Profound Statements to Ponder...

One can look to religion to please society, but must look within oneself to find personal satisfaction.

consider hegemony-  forces that seek to protect and dominate certain cultural, political, and economic institutions and practices
...
The more we are absorbed within a particular society, the less we are able to objectively understand it.

consider reason- the capacity for rational thought, inference, and/or discrimination
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Suffering is not always necessary to find self-fulfillment.

Finding Nirvana is Actually Easy
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Leaders must be questioned otherwise errors will be forgotten and repeated.

consider interrogation- process of taking a critical stance around positions and issues and questioning arguments and claims

...
The line between being thoughtful and thinking too much is crossed when one begins to scorn positive aspects of life.

consider mental models- images, assumptions, and stories people carry in their minds about others, institutions, and most parts of the world

Am I Forgetting Anyone Important?

Govinda- Siddhartha's best friend, sidekick, and follower. Although they share a strong bond, their epistemologies differ in that Siddhartha tries to find Self by himself, while Govinda consistently follows the teachings of other people (Siddhartha and then Gotama). Basically, Siddhartha attains his own data on his search for the truth, while Govinda is content to believe what others tell him if their data seems valid.

“No, a true seeker, one who truly wished to find, could accept no doctrine. But the man who has found what he sought, such a man could approve of every doctrine, each and every one, every path, every goal; nothing separated him any longer from all those thousands of others who lived in the eternal, who breathed the Divine.” 

Kamala- A courtesan who becomes Siddhartha's lover after he leaves the ascetics. She teaches Siddhartha about physical love in the existential world, a binary to the spiritual fixation that he has been experiencing while living in the woods. As she teaches him, he also experiences an addiction to economic wealth as well as gambling rather than the spiritual riches he was previously seeking. While both Kamala and Siddhartha have knowledge, their experiences differ greatly, and therefore their categories knowledge are completely dissimilar. Her gender accounts for a great deal of who she is as a character and influence on Siddhartha, since she is the only significant female in the text.
“It is good," he thought "to taste for yourself everything you need to know. That worldly pleasures and wealth are not good things ... I knew it for a long time, but only now have I experienced it. And now I know it, I know it not only because I remember hearing it, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach. And it is good for me to know it!” 

Gotama- also known as Buddha, this character is said to have found Nirvana. He has many followers who listen to his ideologies, and Govinda becomes one of them, causing him to leave Siddhartha on his own. He undoubtedly has knowledge and wisdom, but Siddhartha doubts that he will be able to convey these traits to him effectively, which is why he declines becoming a Buddhist follower.

“Thus Gotama [Buddha] walked toward the town to gather alms, and the two samanas recognized him solely by the perfection of his repose, by the calmness of his figure, in which there was no trace of seeking, desiring, imitating, or striving, only light and peace” 

Vasudeva- A ferryman who teaches Siddhartha that he need only to learn from the river in order to attain Nirvana. Vasudeva is of a different class of people than Siddhartha has previously communicated much with, and his simplistic and passive view of inner peace proves to be more profound than anything Siddhartha had ever known before.

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.” 

“The river is everywhere.” 

Language of Interpretation that you haven't seen before:

Existential

As contrasted with essence, the belief that actual life is consciously created by actors

Economic

An adjective that describes production and management of goods and services; financial underpinnings of wealth

Gender

An individual's male or female status; issues related to female or male status

Ideology

Sets of ideas of given material interests that benefit a definite class or social group

Class

A category of financial status relative to the entire population; a division according to social and/ or economic status; classism is a set of attitudes, actions, or institutional practices that subordinate people because of their economic condition.

Themes, themes, and more themes...

**This is the type of audio that comes to mind when contemplating Nature, Essence, and Passiveness.**

1. The Search for Spiritual Knowledge

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it."

“Om is the bow, the arrow is soul,” 

Relevant Language of Interpretation:
Knowledge- the broad range of information held by a person
Essence- attributes that create meaning and identity in an individual
Silence- a refusal to speak when expected; keep from expression

Theme Explanation/Elaboration:
Throughout the text, Siddhartha attempts to find Self and the essence of his own identity, conducting his search in several different manners- he searches initially back while he was living with his parents, then by joining the ascetics (where he tries to use silence to evoke his essence),  by acknowledging Buddha's teachings, by assimilating into a spiritually shallow yet materially rich society, and  ultimately by simply letting knowledge come to him rather than by chasing after it. Although several individuals try to impart wisdom upon Siddhartha- namely Buddha and his father the Brahmin (who are both extremely wise men), they are not successful because one's essence cannot be taught, it must be sought after. However, the individuals who try to impart knowledge, such as Govinda, have a more profound effect on Siddhartha's search for Self because he finds knowledge less subjective than wisdom, which can only be attained through experience.

2. Obeying Society versus Inner Direction

“No, a true seeker, one who truly wished to find, could accept no doctrine. But the man who has found what he sought, such a man could approve of every doctrine, each and every one, every path, every goal; nothing separated him any longer from all those thousands of others who lived in the eternal, who breathed the Divine.” 

