Chapter 2: With
the Samanas
Feraco
Search for Human Potential
4 October 2011
First Glimpses
 Siddhartha’s first experience with life
outside his home is reminiscent of
Gotama’s impression of the rest of the
world – those first glimpses of pain,
deprivation, and struggle
 The difference is that Gotama was
moved, while Siddhartha claims that
“all were not worth a passing glance,
everything lied, stank of lies; they
were all illusions of sense, happiness
and beauty. All were doomed to decay.
The world tasted bitter. Life was pain.”
 Purity is his goal…but should we chase
perfection?
 Aren’t we just guaranteed to suffer if
we seek something we can’t reach?
Cure vs. Disease
 In his doomed effort to chase
perfection, Siddhartha suffers
intensely
 Sometimes the cure is worse than the
disease
 Siddhartha’s body decays – graphically
– over the course of three years as he
tries to shatter the Self
 He saves everything – even his breath
 Trying to suffocate the Self in order to
reach the truth behind it
 He has the “right idea” (i.e., looking
behind the veil) mixed in with a whole
lot of wrong
Muddled Visions
 A lot of what happens in the
second chapter follows that
pattern – hints of what should be
happening drowning in seas of
misdirection
 The moment where his soul is
basically bopping from body to
body is another example
 The visions Siddhartha has
represent the Samsara cycle he’s
still trapped in – and he doesn’t
quite see it, at least not at first
 There’s a dim understanding of unity at work here
in his attempts at escape, but he’s so caught up in
himself and his “onerous life cycle” that he doesn’t
consciously understand what’s happening to him
Sloughing Off Teachers
 We see on the chapter’s second page
that he’s being instructed by the
eldest Samana
 Wasn’t it only a few paragraphs ago that
Siddhartha was all anti-teacher?
 But we soon see him questioning the
Samanas’ methods and teachings, just
as he challenged the elders in his
village
 He bemoans the temporary nature of
his escape (remember this)
 Once again, no one seems to know the
way to reach what Siddhartha seeks
 Remember, he distrusts teachers because
many of them haven’t achieved what
they’re trying to teach others to do
Intoxication I
 When Govinda defends the Samanas’
methods, he and Siddhartha begin discussing
the futility of their search in terms of
intoxication
 You speak thus, my friend, and yet you know
that Siddhartha is no driver of oxen and a
Samana is no drunkard. The drinker does
indeed find escape, he does indeed find a
short respite and rest, but he returns from
the illusion and finds everything as it was
before. He has not grown wiser, he has not
gained knowledge, he has not climbed any
higher.
 I do not know. I have never been a drunkard.
But that I, Siddhartha, only find a short
respite in my exercises and meditation, and
am as remote from wisdom, from salvation,
as a child in the womb, that, Govinda, I do
know.
Intoxication II
 Intoxication is a really easy metaphor
 It’s the willing surrender of control to
corruption, a substitution of poison for
experience, an inherently empty, sad, and
self-destructive pursuit
 In other words, it’s one of the ultimate
expressions of desire’s relationship to
suffering: there is nothing to gain from
drunkenness but false escape
 It is too easy
 This, in turn, is one of the reasons why
Hesse shows Siddhartha drinking so
heavily in the “Samsara” chapter; he
poisons himself because he leads a
poisoned life
 We find consolations, we learn tricks with
which we deceive ourselves, but the
essential thing – the way – we do not find.
Stagnation
 He’s getting faster – it took about eighteen
years to flee the Brahmins, and only three to
ditch the Samanas
 If the forest is about stagnation – a kind of
self-inflicted torment – the Samanas’
lifestyle is about another kind entirely
 The idea driving the Samanas’ actions is a
simple one: human life is filled with desire,
and that desire causes suffering
 If one burns away one’s own humanity –
becomes uncivilized, denies the body what it
wants, etc. – one could, in theory, stop
wanting, and consequently look beyond the
blindness caused by living as one’s flawed
Self
 Piercing the veil – moving through Maya and
into Satyam
The Flaw in the Plan
 The Samanas’ approach is particularly
flawed because it contains a
fundamental contradiction
 In order to continue existence as a
Samana, one must violate its credos
daily
 One must stop asceticism in order to
eat at some point, to sleep at others
 Not wanting something you can’t have
is one thing; is denying yourself what
you can have analogous?
