

9:53

know. Well, you know, thinking

9:56

about Siddhartha, especially its climactic

9:58

last section, which takes place

10:00

on a river and is

10:02

very much about the river.

10:04

The river is a figure

10:06

for a kind of final

10:08

enlightenment that Siddhartha goes through,

10:10

where he understands that things

10:12

are both themselves, objects in

10:14

our world, just as we

10:16

experience them. emanations from a

10:18

divine oneness and ome that

10:20

is embodied in, not just

10:23

symbolized, again, not just talking

10:25

about symbolism, but like it's

10:27

not just symbolized by the

10:29

river, but the river is

10:31

that thing. It's embodied by

10:33

the river. The river is

10:35

consubstantial with that oneness, that

10:37

home. And this seems to

10:39

me to be a decent

10:41

place to start, a way

10:43

of... perceiving or experiencing the

10:45

universe as something living and

10:47

in which a human destiny

10:50

or a human fate, the

10:52

course of a human life,

10:54

can never be an eccentric

10:56

or kind of oddball singularity

10:58

and accident. Yeah, you know,

11:00

there can be varying degrees

11:02

of wisdom and awakening that

11:04

we bring to our path

11:06

through this world. But ultimately,

11:08

Siddhartha, especially in its final

11:10

section, really does present a

11:12

powerful... of a world installed.

11:14

And so this is at

11:17

least some of the thinking

11:19

that I've been doing about

11:21

this project that I have

11:23

on my plate. So that's

11:25

where I would start. But

11:27

that being said, my starting

11:29

place may be more or

11:31

less arbitrary, and as much

11:33

as it has been given

11:35

me by the nature of

11:37

a project that I've taken

11:39

on that requires me to

11:41

find a connection, a through

11:43

line between parts of all

11:46

the planets and this new

11:48

opera set Arthur. Yeah, it

11:50

really is a kind of

11:52

coming-of-age story, right, in a

11:54

sense. Well, it goes beyond

11:56

that. It's not a coming-of-age.

11:58

It's kind of a spiritual

12:00

biography, which from what I've

12:02

read, really mirrors, has his

12:04

own experience. And what's really

12:06

interesting in Siddhartha, I think,

12:08

from a philosophical point of

12:10

view, is to see the

12:13

various stages and the insights

12:15

that Siddhartha receives progressively. as

12:17

he divests himself of those

12:19

deceptions or self-deceptions that prevent

12:21

him from finally seeing what

12:23

he sees at the end,

12:25

the self-same oneness expressed by

12:27

the river. And I think

12:29

the most beautiful passages in

12:31

the book are probably in

12:33

that last section, the moment

12:35

where the river speaks to

12:37

Siddhartha and reveals to him

12:40

the nature of time and

12:42

the nature of reality. And

12:44

finally when... Govinda, Sadartha's childhood

12:46

friend, who long separated from

12:48

him, returns and they have

12:50

this final conversation and then

12:52

Sadartha tries to express his

12:54

insights to Govinda, Govinda, you

12:56

know, hears it, but as

12:58

usual when you translate intense

13:00

spiritual experience into words, it

13:02

kind of falls flat. And

13:04

so Govinda is a little

13:07

disappointed. And he says so

13:09

much of Siddhartha and then

13:11

Siddhartha says, kiss my forehead

13:13

and when Govinda kisses Siddhartha,

13:15

so when they stop talking

13:17

and he kisses his forehead,

13:19

then suddenly he receives his

13:21

vision of the kind that

13:23

the river expresses and it's

13:25

almost like Siddhartha has become

13:27

the river. misremembered this book.

13:29

I read this book when

13:31

I was a teenager only

13:33

one time, but I've never

13:36

forgotten it, so that's something

13:38

I remembered. It has stayed

13:40

with me, but I remembered

13:42

the last section being Siddhartha

13:44

talking to Gavinda about the

13:46

river, but that's not how

13:48

it is. But in a

13:50

way it is, because Siddhartha

13:52

becomes, he becomes a ferryman

13:54

at the end. His final

13:56

stage of life is he

13:58

lives as a ferryman who

14:00

ferries people across this river

14:03

and he's kind of... consubstantial

14:05

with the river, but I

14:07

think at the end that

14:09

final vision that Govinda receives

14:11

from Siddhartha, merely from being

14:13

in physical contact with him,

14:15

is telling us on a

14:17

certain level that Siddhartha has

14:19

become this consciousness, this transpersonal

14:21

consciousness that the river embodies.

14:23

And so it's a beautiful

14:25

story of spiritual journeying and

14:27

spiritual development. Before he gets

14:30

there, he goes through a

14:32

series of stages. He actually

14:34

meets Gotama Buddha. There's a

14:36

whole scene where it's like

14:38

dialogue between Siddhartha and the

14:40

Buddha. And he ultimately rejects

14:42

the path offered by the

14:44

Buddha, like Buddhism or like

14:46

the practice. Yeah. Because he

14:48

believes that enlightenment cannot come

14:50

through teachings or doctrines. It

14:52

has to be found for

14:54

oneself, which to me sounds

14:57

pretty Buddhist, to be honest,

14:59

to be honest, but indeed.

15:01

Yeah, and then he moves

15:03

on and you can see

15:05

all the stages, like for

15:07

example, the first stage that

15:09

Siddhartha goes through. He's actually

15:11

born in a Brahman family,

15:13

so he's destined to be

15:15

a priest, a scholar, and

15:17

his father is this respected

15:19

religious scholar, but he's unsatisfied

15:21

with his religious upbringing. He

15:23

wants more and he suddenly

15:26

becomes interested in the Samanas,

15:28

as I... You usually call

15:30

them the wandering ascetics who

15:32

reject all worldly things and

15:34

just wonder about begging and

15:36

engaging in practices that we

15:38

might call like self-mortification. Some

15:40

like that. And who achieve

15:42

great power, the Sadus or

15:44

Samanas or Samanas or Samanas,

15:46

I don't know how to

15:48

pronounce it, are known for

15:50

their cities, their powers, their

15:53

psychic powers. And so Sudartha

15:55

leaves his home much to

15:57

his parents' dismay and joins

15:59

these wandering ascetics and begins

16:01

to practice with them and

16:03

indeed becomes a great magician.

16:05

Then he leaves them with

16:07

his friend Govinda and they

16:09

visit the Buddhists who were

16:11

just you know, starting off,

16:13

Buddha's still alive and teaching,

16:15

and they go see him

16:17

and Govinda decides to join

16:20

the Buddha and follow that

16:22

path, whereas Siddhartha, after a

16:24

very interesting dialogue with Gotama,

16:26

decides to continue on his

16:28

own path, and he ends

16:30

up going to a city,

16:32

kind of falling in love

16:34

with the world, you know,

16:36

realizing that the world's full

16:38

of beauty and that his

16:40

next teacher is this cortizan

16:42

named Kamala. And she trains

16:44

him in the arts of

16:47

love, and he becomes a

16:49

powerful and rich merchant, until

16:51

finally he gets lost in

16:53

Samsara, lost in the worldly,

16:55

the worldlyly world of the

16:57

world, if that makes any

16:59

sense. And he, uh, he

17:01

despairs to the point of

17:03

wanting to end his life.

17:05

and then leaves that's how

17:07

he finds his way to

17:09

the river. Have I skipped,

17:11

have I missed a step

17:13

here? That's kind of the

17:16

progress. Yeah, I think that's

17:18

pretty much it. Yeah. There's

17:20

a ferryman who works on

17:22

the river and the ferryman

17:24

ends up being as enlightened

17:26

as the Buddha in Siddhartha's

17:28

assessment. The ferryman becomes his

17:30

new teacher, but really the

17:32

ferryman is just an intermediary

17:34

between Siddhartha and the river,

17:36

which is his true teacher,

17:38

and then he achieves a

17:40

kind of enlightenmentlementment at the

17:43

end. There's this whole other

17:45

business with his son and

17:47

there's a whole other side

17:49

to this story. Like I'll

17:51

be honest. Essay's obsession with

17:53

like extremely self-absorbed men was

17:55

difficult to digest this time

17:57

around at my age. Yeah,

17:59

well, who to you are

18:01

the self-absorbed men in this?

18:03

It's kind of everybody, I

18:05

guess, right? I don't know.

