Significance Of The River Essay Research Paper

Significance Of The River Essay, Research Paper

Symbolically, a river means different things to different people depending on their religion and culture. In Siddhartha, the significance of the river is held more in the religious light. Religion plays a large part in everyone s life. In Hermann Hesse s epic story Siddhartha, the images of the river represent the river s knowledge and wisdom. In the Christian and Islamic doctrines, the image of river represent tranquility, peace, serenity and the presence of a holy spirit. The aspect of religion is taken apart and looked at from nearly every possible angle. There are many key concepts revolving around the significance of the river in Siddhartha. But two which seem to be the most important and powerful are the closely related idea that time is not real and The Oneness of All Experience; and that knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.

The first key concept concerning the significance of the river in Siddhartha is really two very closely related ideas. These thoughts are that time is not real and the oneness of all experience. All experience is happening every moment. Everything exists all at once, and the only thing separating these existences is the illusion of time. When Siddhartha is sitting by the river Vasudeva comes up to him and asks what he has learned from the river, and Siddhartha tells him that he has learned that time is not real. The river is at its mouth and its source and the waterfall and they re with them at all times and yet it is always going, always flowing. Later, when Siddhartha again meets Govinda he tells Govinda of what he has learned. He first shows Govinda a rock, and explains how the rock is not just a rock now and maybe something else later, but that it is all things now. It is everything it will ever be at this moment, because these different forms are only separated by time, which is an illusion. When he finishes telling Govinda about what he has learned he asks Govinda to kiss him on the forehead, and as Govinda did this, he saw the truth of all things. Govinda realized that all things coexist and that Siddhartha was but one face of his form, one of a thousand others.

.He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha. Instead he saw other faces, many faces, a long series, a continuous stream of faces…hundreds, thousands, which all came and disappeared and yet all seemed to be there at the same time, which all continually changed and renewed themselves and which were yet all Siddhartha. He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships to each other, all helping each other, loving, hating and destroying each other and becoming newly born. Each one was mortal, a passionate, painful example of all that is transitory. Yet none of them died, they only changed, were always reborn, continually had a new face: only time stood between one face and another x (150).

Robert Bennett contends that Siddartha experiences a vision of this oneness of life while he is meditating on the river. During this visionary experience he comes to realize that the endless flowing of the river symbolizes how all of the various forms and aspects of life flow into each other to form a single whole. The river, the Brahman and Buddha-nature, encompasses the entirety of existence in all of its diverse manifestations, and the meaning of the essential unity is best expressed through the sacred Hindu word, .Om x. This word expresses a unity that transcends all barriers of time, difference, oppositions, and illusions to recognize the interconnectedness of all beings. I m not sure if this is true, but it makes you wonder, it makes you think of the endless possibilities of life. Many books deal with the concept of the illusion of time, but I wonder if we will ever know the truth, if we will ever achieve Nirvana.

The one religious aspect I truly desire to experience is the realization that time is not real. It would be wonderful if it were true, which it very well may be.

According to Joseph Mcleck, Siddhartha becomes more progressively intrigued by the ever-changing yet never different, the ever-flowing yet always present river. At first it puzzles him, but further contemplative observation of its waters persuades him to conclude that there is no such thing as time. Contemplation of the river suggests only a present, no past, and no future. The river simply is. It is not first here, then there, but is everywhere simultaneously; at its source and at every point along its mouth. Contemplating himself in the manner in which he has contemplated the water, Siddhartha realizes that his life is a river. It too has its source, its course, and its point of termination; birth, childhood, youth, manhood, old age, and death. So observed, his life also suggests only a present, and as such, timelessness. To contemplate life in this manner is to concentrate on essence, on the idea of Siddhartha, and not just on the on the ephemeral manifestation of the idea, on noumenon and not phenomenon. Nor do Siddhartha s many reincarnations suggest any past or future. Siddhartha simply is. Time and timelessness depends entirely upon what the individual in his observation concentrates upon(166).

To G.W. Fields, the river symbolizes the boundary between two worlds and ways of life. This river symbol soon assumes syncretic power, becoming also the major symbol of oneness, as its voice whispers the