Relevant Language of Interpretation:

Persuasion- communication intended to induce belief or action

Power- possession and ability to enforce controlling influence

Normal- a socially and culturally accepted way of living, doing, and knowing

Homogeneity- when group members share similar characteristics such as beliefs, values, and attitudes

Theme Explanation/Elaboration:

On Siddhartha's journeys, he is torn several times between listening to what society believes is right and what he personally strives for. His father tries to use his power as a prominent member of their society to keep Siddhartha away from the Samana culture, while Govinda attempts to persuade Siddhartha to join him in becoming a Buddhist. Everywhere he travels, homogeneity is an influence that nearly makes Siddhartha lose track of what he is truly searching for. The prime example of this is when Siddhartha becomes addicted to gambling and money and forgets how to wait and fast.  Instead of continuing to practice what the ascetics saw as normal, he transitions to the normality of a materially-based lifestyle. However, despite the obstacles that society's guidance create for Siddhartha, he can ultimately count on his inner sense of direction to lead him back to place in which he is able to seek and find Self. 

3.  Indirect Searches Reap more Fruitful Findings

“What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find [Nirvana].” 

“'When someone is seeking,'” said Siddartha, 'It happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.'” 

Relevant Language of Interpretation:

Passive- conscious or subconscious inactivity in which no move is made to fight for the initiative

Obstacles- negative factors that can keep humans from becoming self-actualized

Nature- a life without societal or cultural influences

Theme Explanation/Elaboration:

While Siddhartha is looking for Nirvana, he gets in his own way. He is so focused on his search that he is unable to find his inner Self even though he has the means to see it from the very beginning. In short, his obsession turns him into his own obstacle. This is especially clear when Siddhartha reaches the point at which he almost drowns himself- what bigger obstacle to finding out one's true essence is there aside from committing suicide? Just as Siddhartha is about to dive into the river, he unthinkingly utters "Om," and this passive action brings him back to his senses more clearly than before. After this, Siddhartha accredits nature- the river, in particular- with finally enabling him to experience Nirvana. Once he realizes that it is in nature- an effortless, passive, and non aggressive environment- that there are no obstacles, he is able to be successful in his search for Self. “Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate this very hour, and he stopped suffering.” 

Who is Siddhartha? (Protagonist Analysis)

"Siddhartha learned a great deal from the Samanas; he learned many ways of losing the Self. He traveled along the path of self-denial through pain, through voluntary suffering and conquering of pain, through hunger, thirst and fatigue. He traveled the way of self-denial through meditation, through the emptying of the mind through all images. Along these and other paths did he learn to travel. He lost his Self a thousand times and for days on end he dwelt in non-being. But although the paths took him away from Self, in the end they always led back to it. " 

Quote Analysis:
Throughout the 25-75% portion of the text, Siddhartha explores his own identity by testing the strength of his abilities, such as self-starvation and deprivation by other means enforced by the ascetic group he has joined. As his abilities become greater and Siddhartha slowly stops feeling pain although completing painful feats, he becomes assimilated into the Samana culture. One of the aspects of their practice includes cutting themselves off from communication with others so that each individual can more effectively find Self. Siddhartha grows and changes as a character in this self-punishing society, because it forces him to focus on finding his own Self (it is the only thing he needs to do since he doesn't have to worry about eating, sleeping, drinking, or talking). 

"His face resembled that of another person, whom he had once known and loved and even feared. It resembled the face of his father, the Brahmin. He remembered how once, as a youth, he had compelled his father to let him go and join the ascetic, how he had taken leave of him, how he had gone and never returned."

Quote Analysis:

A connection between characters is drawn upon as Siddhartha simultaneously becomes less like his old self and more like his father, whom he previously shared no obvious similarities with other than ethnicity. Siddhartha experiences irony in the fact that running away from his original society, home, and father, has actually brought him closer to it by transforming him into a man who closely resembles his  father, the Brahmin. Siddhartha displays a face that he himself "once [knew] and loved and...feared." His unfamiliarity with his physical appearance as belonging to him proves that Siddhartha has become closer to finding his inner Self, because he has virtually forgotten what he looks like from the outside. While on his search for Self, Siddhartha has no real intentions of going back to his father, regardless of his promise in the past that he would return if he could not successfully find Self. He is determined to seek his purpose and meaning in the world no matter where this search leads him. The fact that this journey changes him as a character makes the statement "he had gone and never returned" true, since the naive Siddhartha of the past has disappeared.

Ability Degree of function for participation in particular physical, intellectual, or psychological activities
Assimilation The social process of absorbing one cultural group into another, more dominant cultural group
Characters Persons, animals, ideas, or abstractions around which a narrative is constructed; actors within a text
Communication A means of passing and maintaining social contact of ideas, information, and culture
Culture Shared ways of knowing and thinking about the world; reculturing occurs when members reject a paradigm of sameness; monoculture refers to one culture, or a dominant culture
Epistemologies How people know their worlds
Essence Attributes that create meaning and identity in an individual
Ethnicity Categorization and identification with a particular culturally developed group commonly descended from a set of ancestors; members of a group who share common traits such as language, religion, dress, foods

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hki9U5-g75g

Fortuna, Carolyn, Dr. "Quizlet." Dr. Carolyn's Language of Interpretation Flashcards. Quizzlet, n.d.   Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://quizlet.com/2861277/dr-carolyns-language-of-interpretation-flash-cards/>.