18:07

Um, Siddhartha's, I mean, hassays,

18:10

all of his protagonists are

18:12

the same as far as

18:14

I can. I haven't read

18:16

everything he wrote, but all

18:18

the books I've read, Siddhartha,

18:20

Glass-Beed game, Demian. Stepin Wolf,

18:22

the protagonist is always someone

18:24

who is extremely self-absorbed, David

18:26

Foster Wallace, Avant-allette, you know,

18:28

extremely self-absorbed, but shamelessly, you

18:30

know, unlike David Foster Wallace,

18:32

disdainful of the world, looks

18:34

down at other people, unapologetically

18:37

condemns the ways of life

18:39

that other people seem to

18:41

think are good enough for

18:43

them. He refers to common

18:45

people in this book in

18:47

Saratha as the childlike people

18:49

or the child people. Yeah,

18:51

just in a sense it's

18:53

this hyper extreme radical individualism

18:55

that seems to be prescribed

18:57

in all of these books

18:59

insofar as the books are

19:01

prescribing anything, which I guess

19:04

on on most levels they

19:06

aren't. People often say like

19:08

Hesse's a novelist for young

19:10

people. There's a review of

19:12

a biography of Hesse. that

19:14

was published in The New

19:16

Yorker by Adam Kirch, which

19:18

is really unkind and agrees

19:20

with this take on Hesse.

19:22

I don't think that's true.

19:24

But I think there's some

19:26

truth to it. These are

19:28

characters who are very much

19:30

concerned with their inner lives

19:33

and seem to believe that

19:35

there's something unique about their

19:37

inner lives. Don't seem to

19:39

have recognized that everyone around

19:41

them has the same inner

19:43

problems as that they do.

19:45

And there's a sense I

19:47

get of that. I just

19:49

get this feeling when I

19:51

read it. I don't trust

19:53

the feeling too much. Well,

19:55

you can see how Hesse's

19:57

works would have become highly

20:00

successful in... the American counterculture

20:02

or like in the book reading circles

20:04

that sort of found their

20:06

way into the American counterculture

20:08

in the 60s particularly what

20:10

you were saying a moment

20:12

ago about how protagonists and

20:14

Hess's novels are always able

20:16

to kind of see through

20:18

the pretenses of society

20:21

or see society as a

20:23

game that they it may

20:25

be good enough for other

20:27

people but it's a game

20:30

that they choose not to

20:32

play. that mood of disaffiliation

20:34

that rests lightly upon a

20:36

somewhat supercilious attitude towards other

20:39

people, that definitely can feel

20:41

like some of the

20:43

worst aspects of the

20:46

kind of countercultural sensibility,

20:48

right? It's tendency towards

20:51

a kind of snobbery

20:53

and condescension towards

20:55

normies. For all this might

20:58

trigger our annoyance, our

21:00

customary annoyance, at an

21:02

attitude of hipster superiority?

21:06

Nevertheless, is there

21:08

maybe something to be

21:10

said in favor of

21:12

self-absorption or at least

21:15

a certain kind of

21:17

self-absorption that Hesse's novels

21:19

are involved with in one

21:22

way or another? Because you

21:24

know, the spiritual life itself

21:26

or the philosophical life, I

21:28

think especially from an

21:31

outside perspective, looks tremendously

21:33

self-indulgent. Or the artistic

21:36

life for that matter. Or the

21:38

artistic life. You know, the sort

21:40

of thing that will provoke people

21:42

to say, huh, must be nice to

21:45

be able to sit around and stare

21:47

at your naval. Must be nice to

21:49

have the luxury of time that you

21:52

can think about. abstract questions

21:54

like is there predestination or

21:56

is there free will? Right.

21:58

Geez, what kind... a privilege

22:00

must you enjoy in order

22:02

to do this? And I'll

22:04

say parenthetically that that sort

22:07

of privilege line is a

22:09

mind killer. It is something

22:11

that squelches the activity of

22:13

thought and I've come to

22:15

believe that that's what that

22:17

concept is there to do.

22:20

What is it, Chesterton? There

22:22

is one thought that stops

22:24

thought. That is the one

22:26

thought that must be stopped.

22:28

Did he ever specify what

22:30

that one thought was? There

22:33

are many many possibilities here

22:35

candidates in my head because

22:37

it comes from Orthodoxy, but

22:39

I think it has to

22:41

do with the idea that

22:44

there is no free will,

22:46

that there is no meaning,

22:48

that things are determined, that

22:50

things have no. Yeah, the

22:52

kind of hyper materialist conclusion.

22:54

But I think there are

22:57

many of those thoughts that

22:59

should be stopped. Well, they

23:01

all have something in common,

23:03

which is telling you to

23:05

stop thinking. There's no point.

23:07

What you're doing is pointless.

23:10

Yes, and I think that

23:12

that applied to any kind

23:14

of honest or open-hearted attempt

23:16

to look within and understand

23:18

oneself. I am against it.

23:20

And inasmuch as Hesse seems

23:23

to provoke that kind of

23:25

feeling, not so much an

23:27

idea, but a feeling of

23:29

resentment from people like Adam

23:31

Kirsh. I read that essay

23:34

as well and I found

23:36

it an irritating example of

23:38

the kind of, well, whatever,

23:40

I'm not going to get

23:42

into that. I'm against it,

23:44

you know, I think that

23:47

Siddhartha among other things gives

23:49

us a picture of spiritual

23:51

life and I don't want

23:53

to waste time saying like,

23:55

oh, but is it really

23:57

a Buddhist spiritual life, blah,

24:00

blah, blah. Not interested. in

24:02

those questions of authenticity. I

24:04

think it is authentic in

24:06

an artistic register, and that's

24:08

good enough for me. And

24:10

it rings. true to my

24:13

own experience. A lot of

24:15

the things in this book

24:17

ring true to my own

24:19

experience. Not least, the revolutionary

24:21

quality of that moment where

24:23

we turn our gaze from

24:26

inside to the outside, me,

24:28

a subjective being, looking through

24:30

these eyeballs at the world

24:32

out there and making something

24:34

of it. as a Hayidogan,

24:37

like to say, turn the

24:39

light around and take the

24:41

backward step. And that does

24:43

happen. And that does subvert.

24:45

It does subvert the individualism

24:47

that might otherwise be seen

24:50

as the point. Yeah, exactly.

24:52

It's about transcendence. It's a

24:54

revolutionary mood. Yeah. Or it's

24:56

a revolutionary moment. A moment

24:58

of individual revolution. And I

25:00

think that everybody who has

25:03

under... gone, that individual revolution,

25:05

a revolution of the soul,

25:07

immediately. Like almost the first

25:09

thing you recognize is that

25:11

this could become a revolution

25:13

of human beings generally, a

25:16

revolution of society, not the

25:18

kind of revolution with like

25:20

tanks in the street and

25:22

12-point manifestos and new regimes

25:24

announced from loud speakers in

25:27

the public plaza. but a

25:29

different kind of revolution, a

25:31

revolution of sensibility, a collective

25:33

movement of the soul towards

25:35

something better. And as corny

25:37

and perhaps naive as that

25:40

sounds, nevertheless, I believe that

25:42

it remains as a permanent

25:44

possibility, not just for Buddhists,

25:46

but for anybody who has

25:48

had that experience of the

25:50

world and sold. The weird

25:53

thing that happens when you

25:55

turn the light around and

25:57

take the backward step is

25:59

that it doesn't become... mere

26:01

self-involved, although it is self-involved,

26:03

you're looking within yourself, right?

26:06

So you are involved with

26:08

yourself. But the weird thing

26:10

is that there's a kind

26:12

of an ananteodromia that happens

26:14

in that moment, where that

26:17

look within becomes a more

26:19

fully engaged and realized encounter

26:21

with the world outside, with

26:23

the world beyond. And this,

26:25

in fact, is very beautifully

26:27

depicted in a couple of

26:30

different places. in Siddhartha. I

27:08

totally agree that the vision animating

27:10

the book, much like Hesse's other

27:12

books, is one of transcendence, and

27:14

insofar as transcendence can be artistically

27:16

expressed, I don't know who does

27:19

a better job of that than

27:21

Hermann Hesse. But the spiritual path

27:23

he chooses is one of at

27:25

least two possible paths, I think,

27:27

to get to... This realization I'm

27:29

speaking like someone with authority. I'm

27:32

just talking about my views here.

27:34

So maybe give it what you

27:36

will It's the path of I

27:38

it's the path that is about

27:40

introspection that turns inward and You

27:43

know that is the proper path

27:45

for many of us that is

27:47

the path to get there I'm

27:49

thinking of Colin Wilson's book the

27:51

outsider which is very very much

27:53

in that spirit. I think in

27:56

fact I think Wilson quotes essay

27:58

extensively if I remember correctly in

28:00

the outsider. Yeah, Wilson wrote a

28:02

book on Hesse. Right, he did,

28:04

you write, I haven't read it.

28:07

No, it's hard to find. Yeah,

28:09

he's, he wrote a lot of

28:11

books. He did. A lot of

28:13

books. You wonder if he even

28:15

remembered writing that book. I'm sure

28:17

that there were books he didn't

28:20

remember writing. So. The outsider is

28:22

almost a kind of collection of

28:24

citations of quotes, right? It's almost

28:26

a quote book because he quotes

28:28

other writers extensively in it than

28:31

comments, of course. I love The

28:33

outsider. It's a book that's been

28:35

laughed at. We've talked about this

28:37

before. Oh, it's a terrific book.