 The clear implication is that life is not
compatible with the Samana way – a
big hint that either their outlook is
mistaken or that they’re going about
things incorrectly
Take Control
 What remains from all that seems
holy to us? What remains? What is
preserved?
 The Samanas’ principles of
asceticism – compared
unfavorably to the “drunkard’s”
actions – only prove that one
cannot flee the unavoidable
 It’s important to take control, not
to simply hide
 At one point, Siddhartha wonders
aloud whether he’s still “trapped
in the cycle”
Spiraling
 Well, Govinda, are we on the right road? Are
we gaining knowledge? Are we approaching
salvation? Or are we perhaps going in circles
– we who thought to escape from the cycle?
 We have learned much, Siddhartha. There
still remains much to learn. We are not going
in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a
spiral; we have already climbed many steps.
 They’re definitely spiraling…but they’re
heading downwards, not upwards
 Every day spent on the wrong path is a day
further removed from enlightenment
(although it must be pointed out that these
experiences, futile as they may seem, do
prove critical to Siddhartha’s eventual
success)
The World Was Sick
 Gotama’s introduction here is
presented in terms of plagues and
cures – an interesting choice, given his
real personal history.
 The world was sick, life was difficult
and here there seemed new hope, here
there seemed to be a message,
comforting, mild, full of fine
promises.
 And here’s a little hint for the future:
He had heard that this alleged Buddha
had formerly been an ascetic and had
lived in the woods, had then turned to
high living and the pleasures of the
world, and he held no brief for this
Gotama.
Eagerness and Wariness
 Govinda, always easily distracted by the
prospect of something better, grows
eager to meet Gotama after hearing from
those who have witnessed him work
 When Siddhartha mocks him for straying
from the Samanas’ path so readily,
Govinda says he’s merely curious about
the teacher
 Everything goes in cycles: Siddhartha
believes he has “already tasted the best
fruit” of Gotama’s teachings, but he’s
also aware that he’s started stagnating
again in the Samanas’ world
 Once again, a leader is displeased with
Siddhartha’s intended departure, and
Siddhartha simply defeats him (through
the strength of his will and desire,
ironically enough)
Knowledge and Experience
 The elders themselves may be unable
to give Siddhartha what he wants or
needs – but it’s important to
remember that he doesn’t want to be
given anything
 Whether he’s aware of it or not, their
influences help guide him along the
course he’s taken
 Knowledge can be passed from one
source to another, but wisdom cannot
– it must be generated from within in
order to be pure and genuine
 If you simply want to hear someone
tell you the truth – don’t want to look
for it yourself – you’re Govinda
With the Samanas
 Note the return of The Gaze
(Siddhartha’s staredown with the
Eldest Samana)
 Shell: 1 + 2
 Characters: Govinda and the
Eldest Samana
 Mental State: Confusion and
wandering; reaffirms resistance to
doctrine
With the Samanas
 Themes:
 Generational Division
 Elder Samana traps himself
 Suffering
 Self-inflicted while trying to avoid it
 Searching
 Groping for the correct course
 Enlightenment
 Losing sight of what matters
 Cycles
 Siddhartha vs. an Elder/Govinda follows
With the Samanas
 Themes:
 Poverty
 Monetary/spiritual
 Transformation
 Degenerating at an accelerated rate
 Excess
 Too harsh, too fast
 Relationships
 Siddhartha + Elders/Govinda
 Independence
 Govinda, Gotama, and the Samanas
 Defiance
 Siddhartha vs. the Elder Samana
With the Samanas
 What do the Samanas seek to
deprive themselves of, and what
do they seek to eliminate?
 Everything! Food, sleep, etc.
 Eliminate the self
 Why are the Samanas
“mistaken?”
 Their approach contradicts life