28:39

We should do it sometime. We

28:41

should. Just a piss off Adam

28:44

Kirch, perhaps. The cool thing about

28:46

the outsider is that it gives

28:48

us a type. Right. It's the

28:50

portrait or the profile of a

28:52

psychological type. a particular type of

28:55

person, which Wilson identified with and

28:57

that he found present in all

28:59

this literature. My first instinct would

29:01

be to say, well, what is

29:03

this type? It's someone who's very

29:05

self-absorbed, but I think actually it's

29:08

the opposite. The people who gravitate,

29:10

I think, is I think as

29:12

a young person I gravitated towards

29:14

this kind of path, not because

29:16

I was self-absorbed, because I didn't

29:19

trust myself at all. I saw

29:21

the world... in a kind of

29:23

extroverted way. I saw the world

29:25

and myself in it as just

29:27

one thing in it. I think

29:29

the reason why I read a

29:32

lot of Hesse and KAMU and

29:34

other authors that I can't remember

29:36

now was because I was trying

29:38

to build a kind of interior

29:40

life. I've always had a kind

29:43

of rich imaginative life, but I

29:45

needed to build a kind of,

29:47

you know, the way John Copropolis...

29:49

puts it as like a stone,

29:51

a tiny stone, a self, a

29:53

very strong sense of eye. So

29:56

I think that in fact it's

29:58

not that essay is an arrogant

30:00

self-absorbed person, but he's that he's

30:02

trying to assert selfhood. this path

30:04

and it's through that assertion that

30:07

he then finally becomes able to

30:09

see the self as simply one

30:11

aspect of something much much bigger.

30:13

If I wanted to counter that

30:15

with a different path you know

30:17

that would be the path of

30:20

I well then the other path

30:22

would be the path of vow

30:24

which is the path that finds

30:26

its destination in the other and

30:28

that's what I gravitate towards now

30:31

as a spiritual path. because I

30:33

think that there's a difference in

30:35

kind between I and thou or

30:37

I and you that we don't

30:39

realize. Usually from the point of

30:41

view of I, we simply see

30:44

you as another eye. And the

30:46

spiritual doctrines will often say, well,

30:48

the I and the other is

30:50

the I and you. It's all

30:52

Atman. It's all I. Brahman. That

30:55

has its own truth, but there's

30:57

another truth. And the other truth

30:59

is that the last thing you

31:01

or thou is is another I.

31:03

Because the only I that you

31:05

that you that you can know

31:08

that you can know that you

31:10

can know that you can know.

31:12

is your eye. You is where

31:14

your eye stops. You is the

31:16

radical limit of any eyeness. And

31:19

this I think brings you to

31:21

a similar vision of kind of

31:23

an expansive divine universe, but by

31:25

radically different means. Is one better

31:27

than the other? No, I don't

31:29

think the one's better than the

31:32

other. I just think that there

31:34

are people who need one or

31:36

need the other. And of course,

31:38

this is hyper overly simplified, but...

31:40

It occurred to me as I

31:43

was reading this. Like why did

31:45

I feel so enthralled with this

31:47

book then and why was I

31:49

less inclined to? You know, it's

31:51

not even not. I loved parts

31:53

of it. I love the parts

31:56

of it that get into this

31:58

whole business we're discussing now. The

32:00

parts that resonate with Holt's planets,

32:02

for example. But what has changed?

32:04

And I guess I'm just reflecting

32:07

on the book. as one that

32:09

I read in my youth and

32:11

I'm reading now and kind of

32:13

reflecting on myself being rather self-absorbed

32:15

to be honest and thinking about

32:17

how what explains the kind of

32:20

change in reaction to it. just

32:22

one last comment regarding the way

32:24

that what might look like self-

32:26

involvement or what might actually be

32:28

self- involvement being absolutely fascinated with

32:31

your own inner weather your spiritual

32:33

development or what have you might

32:35

reverse into or be indistinguishable from

32:37

a self-lessness a radical openness to

32:39

all that is I'm reminded of

32:41

a line from Doken's Genjekoan, which

32:44

is the subject of an early

32:46

episode that we did, back when

32:48

I was still thinking of myself

32:50

largely as an Axis and Buddhist,

32:52

much has changed since then. And

32:55

that was like five years ago,

32:57

six years, probably six, yeah. Six

32:59

or maybe more. I mean, like,

33:01

yeah, because we are about to

33:03

pass our seventh birthday. The line

33:05

from Genjekoan is to study the

33:08

Buddha way is to study the

33:10

self. To study the self. is

33:12

to forget the self. To forget

33:14

the self is to be actualized

33:16

by myriad things. And it goes

33:19

on, that's just an extract from

33:21

a larger train of thought, and

33:23

I am perhaps slightly misrepresenting it

33:25

by taking it out of context.

33:27

But nevertheless, that line does strike

33:29

me as a pretty good statement

33:32

of something that does actually happen

33:34

to you in... what might appear

33:36

to all the world is a

33:38

rather self-involved process. You're studying the

33:40

self. But there's a strange thing

33:43

that happens, where studying the self

33:45

you lose the self, or perhaps

33:47

to put it in less totalizing

33:49

terms, the hold of the self.

33:51

You know what? Buddhism we call

33:53

the small self, the sort of

33:56

petty grasping ego that wants things

33:58

and hate things and wants everything

34:00

its own way and will judge

34:02

other people and other things depending

34:04

on how well those people and

34:07

things conform with our cravings and

34:09

aversion. that small unsatisfactory self is

34:11

the self that we investigate and

34:13

that in investigating it we begin

34:15

to lose. Now it's very interesting

34:17

to me that we have had

34:20

rather different experiences with this novel

34:22

that you read this when you

34:24

were a teenager when a lot

34:26

of the... stuff about like the

34:28

path of Siddhartha's life, which really

34:31

could be understood as a path

34:33

of any adults' life, different periods

34:35

of time that succeed one another

34:37

and, you know, ups and downs

34:39

and so on. When I was

34:41

reading this, I was like, I

34:44

know this book was... popular with

34:46

young people that it was widely

34:48

read by high school students in

34:50

the countercultural 60s and 70s and

34:52

clearly by you an aspiring hippie

34:55

in Vanier in the 1980s and

34:57

90s confirmed confirmed. And I wonder

34:59

like what do you get from

35:01

this as a young person other

35:03

than a promissory note for stuff

35:05

that you're going to encounter later.

35:08

Hesse himself wrote this when he

35:10

was around 40, you know. I

35:12

know, and Hesse was very frustrated

35:14

with the cult following among the

35:16

youth, even in Germany, because before

35:19

there was this kind of American

35:21

obsession with Hesse, especially I think

35:23

in the 70s, Steppenwelf, the band,

35:25

is named after, you know, born

35:27

to be wild, you know. Before

35:29

that, there was a similar movement

35:32

in Germany, and Hesse really didn't

35:34

like it, because he felt like...

35:36

He's like, I can't imagine what

35:38

a young person would find in

35:40

Steppenwolf. I wrote this book just

35:43

before my 50th birthday. You shouldn't

35:45

look a gift horse in the

35:47

mouth, perhaps. He should have just

35:49

taken Emmy. He was a very

35:51

successful writer and able to live

35:53

off of his work. But at

35:56

the same time, I get what

35:58

you're saying. What is it that

36:00

a young person finds in this?

36:02

I think that it's the sense

36:04

of being misunderstood, his characters are

36:07

misunderstood. by their society. They don't

36:09

fit in. This is, of course,

36:11

a very common feeling among teenagers.

36:13

And it's also, when you're a

36:15

teenager, you're just beginning, you know,

36:17

what Jung would have said, the

36:20

first, the Freudian stage of life,

36:22

the stage where Freud is useful,

36:24

as Jung said, you know, the

36:26

first stage or Adler, perhaps, the

36:28

stage where you're trying to build

36:31

your persona. Who are you going

36:33

to be in this world? persona

36:35

are external to us. So the

36:37

feeling one gets at that stage

36:39

of life often is that there

36:42

are a certain number of things

36:44

that could be. Well, I could

36:46

become a firefighter or a doctor

36:48

or a lawyer or will I

36:50

be married or will I stay,

36:52

you know, and it seems like

36:55

there's a set of options and

36:57

they feel prefab, they feel, you

36:59

kind of feel like you don't

37:01

really fit any of the possibilities

37:03

offered to you. And so I

37:06

think Hesse really speaks to that

37:08

part of us. Most people eventually

37:10

just find their place and forget

37:12

about these questions, but those of

37:14

us who continue to be interested

37:16

in the mystery, for lack of

37:19

a better term, never lose that

37:21

feeling. We never really fit. You

37:23

always have one foot in another

37:25

world. And I think that essay

37:27

is helping young people. or has

37:30

helped young people cultivate that sense

37:32

of mystery, and also that sense

37:34

of purpose, that ambition. I think

37:36

ultimately he's a writer who speaks

37:38

to that part of us, that

37:40

alienated part of us, and it's

37:43

a part of us that was

37:45

exploited, I think, by 20th century

37:47

consumer culture, and I think he

37:49

offers his work as a kind

37:51

of alternative to the individualism that

37:54

is actually proffered to us by

37:56

the capitalist. machine. So that's why

37:58

I liked it then. I wasn't

38:00

a huge fan. I was much

38:02

a bigger fan of Cameroon because

38:04

that's another discussion, but I was

38:07

a fan. Now reading it... I

38:09

just kept, I don't know, I

38:11

don't know if this is wrong

38:13

or right, I just kept thinking

38:15

of the trail of tears this

38:18

guy, said Arthur, was leaving behind

38:20

him as he embarked on his

38:22

journey. Like, he just caused so

38:24

much pain and sorrow in other

38:26

people and never gave it a

38:28

second thought. Finally at the end,

38:31

he has a son which he

38:33

had with a courtism. He never

38:35

even gets married. He just pays

38:37

a prostitute for sex for several

38:39

years. That's not exactly right. They

38:42

do have a real relationship. He

38:44

and the cortisant Kamala. He, uh...

38:46

Sure, okay. She becomes, she becomes

38:48

the only person he feels he

38:50

can really confide in as his

38:52

soul is gradually overtated. I don't

38:55

want to, I don't want to

38:57

say that's not happening. But he

38:59

doesn't marry her. He gets her

39:01

pregnant and then leaves, not that

39:03

he ever learns about it. And

39:06

finally he ends up with the

39:08

son and the son is a,

39:10

is a shit. Probably in no

39:12

small part because he never had

39:14

a father. And then he just,

39:16

the son becomes, like ends up

39:19

stealing from them and running off.

39:21

And I don't know, we just

39:23

feel it. Just parenthetically, it reminds

39:25

me of a joke in the

39:27

Simpsons where Homer Simpson briefly decides

39:30

he's going to become the greatest

39:32

father of all time and becomes

39:34

overprotective and annoying at one point.

39:36

I think Bart says, you know,

39:38

no offense, but you're half-assed, over-parenting

39:40

is way less fun than you're

39:43

half-assed under-parenting. Yeah. Anyway, sorry I

39:45

interrupted you. All this to say

39:47

that I, that's what, that's how

39:49

it struck me this time around.

39:51

Yeah, it's true. I couldn't help

39:54

think about the poor father that

39:56

Siddhartha leaves behind and never sees

39:58

again. Although Hassa clearly had it

40:00

in mind where the same fate

40:02

basically is visited on Siddhartha when

40:04

his little shit of his son

40:07

finally steals all his money, steals

40:09

his boat, and takes off for

40:11

the other shore never to be

40:13

seen again. So it's not completely

40:15

alien to Hassa's moral compass, but

40:18

clearly... the trail of tears that

40:20

Sadartha leaves behind him is not

40:22

uppermost in Hetha's mind and certainly

40:24

isn't in Sadartha's. Right. So be

40:26

that as it may. I mean

40:28

it's maybe the it would have

40:31

derailed the novel to give that

40:33

too much importance but it does

40:35

I think get to the heart

40:37

of the difference between these quote-unquote

40:39

two paths I was talking about

40:42

the path of I and the

40:44

path of thou would be foremost

40:46

concerned perhaps in novel form with

40:48

others. Whereas this book is very

40:50

much concerned with Sadartha. Yeah, I

40:52

will point out that in spiritual

40:55

life, one of the great traps

40:57

is that a concern with Vow

40:59

can turn into exactly the kind

41:01

of resentment-soaked narcissism that Nietzsche calls

41:03

out in Christianity. And indeed, Sadartha

41:06

knows all about it. There are

41:08

a number of sharp remarks here.

41:10

particularly in the passage where Siddhartha

41:12

meets the Buddha, and they have

41:14

a conversation about why Govinda is

41:16

going to follow the Buddha, but

41:19

Siddhartha won't. And there's a passage

41:21

that actually really reminds me of

41:23

a very wise book of spiritual

41:25

teaching by Chokium Trunkpah, a rather

41:27

problematic individual and perhaps a very

41:30

selfish one who nevertheless had tremendous

41:32

spiritual insight. So in himself embodies

41:34

the very... thing that he wrote

41:36

very memorably about in cutting through

41:38

spiritual materialism, which is the book

41:40

that I was reminded of here.

41:43

Hold on for a second, I

41:45

have to find the passage. So

41:47

I am reading from the penguin

41:49

classics edition translated by Joachim Noy

41:51

Groshel. Apologies, if I have mispronounced

41:54

his name. So the Buddha asks

41:56

Sadartha whether he, Sadartha, thinks that

41:58

the Buddhist disciples would be better

42:00

off disrobing. and rejoining the profane

42:02

world, which is shortly what Sadartha

42:04

himself is about to do. And

42:07

Sadartha replies, such a thought is

42:09

remote from me. May they all

42:11

remain with the teaching? May they

42:13

reach their goal? It is not for

42:15

me to judge another man's life.

42:17

I must judge. I must choose.

42:20

I must spurn purely for myself,

42:22

for myself alone. We Samana, oh

42:24

sublime one, are seeking deliverance from

42:26

the ego. Now if I were

42:29

one of your disciples so venerable

42:31

one, I fear that my ego

42:33

would find peace and deliverance only

42:36

as a figment, as a delusion, I

42:38

fear that my ego would actually live

42:40

on and grow big, for I would

42:42

then have made the teaching, made my

42:44

following, made my love for you, made

42:47

the fellowship of the monks into my

42:49

ego. And that's a pretty sharp

42:51

insight. One thing I appreciate about

42:53

this book is that Hesse gives...

42:55

some of the best lines to

42:57

Siddhartha as well as the various

43:00

people he meets, distributes the wisdom

43:02

widely, and the Buddha responds, with

43:05

a half-smile, with an

43:07

imperturbable brightness and friendliness,

43:10

Gautama gazed into the stranger's

43:12

eyes and bade him goodbye

43:14

with a barely visible gesture.

43:16

You are clever, O Samana, said

43:18

the venerable one. You know how to

43:21

speak cleverly, my friend. Beware

43:23

of too much cleverness, cleverness.

43:25

That's pretty sharp as well.

43:27

Not a bad comeback because even

43:29

sort of saying like, well, you

43:32

know, religion just becomes another trap

43:34

at the ego man could be

43:36

just a clever remark that you

43:38

learn and that you pop

43:41

out at appropriate moments basically

43:43

to get yourself off the

43:46

hook of a real thoroughgoing

43:48

and perhaps chastening self inquiry.

43:51

But nevertheless, Siddhartha's point still

43:53

stands. A thou track, a thou

43:55

path can turn back into

43:57

an eye path. Oh yeah. There's

44:00

no safe road. There's no... No.

44:03

No, there's not. The spiritual life

44:05

is a very dangerous one, I

44:07

think, and the perils are many.

44:10

Like, the... Yeah. Obviously. And there's...

44:12

I don't think you can be

44:15

Christian today without taking into account

44:17

Nietzsche's scathing critique of its inverted

44:19

form. That largely, by his time,

44:22

had become the norm and

44:24

become what Christianity was. And, uh...

44:26

Personally, as a Christian, I interpret

44:29

Nietzsche as a kind of witness

44:31

from within the tradition, which he

44:33

never by any stretch escaped or

44:36

transcended. He operated fully within

44:38

it and fulfilled the function of

44:40

any prophet or saint who reminds

44:43

people of the essential truth at

44:45

hand. Oh, he would be so

44:47

mad to hear you say that.

44:50

To call him a saint

44:52

in a prophet. Well, it's either

44:54

that or he's full of shit,

44:57

so I... between the two, eventually

44:59

he'd have to pick. It was

45:01

on this point that he finally

45:04

broke with Wagner. You know, Nietzsche

45:06

was Wagner's best friend and became

45:09

his best enemy. There were personal

45:11

reasons why they grew estranged and

45:13

a lot of it had to

45:16

do with, oh, I won't get

45:18

into it. It was a complex

45:21

story and to this day,

45:23

nobody really knows what went down

45:25

between them. But the public cause

45:27

of their split was parsifal. was

45:30

Faulkner's last offer, which is also

45:32

something I'm supposed to write about

45:35

in this essay. And Nietzsche,

45:37

I believe his customary perspicacity deserted

45:39

him because he saw Parsifal merely

45:41

as a kind of knuckling under

45:44

to conventional Christian piety. Whereas in

45:46

fact, I think it's anything but,

45:49

and I think some of

45:51

the sharpest observers of that opera

45:53

are in fact Orthodox, Christian, I

45:55

mean, I'd say Orthodox, I don't

45:58

mean like Eastern Orthodox, but like,

46:00

you know, kind of right down

46:03

the middle, yeah, traditional Christian critics

46:05

who saw parts. as not really

46:07

Christianity at all, as perhaps a

46:10

kind of paganism flying the colors

46:12

of Christianity. Don't want to get

46:15

into that. But suffice it to

46:17

say, complicated question, the relationship of

46:19

Nietzsche to Christianity, but I

46:21

think the fact that he actually

46:24

kind of committed a rare critical

46:26

floater in thinking of Parsifal as

46:29

being far more Christian than it

46:31

actually is. gives you a sense

46:33

that even at that late

46:35

date, and this was right at

46:38

the end of his productive life,

46:40

Nietzsche is still wrestling with a

46:43

Christianity he could never quite expunge.

46:45

Of course, never quite figure out

46:47

what to do with. And

46:49

you know, his very late work,

46:52

the Antichrist, is largely an attempt

46:54

to finally expunge himself of it.

46:57

But as many of us know

46:59

his last letters were signed the

47:01

crucified and I think it's an

47:04

Antichrist he has his famous

47:06

line He says there was only

47:08

one Christian and he died on

47:11

the cross Which is not an

47:13

unchristian thing to say really Indeed

47:15

I've heard some very devout Christians

47:18

say much the same thing.

47:20

Well Nietzsche is a very very

47:22

complex person, but I think not

47:25

irrelevant into this discussion Obviously Wilson

47:27

quotes Nietzsche a lot in his

47:29

book The Outsider, which we will

47:32

cover, I've decided or I've

47:34

agreed. I think that's a great

47:36

thing to do. This kind of

47:39

reaction to a particular kind of

47:41

individualism that is kind of spotlighted

47:43

and privileged and prescribed in the

47:46

modern West, I think a lot

47:48

of these writers were trying to

47:51

find a way to assert the

47:53

self beyond. Aside from any... particular

47:55

concern with enlightenment just as a

47:58

more of a of a cultural

48:00

phenomenon I think this type of

48:03

literature is about finding a

48:05

self outside the kind of gearwork

48:07

of capitalist society at which is

48:09

why like if you approach these

48:12

books, I mean I can't even

48:14

imagine how a Marxist would approach,

48:17

like a true Marxist would

48:19

approach, a book like Sadartha, this

48:21

is bourgeois literature, but that's kind

48:23

of the point, it's like well

48:26

how do we exist in this

48:28

world? You know, essay was famously

48:31

apolitical and Adam Kerch takes

48:33

issue, I think he ends his

48:35

essay with that, and essay had

48:38

no time for Adolf Hitler in

48:40

the Nazis, and he did do

48:42

things like publish, I think he

48:45

was involved in publishing some. Jewish

48:47

writers whose work had been damned

48:50

in Germany and has lived most

48:52

of his life in Switzerland. But

48:54

he never became an activist against

48:57

fascism or anything. He really was

48:59

someone who believed that the primary

49:02

concern of life is to

49:04

be true to oneself. Not to

49:06

get lost in sloganeering or in

49:08

some ideology, no matter how noble

49:11

or how vile, it's about being

49:13

true to yourself. That I think

49:16

is very much what's at

49:18

the forefront of Nietzsche's mind as

49:20

well in his work. How does

49:22

one become, you know, become yourself,

49:25

become what you are, become who

49:27

you are, this famous line, become

49:30

what you are, and become

49:32

what you are, and again in

49:34

Wilson, and the sense of being

49:36

true to oneself. It's a platitude.

49:39

We say this all the time.

49:41

We don't even know what the

49:44

hell that means. What does it

49:46

mean to be true to yourself?

49:48

I mean to twist Dogan. To

49:51

be true, to the self is

49:53

to forget the self. Exactly. Or

49:56

moving beyond the narrow confines of

49:58

the self. Because, you know, like,

50:00

do we really know what

50:02

the self is? When Doken says

50:05

to study the self is to

50:07

forget the self, I was saying

50:10

before that I thought that he

50:12

meant the small self, the little

50:14

S self, the little S

50:16

self, from which all individuality. emanates

50:19

and ramifies into particular identities and

50:21

particular egos and to which those

50:24

egos return in the same way

50:26

that the river as pictured as

50:28

having countless tributaries and countless

50:30

little places it goes and it

50:33

evaporates and it comes down as

50:35

rain and the rain rejoins the

50:38

river you can see how this

50:40

would be an image for that

50:42

fullness of existence that Hesse is

50:45

trying to to grasp and

50:47

trying to help us grasp right.

50:49

That would be the biggest self,

50:52

like the self of the river.

50:54

And perhaps it's equally true that

50:56

studying that self leads to, I

50:59

don't know, to forgetting all

51:01

about it. Yeah. And when you

51:03

say that the spiritual path is

51:06

a treacherous one, I couldn't agree

51:08

more. It's twisty, it's windy, it's

51:10

nonlinear. And that is in fact

51:13

one of the things that...

51:15

I loved about this book is

51:17

that it actually felt very real

51:20

that, you know, apparently I read

51:22

a little introductory essay in the

51:24

edition that I have. This essay

51:27

points out that essay was off

51:29

to a brisk start in writing

51:32

this, the beginning of a hero's

51:34

journey, but he got stuck figuring

51:36

out, well, what, what then is

51:39

the heroa consummation of this jury?

51:41

It couldn't be exactly the same

51:44

as other... heroic journeys, because

51:46

Siddhartha's journey is a spiritual path.

51:48

I'm conjecturing here, but Hesse must

51:50

have realized that what success or

51:53

victory might be on such a

51:55

path would look very, very different

51:58

from what victory in war

52:00

or victory in business dealings might

52:02

look like. Where we end up,

52:04

we've already described with a kind

52:07

of simple recognition of the arm,

52:09

not as a teaching, but as

52:12

a lived and abiding reality.

52:14

by the river and every day

52:16

being occupied largely with ferrying people

52:18

across the river. So not even

52:21

thinking or philosophizing about the river,

52:23

simply being in the river, being

52:26

of the river, being with the

52:28

river, that being a kind of

52:30

consummation of wisdom. And you know

52:33

what? I'll buy that for a

52:35

dollar. It's actually very Zen and

52:38

I have no knowledge of whether...

52:40

Hesse knew anything about Zen Buddhism,

52:42

I suspect not. I think

52:44

the things that he was studying

52:47

and preparing to write this were

52:49

texts pertaining to Taravadian Buddhism, the

52:52

way of the elders. But nevertheless,

52:54

I think he managed to write

52:56

himself into a kind of

52:58

Mahayana perspective at the end of

53:01

this novel, which is very interesting.

53:03

But what really struck me as

53:06

being... A true representation of a

53:08

spiritual path is that how we

53:10

get there is full of

53:12

unexpected diversions, switchbacks and dogs legs.

53:15

And even when we get to

53:17

the end and he's on the

53:20

river, this is where he... experiences

53:22

the great love of his life,

53:24

his love of his worthless bratty

53:27

son, who runs off and

53:29

takes his stuff. Even there, we

53:31

realize, well, he hasn't, he's not

53:34

like a fully wise being as

53:36

Gertama Buddha is portrayed as being

53:39

a fully wise being in this

53:41

book. Even there, he's still

53:43

suffering delusions and suffering greatly. But

53:45

I might... Point another line from

53:48

Doken's Genjokon. Those who have great

53:50

realization of delusion are Buddhas. Those

53:53

who are greatly diluted about realization

53:55

are sentient beings. What he

53:57

means by that, what Doken means

53:59

by that. is, if you are

54:02

greatly deluded about realization, that's really

54:04

common in people who are treading

54:07

the spiritual path, where you form

54:09

an idea like realization, enlightenment, the

54:11

big E. That's something I want.

54:14

You see, enlightenment is something separate

54:16

from yourself and you see it

54:19

as a goal. The way you

54:21

would see. the consummation of any

54:23

victorious path, victory in war or

54:26

success in business. You would

54:28

see enlightenment as being something like,

54:30

you know, making the big sale

54:33

or conquering the enemy. Something quantifiable.

54:35

Yeah, exactly. And it isn't. No.

54:37

And to the degree that you

54:40

have that thought that you

54:42

were undertaking this as a project

54:44

that's analogous to other projects that

54:47

yourself, your small self, might undertake,

54:49

you will be... greatly diluted about

54:51

realization. But that is not what

54:54

Siddhartha does when he loves

54:56

helplessly to his own destruction, loves

54:58

his worthless son. He is greatly

55:01

realizing delusion. Like he knows that

55:03

he is looking for love in

55:05

all the wrong places. He knows

55:08

that he's setting himself up for

55:10

pain and suffering. His friend, the

55:13

ferryman, tells him, repeatedly, like, just

55:15

let him go. This will not

55:17

end well, and Sadartha, even in

55:20

this last stage of his life,

55:22

where he really has attained a

55:25

kind of deep, dare I

55:27

say, Zen wisdom, still walks right

55:29

into it. And that seemed to

55:31

me to be one of the

55:34

most realistic ways of understanding. Like,

55:36

what would victory look like on

55:39

a spiritual path? It would

55:41

look like more fuck-ups is what

55:43

it would look like. But it

55:45

would be framed a little bit

55:48

differently because you would kind of

55:50

understand the nature of your fuck-ups.

55:53

your fuck-ups would be something

55:55

that you were playing along with

55:57

willingly. Does that make any sense?

55:59

Like, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah,

56:02

there's a moment where he, I

56:04

don't have the book in front

56:07

of me stupidly, but at the

56:09

end, where he's finally, he drops,

56:11

it's funny that he tells the

56:14

Buddha that it's not his place

56:16

to judge other people, because that's

56:19

what Siddhartha does systematically until the

56:21

end, where he finally realizes that

56:23

all of these... passions of

56:25

the world, all of these wars

56:28

and upheavals and just the way

56:30

of the world, commerce and love

56:33

and this and that, that he

56:35

finally says it's all part of

56:37

the thing, it's all part

56:39

of it. And here we're coming

56:42

back to where you opened this

56:44

episode for us. The only difference

56:47

between Siddhartha and the child people,

56:49

as he calls them, is that

56:51

they're lacking this one little

56:53

tiny rift, which is... you are

56:56

engaged in life, you are doing

56:58

the thing, and you forget that

57:01

there is this scintilla of eye,

57:03

of you, whatever, that transcends it.

57:05

You know, and so there's no

57:08

witness to it. The way

57:10

that he suffers at the end,

57:12

the way he learns how to

57:15

suffer for his son, the way

57:17

he doesn't, his spiritual development doesn't

57:19

enable him to annul the pain

57:22

of having lost his son.

57:24

It allows him to feel that

57:26

pain. Yes. But at the same

57:29

time, it's almost like he knows

57:31

at this point that he's a

57:33

character in a story. He realizes

57:36

that we identify too much

57:38

with our sorted tales. And we

57:40

don't see them for the tales

57:43

they are. And maybe that's a

57:45

little bit what enlightenment is about,

57:47

at least in this particular context.

57:50

Like, he's able to suffer better.

57:52

Of course, the hope would be

57:55

that... that enables one to become

57:57

a better person in the world.

58:00

Here we are coming back to

58:02

your first salvo there at the

58:04

beginning, which had to

58:06

do with how Siddhartha, like

58:08

Holts the Planets, is putting

58:11

forward a vision of the

58:13

universe as in sold, as

58:15

participating in consciousness, as being,

58:17

maybe perhaps, the kind of

58:19

source of consciousness, in one

58:21

way or the other. But

58:24

I think that that's a

58:26

very important point you made,

58:28

because... I think it's in this

58:30

realization that we not only do

58:32

we kind of like learn how

58:35

to detach ourselves from our own

58:37

kind of self-absorbed identification

58:40

with the things of everyday life,

58:43

the troubles and foibles and

58:45

failures and successes of the

58:47

world, but it also enables

58:49

us to lift these human

58:52

experiences to the cosmic level.

58:54

So like I've always thought

58:57

that It's a good idea to

58:59

reverse the old hermetic doctrine,

59:01

right? As above so below,

59:03

well, that means as below

59:05

so above, all of these

59:07

awful human realities, all of

59:09

these hopeless impermanent attachments, all

59:11

of this love, this hate,

59:13

this jealousy, this ambition, all

59:15

these things. whatever's above also

59:17

participates in those you know

59:19

it's not it doesn't go

59:21

just one way it goes

59:23

both ways exactly yeah that's

59:25

right and it's at that

59:27

moment I think that we get

59:29

some insight into maybe what you and

59:31

I mean when we talk about the

59:34

aesthetic universe the universe as story the

59:36

universe as a tale the universe we're

59:38

both reading a little big right now

59:40

and I love that motif of the

59:43

tale right that yeah we're all involved

59:45

in a great drama that actually matters

59:47

yes and that the things that we

59:50

need to master by ceasing to identify

59:52

with so much you know our attachments

59:54

to this world Those things shouldn't disappear

59:56

at the moment of enlightenment, but

59:58

rather be transfigured. Nothing is

1:00:01

lost in moment of of

1:00:03

perhaps. Maybe things are

1:00:05

simply things are transfigured. They

1:00:07

become worthwhile in light

1:00:09

of the drama of

1:00:11

which they form some

1:00:13

part. a line that there's a

1:00:15

line that John Cage I to

1:00:18

quote. I don't think he came

1:00:20

up with it. it. I think it

1:00:22

was an Indian an Indian I can't

1:00:24

remember remember who said why there was

1:00:26

suffering in the in the world. He He

1:00:28

responded to to the plot. plot. Well,

1:01:36

there's one more thing I wanted to

1:01:38

talk about about, it calls back to

1:01:40

something that we were talking about talking while

1:01:43

ago, which is what does a teenager

1:01:45

see in a novel like this? And

1:01:47

you could speak to that from a

1:01:49

first person point of view, but I

1:01:51

can't because I I read this for

1:01:53

the first time a couple of years

1:01:55

ago and then we read it ago, and then

1:01:57

we read it. it as a 55 year old

1:01:59

man. who is looking

1:02:01

back on, you know, we've

1:02:03

been talking a lot about

1:02:05

the spiritual path, which I

1:02:07

realize, corny expression, but it

1:02:10

kind of... works. So it's

1:02:12

just like, yeah, I know

1:02:14

exactly, something with more syllables

1:02:16

probably. Yeah, right. So I

1:02:18

am not looking ahead to

1:02:20

a possible spiritual path I

1:02:22

might walk, but looking back

1:02:24

on a spiritual path that

1:02:26

I have been walking now

1:02:28

for the better part of

1:02:30

20 years, going back to

1:02:32

the end of my 30s.

1:02:34

And this book... hits me

1:02:37

kind of from that perspective.

1:02:39

You know, I'm slightly older

1:02:41

than Hesse was when he

1:02:43

wrote this novel, but I

1:02:45

feel like in a similar

1:02:47

stage in life. How I

1:02:49

got into Buddhism, how I

1:02:51

became a Zen Buddhist, I

1:02:53

did not intend to become

1:02:55

a Zen Buddhist. I wanted

1:02:57

to learn meditation to distress,

1:02:59

to relax a little bit.

1:03:02

This was when I was

1:03:04

first hired here at IU.

1:03:06

That's almost 18 years ago

1:03:08

that I first moved here

1:03:10

with my family. I would

1:03:12

like to think that I

1:03:14

knew a thing or two

1:03:16

about the seductions of the

1:03:18

ego, the seductions of the

1:03:20

small self that are possible

1:03:22

in academia. I... had had

1:03:24

a really wonderful conversation with

1:03:27

one of my mentors in

1:03:29

graduate school when I graduated

1:03:31

with my PhD. A guy

1:03:33

named Joel Weinsheimer, who's the

1:03:35

Ottawa's main translator in English,

1:03:37

he was an important figure

1:03:39

for me in my graduate

1:03:41

education. And when I finished

1:03:43

my doctoral degree, he invited

1:03:45

me out for lunch and

1:03:47

I had got my first

1:03:49

job. It was a postdoc

1:03:52

and visiting assistant professor ship

1:03:54

at Stanford University. And I

1:03:56

was... on my way to

1:03:58

where I am now. Of

1:04:00

course, I couldn't have known

1:04:02

at the time where I

1:04:04

would end up, but Joel

1:04:06

wanted to talk to me

1:04:08

about what it is to

1:04:10

walk the academic. path. And

1:04:12

he told me a really

1:04:14

wonderful bit of advice that

1:04:17

I have repeated countless times

1:04:19

to graduate students, which is

1:04:21

that at a certain point

1:04:23

in your career, you will

1:04:25

get discouraged and disappointed. Who

1:04:27

knows what will be the

1:04:29

cause? There are plenty of

1:04:31

possible reasons why it might

1:04:33

happen. But at that moment,

1:04:35

there will be a low-hanging

1:04:37

fruit. a bitter self-consolation, just

1:04:39

hanging right there, and it

1:04:42

looks so sweet and juicy,

1:04:44

but it's poison. And what

1:04:46

that fruit is, is the

1:04:48

thought, no one understands me,

1:04:50

fuck them all anyway. He

1:04:52

said, you know, if you

1:04:54

walk down the hallway of

1:04:56

my department, although a philosopher,

1:04:58

he was hired by the

1:05:00

English Department at the University

1:05:02

of Minnesota, that was his

1:05:04

home department. He's like, you

1:05:06

will see names on the

1:05:09

doors that between them have

1:05:11

garnered every major award in

1:05:13

distinction it is in the

1:05:15

profession of literature studies to

1:05:17

bestow. And he says, and

1:05:19

not one of them feels

1:05:21

that they have ever received

1:05:23

their proper due in their

1:05:25

career. All of them are

1:05:27

NBS and fearful. and pissed

1:05:29

off about the young people

1:05:31

coming up in the department

1:05:34

who are nipping at their

1:05:36

heels and beginning to get

1:05:38

all of the attention in

1:05:40

the profession. All of them

1:05:42

feel that their books and

1:05:44

articles were never properly understood

1:05:46

by the profession and never

1:05:48

really discussed enough, etc., etc.,

1:05:50

etc. And when you take

1:05:52

a bite of that poisoned

1:05:54

fruit... It leads to a

1:05:56

kind of a hardening of

1:05:59

yourself, a hardening of the

1:06:01

ego, a kind of bitterness

1:06:03

and prickliness and hostility. And

1:06:05

you see this if you

1:06:07

work in act. academia, you

1:06:09

see this, it's like bad

1:06:11

breath of the soul. You

1:06:13

know, some people who don't

1:06:15

like brush their teeth enough,

1:06:17

you can tell, like from

1:06:19

several feet away. There are

1:06:21

people who exude bitterness and

1:06:24

resentment like halitosis, and you

1:06:26

notice it everywhere. And to

1:06:28

some extent, this sounds odd,

1:06:30

it's because the academic is

1:06:32

in a certain sense not

1:06:34

so different from the celebrity

1:06:36

biz. It sounds funny because

1:06:38

professors are not celebrities for

1:06:40

the most part, but nevertheless

1:06:42

celebrities and professors have something

1:06:44

in common. You ain't shit

1:06:46

till someone says you are.

1:06:49

Right. Being a celebrity means

1:06:51

that you are entirely dependent

1:06:53

on what people think of

1:06:55

you and people's willingness to

1:06:57

talk about you. Well that's

1:06:59

exactly true of professors as

1:07:01

well. The mechanism of peer

1:07:03

review isn't just, you know,

1:07:05

the... formal procedure by which

1:07:07

a submission to an academic

1:07:09

journal is sent out to

1:07:11

multiple readers who decide whether

1:07:13

it's good enough to be

1:07:16

published in the journal. Peer

1:07:18

review extends to every aspect

1:07:20

of your existence. As an

1:07:22

academic, if you're doing new

1:07:24

work, cutting edge, original new

1:07:26

work, they still paradoxically have

1:07:28

to find some authority who

1:07:30

already exists and is senior

1:07:32

to you, who can say

1:07:34

whether you're being cutting edge

1:07:36

and innovative... bringing something the

1:07:38

world has never seen before

1:07:41

into the world in a

1:07:43

way that they can recognize

1:07:45

as fitting in with disciplinary

1:07:47

notions of excellence. There's no

1:07:49

escaping this surveillance of other

1:07:51

people. old friend Jim Buehler

1:07:53

like to say that academics

1:07:55

love the theories of Michel

1:07:57

Foucault because you know when

1:07:59

you start talking about Jeremy

1:08:01

Bentham's panopticon in discipline and

1:08:03

punish they feel like this

1:08:06

is just straightforward. description of

1:08:08

their own work conditions. You

1:08:10

were constantly surveilled. You were

1:08:12

constantly in the Panopticon as

1:08:14

an academic. And there are

1:08:16

ways of dealing with these

1:08:18

pressures. These are pressures though,

1:08:20

not just on your mind

1:08:22

but on your soul. And

1:08:24

in academia, we're not terribly

1:08:26

good at telling you what

1:08:28

to do with your soul.

1:08:31

And even though I had

1:08:33

this excellent advice from Joel,

1:08:35

which was... essentially don't pick

1:08:37

the poison fruit. Nevertheless, like

1:08:39

Siddhartha, I found myself falling

1:08:41

by degrees into the narcosis

1:08:43

of narcissis. The narcissis narcosis,

1:08:45

that's actually a line of

1:08:47

marshal McLuhan's. Where little bit

1:08:49

by little bit, you become

1:08:51

unfolded in this sense of

1:08:53

self. Like celebrities act crazy

1:08:56

because it's poison to the

1:08:58

human soul to Believe that

1:09:00

your value as a human

1:09:02

being is given by what

1:09:04

other people think of you,

1:09:06

right? That's poison to your

1:09:08

soul and Little bit by

1:09:10

little bit that poison will

1:09:12

take over your soul even

1:09:14

if you know that that's

1:09:16

what it's doing and so

1:09:18

I found myself in my

1:09:20

late 30s getting seriously depressed

1:09:23

and at that point I

1:09:25

didn't have enough understanding of

1:09:27

both human psychology generally in

1:09:29

my psychology in particular even

1:09:31

to know that it was

1:09:33

depression I was becoming more

1:09:35

bitter, more brittle, unkinder. There

1:09:37

are certain things that you

1:09:39

see in, for example, a

1:09:41

school of music that really,

1:09:43

really chat my hide. And

1:09:45

one of them is using

1:09:48

as an excuse to be

1:09:50

rude to people the notion

1:09:52

like, oh, but the music

1:09:54

is so important. It's so

1:09:56

important to me and it's

1:09:58

so important to all of

1:10:00

us that I must selflessly

1:10:02

deploy the... of whoopass on

1:10:04

you and humiliate you publicly

1:10:06

in front of all the

1:10:08

people at the master class

1:10:10

or whatever music is so

1:10:13

important I am going to

1:10:15

be shitty to you and

1:10:17

there's one particular moment in

1:10:19

a class I taught where

1:10:21

I kind of was shitty

1:10:23

to a student I don't

1:10:25

even remember his name and

1:10:27

I was telling myself in

1:10:29

my head I get to

1:10:31

do this because the music

1:10:33

is so important. It wasn't

1:10:35

about the fucking music that

1:10:38

was so important. It was

1:10:40

about my ego that I

1:10:42

was bringing into that situation.

1:10:44

I wish I could remember

1:10:46

that fellow's name. I remember

1:10:48

the look on his face.

1:10:50

I remember how I heard

1:10:52

him and I saw the

1:10:54

look on his face as

1:10:56

my words went in like

1:10:58

an arrow. And that is

1:11:00

a real regret that I

1:11:03

have of my teaching. So

1:11:05

I can't remember your name.

1:11:07

but on the off chance

1:11:09

this was you and you're

1:11:11

listening to this episode, I

1:11:13

apologize. The fact is, when

1:11:15

somebody is being shitty like

1:11:17

that to you, the easiest

1:11:19

thing in the world to

1:11:21

forget is that actually being

1:11:23

that asshole is its own

1:11:25

worst punishment. Yeah. That people

1:11:28

who allow their small self...

1:11:30

to consume the larger self,

1:11:32

that allow their ego to

1:11:34

eat their soul, are the

1:11:36

most miserable fucking people in

1:11:38

the world. You become alone

1:11:40

and your feelings of inadequacy

1:11:42

become unassuageable. And those feelings

1:11:44

that... lead to a kind

1:11:46

of hungry ghost hunger, annoying

1:11:48

hunger to consume more accolades,

1:11:50

to get more validation, which

1:11:52

will leave you feeling only

1:11:55

emptier. And you end up

1:11:57

caught in this hellish psych...

1:11:59

of egoism and I was

1:12:01

beginning to be caught in

1:12:03

the cycle like Siddhartha who

1:12:05

knew perfectly well before he

1:12:07

joins the world of the

1:12:09

child people and becomes a

1:12:11

successful merchant and becomes the

1:12:13

lover of Kamala. When he

1:12:15

begins that stage of his

1:12:17

life, he treats it like

1:12:20

a game. But bit by

1:12:22

bit insensibly, he falls into

1:12:24

the game, he forgets it

1:12:26

a game, and it simply

1:12:28

becomes his life. And this

1:12:30

leads to a point where

1:12:32

he suddenly understands the kind

1:12:34

of life he is living,

1:12:36

and he is revolted by

1:12:38

it. Guts him. He wants

1:12:40

to vomit it up like

1:12:42

a poison. He's accidentally ingested.

1:12:45

And I can tell you

1:12:47

that that happened to me.

1:12:49

One night I was lying

1:12:51

in bed at three in

1:12:53

the morning and I couldn't

1:12:55

sleep, which happens to me

1:12:57

a lot anyway. But like,

1:12:59

I was tormented by an

1:13:01

agony I couldn't even understand.

1:13:03

I've just explained. what I

1:13:05

believe to be a general

1:13:07

kind of source of a

1:13:10

spiritual malaise among academics and

1:13:12

indeed among all kinds of

1:13:14

people. But I didn't have

1:13:16

the equipment to understand it.

1:13:18

I just knew I was

1:13:20

miserable and it became dimly

1:13:22

aware of the mass of

1:13:24

my own ego sitting on

1:13:26

my chest like a fucking

1:13:28

elephant crushing the life out

1:13:30

of me and I was

1:13:32

lying there in bed feeling

1:13:35

like suffocated by myself. my

1:13:37

own life feeling like a

1:13:39

horizon that had shrunk around

1:13:41

to the very perimeter of

1:13:43

my body. And in the

1:13:45

midst of this, it was

1:13:47

reaching a kind of a

1:13:49

crescendo, a peak, a climax

1:13:51

of anxiety, and terror. Because

1:13:53

you know, when you feel

1:13:55

that way at three in

1:13:57

the morning, everyone else is

1:13:59

asleep, the world is asleep.

1:14:02

you can feel this as

1:14:04

kind of claustrophobic terror, almost

1:14:06

literally a feeling of something

1:14:08

compressing your chest, taking your

1:14:10

breath, and at that moment...

1:14:12

A random thought popped in

1:14:14

my mind. A thought completely

1:14:16

out of line with my

1:14:18

life up to this point.

1:14:20

Up to this point I

1:14:22

would have thought like meditation

1:14:24

is for assholes. What kind

1:14:27

of fucking asshole meditates? Hippies,

1:14:29

I'm guessing. Self-indulgent, self-absorbed, hippies.

1:14:31

Those are the kinds of

1:14:33

people who get into meditation.

1:14:35

But all of a sudden

1:14:37

I had the thought, I

1:14:39

should learn to meditate. Maybe

1:14:41

I wouldn't feel this way.

1:14:43

And somehow the thought I

1:14:45

could learn to meditate comforted

1:14:47

me and I was able

1:14:49

to get back to sleep.

1:14:52

And then with much backing

1:14:54

and feeling and much, in

1:14:56

retrospect, comical self-justification for why

1:14:58

I, a rational being who

1:15:00

wanted nothing to do with

1:15:02

religion, would go to a

1:15:04

Zen temple to learn meditation.

1:15:06

I finally got my ass

1:15:08

over to sentient Zen. community

1:15:10

here in Bloomington, Indiana, and

1:15:12

one of the priests there

1:15:14

taught me to sit. And

1:15:17

at the end of five

1:15:19

minutes of sitting, I realized

1:15:21

I'd found something that I

1:15:23

didn't know a treasure that

1:15:25

I didn't know I'd lost.

1:15:27

I found it. And this

1:15:29

was what put my feet

1:15:31

on the path. And it

1:15:33

was that kind of feeling

1:15:35

that oceanic disgust. at myself,

1:15:37

at my own life, at

1:15:39

what I had allowed to

1:15:42

happen to myself, and suddenly

1:15:44

through that achieving a kind

1:15:46

of clarity, that is very

1:15:48

beautifully and very memorably expressed

1:15:50

in this book when Siddhartha

1:15:52

flees his gilded cage. Yeah.

1:15:54

And let me see if

1:15:56

I can find a passage

1:15:58

to read. Yeah,

1:16:00

this is on page 7475. All

1:16:02

these years, unbeknownst to himself, he

1:16:05

had striven and yearned to become

1:16:07

a human being like these many,

1:16:09

like these children. And yet his

1:16:11

life had been much poor and

1:16:13

more wretched than their lives, for

1:16:16

their goals were not his, their

1:16:18

worries not his. This whole world

1:16:20

of Kamaswami people, Kamaswami is a,

1:16:22

his business associate, had only been

1:16:24

a game for him, a dance

1:16:27

that one watches, watches, a comedy.

1:16:29

Kamala alone had been dear to

1:16:31

him, precious to him, but was

1:16:33

she still? Did he still need

1:16:35

her or she him? Were they

1:16:38

not playing a game without end?

1:16:40

Was it necessary to live for

1:16:42

that? No, it was not necessary.

1:16:44

This game was called Samsara, a

1:16:46

game for children, a game that

1:16:49

might be lovely to play once,

1:16:51

twice, tenfold, but again and again.

1:16:53

Now Sadartha knew that the game

1:16:55

was done that he could play

1:16:57

it no longer. A shudder ran

1:17:00

through his body. Inside him, he

1:17:02

felt something had died. And a

1:17:04

little bit later, as he runs

1:17:06

into the forest, hoping that he'll

1:17:08

be eaten by a tiger or

1:17:11

waylaid by highwaymen or something, wanting

1:17:13

someone or something to kill him.

1:17:15

He comes to a tree. A

1:17:17

bent tree hung over the riverbank,

1:17:19

a coconut tree. Siddhartha leaned his

1:17:22

shoulder against it, put his arm

1:17:24

around the trunk, and gazed down

1:17:26

into the green water, which kept

1:17:28

flowing and flowing beneath him. Gazing

1:17:30

down, he felt entirely filled with

1:17:33

the wish to let go and

1:17:35

go under this water. In the

1:17:37

water, a dreadful emptiness mirrored a

1:17:39

fearful emptiness in his soul. Yes,

1:17:41

he was at the end. Nothing

1:17:44

was left for him but to

1:17:46

snuff himself out, but to shatter

1:17:48

the failed formation of his life

1:17:50

to toss it at the feet

1:17:52

of snickering gods. This was the

1:17:55

great vomiting he had longed for,

1:17:57

death, the shattering of the form

1:17:59

he hated. Let the fish eat

1:18:01

him, this dog's cedartha, this madman,

1:18:03

this foul and fatted body, this

1:18:06

exhausted and misused soul. Let the

1:18:08

fish and crocodiles eat him, let

1:18:10

the demons dismember him." With a

1:18:12

twisted face, he stared into the

1:18:14

water, saw his face reflected, and

1:18:17

he spatted it. In deep fatigue,

1:18:19

he loosened his arm from the

1:18:21

tree trunk and turned slightly in

1:18:23

order to plunge in a sheer

1:18:25

drop to go under at last.

1:18:28

Closing his eyes, he leaned towards

1:18:30

death. But now from remote regions

1:18:32

of his soul from fast times

1:18:34

of his worn-out life, a sound

1:18:36

came flashing. It was a word,

1:18:38

a syllable, which he lulled unthinkingly

1:18:41

to himself, the old initial word

1:18:43

and final word of all Brahmin

1:18:45

prayers, the sacred om, which virtually

1:18:47

means the perfect or the completion.

1:18:49

And the instant the om touched

1:18:52

Sadartha's ears, his slumbering spirit suddenly

1:18:54

awoke, and it recognized the folly

1:18:56

of his action. And he sees

1:18:58

that the river is not this

1:19:00

blank indifferent thing set against him,

1:19:03

but indeed it's the very current

1:19:05

of his own life. The parallel

1:19:07

to my own life is far

1:19:09

from exact. For one thing, I

1:19:11

never contemplated suicide. Indeed, I have

1:19:14

a kind of moral horror of

1:19:16

suicide. You know, my problems are

1:19:18

not Siddharth's problems, and my path

1:19:20

is not Siddharth's path, but nevertheless,

1:19:22

to me, in that moment where

1:19:25

he perceives a nadir and a

1:19:27

word speaks itself in him, what

1:19:29

might we call that? I'm... actually

1:19:31

find myself reaching for a word

1:19:33

more common among Christians than Buddhists,

1:19:36

grace. And this is a novel

1:19:38

that as I experience it now

1:19:40

as a middle-aged man, man well

1:19:42

long in middle years, this to

1:19:44

me speaks not of a kind

1:19:47

of countercultural attitude of superiority over

1:19:49

the normies over the child people,

1:19:51

but actually what it speaks to

1:19:53

me of is grace. Beautiful.

1:20:00

I

1:20:02

have

1:20:08

nothing

1:20:14

to

1:20:20

add.

1:20:27

Consider subscribing to Weird Studies on

1:20:29

your favorite podcasting platform. You can

1:20:31

also follow us on Twitter, visit

1:20:34

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1:20:36

course, support us on Patreon. Music

1:20:38

for the podcast is composed and

1:20:40

performed by Pierre Eve Martel, and

1:20:43

the show is made with the

1:20:45

assistance of Meredith Michael. Thank you

1:20:47

for listening.