Siddharthas Growth through Prostitution - Coursework Example

Siddhartha’s Growth through Prostitution Herman Hesse’s novel Siddhartha provides a basic understanding of the concepts involved in Buddhism. The basic plot of the story follows Siddhartha from his adolescence as a Brahmin through his decision to become a penniless and homeless Samana to an active participant in Samsara to his final experiences on the river bringing him the enlightenment he’d sought. Rather than presenting an extended lecture on the steps one must take to find enlightenment or the practices one must adopt, the novel simply tells the story of one man as he followed his own path to nirvana, focusing upon his experience. “Experience is the aggregate of conscious events experienced by a human in life – it connotes participation, learning and perhaps knowledge. Understanding is comprehension and internalization. In Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, experience is shown as the best way to approach understanding of reality and attain enlightenment” (“Siddhartha” 2008). One of the more in-depth experiences Siddhartha has, perhaps comprising the greatest period of time in his life thus far, is his experience in the large town when he encounters Kamala. As it turns out, Kamala is a courtesan, or highly-priced prostitute, who will play a significant role in Siddhartha’s development both directly by teaching him the ways of the city and the child-people and indirectly by providing him with the necessary introductions to succeed here and the child who would finish his education. As a prostitute, Kamala becomes the ultimate example of the material world of the town. As Siddhartha sees her for the first time, she is seen “beneath heaped-up black hair he saw a bright, very sweet, very clever face, a bright red mouth like a freshly cut fig, artful eyebrows painted in a high arch, dark eyes, clever and observant, and a clear slender neck above her green and gold gown” (Hesse 42). In this description, she is depicted as a piece of art, material aesthetic beauty in female form. The description goes on to include the evidence of her wealth, indicating that she has been successful in living the life of the townspeople while the intelligence in her eyes indicates she is aware of how she brought all this to pass. Her profession reveals that she is intimately aware of the capitalistic systems of the material world and how to make them work to her advantage. When viewed from an objective point of view, or from the perspective of liberal feminism, “prostitution is conceived of in the contractrarian sense of being a private business transaction” (Bromberg 1997) between an autonomous and freely independent woman and a client who she remains free to refuse. According to Bromberg, “liberals think it [prostitution] further empowers women, that freedom of career choice is essential in the struggle for true emancipation from what remains a patriarchal society to some extent” (1997). This sort of emancipation from and mastery of the town’s society is what attracts Siddhartha to her to learn not only the art of capitalism, which she has demonstrated to have mastered, but also the art of love as the tool of her trade. However, the words used to describe this position – the ‘art of love’, the ‘tool of her trade’ – illustrates the shallow depth to which these emotions run. Rather than bringing enlightenment and transcendence as hoped, both Siddhartha and Kamala recognize that this is primarily a superficial connection. The characters recognize this as Kamala tells Siddhartha, “You do not really love me – you love nobody” and he tells her, “I am like you. You cannot love either, otherwise how could you practice love as an art? Perhaps people like us cannot love” (Hesse 59). In introducing Siddhartha to Kamaswami, Kamala provides Siddhartha with the means to become her pupil and achieve material success in the world of the child-people. While her direct relationship with him provides Siddhartha with the experience of sexual pleasure and the ability to surrender to another person, the introduction she provides him indirectly gives him the personal experiences of material wealth and the comforts this can purchase. While he starts merely ‘playing’ at business, he soon becomes wrapped up in it completely as he begins to depend upon the riches this provides him. “Gradually, along with his growing riches, Siddhartha himself acquired some of the characteristics of the ordinary people, some of their childishness and some of their anxiety. And yet he envied them” (Hesse 62). The reason why Siddhartha envies the childish people is because they seemed to have a sense of fulfillment or importance in their lives, an idea of meaning in what they did, while he himself felt much of what he did was meaningless. In an article by Melissa Farley (2002), this sense of emptiness is often associated with the relationships shared between men and prostitutes, even prostitutes who were visited regularly. “One man told an interviewer that he visited a prostitute regularly in a Nevada brothel ‘in order to give her pleasure’” (Farley 2002) with the full implication that he himself had no personal feelings of attachment to her. In realizing that the affection he has for Kamala is similar to the emptiness he feels in his life overall, Siddhartha is finally able to discover that enlightenment cannot be found within the hustle and bustle of the common life. “Only Kamala was dear to him – had been of value to him – but was she still? Did he still need her – and did she still need him? Were they not playing a game without an end? Was it necessary to live for it? No. This game was called Samsara, a game for children” (Hesse 68). Finally, Kamala eventually re-enters Siddhartha’s life after he has had the opportunity to learn from the river providing him with the final experience that will lead to his full enlightenment. Although he has found a high degree of inner peace and wisdom living on the river, he has still not managed to experience the sense of connection with the world that he observes in others. This is seen as Siddhartha takes on the appearance of Vasudeva, yet not quite. His features were “almost equally radiant, almost equally full of happiness, equally lighting up through a thousand little wrinkles, equally childish, equally senile” (88). But then Kamala takes her son with her on a pilgrimage to see the dying Buddha and is bitten by a poisonous snake near Siddhartha’s hut. As she dies, she provides Siddhartha with the opportunity to become a parent, to understand, finally, the full qualities of love. Part of Siddhartha’s cultural tradition holds devotion as the expression of true transcendent love. The sutras instruct that devotion is the nature of supreme love which is also the nature of immortality. Through being able to devote himself to a deep love such as what he felt for his son, Siddhartha finally “attains perfection and immortality and becomes extremely satisfied” (Narada Bhakti Sutras 2008). This is accomplished through the long and difficult process of trying to establish a close relationship with his son, failing this and then coping with the pain of his son having run away. “Siddhartha thought yearningly and bitterly about his son, nursed his love and feeling of tenderness for him, let the pain gnaw at him, underwent all the follies of love. The flame did not extinguish itself” (107). However, upon finally realizing how his life has come full circle, his son has behaved in the same way that he himself had behaved, Siddhartha is finally able to hear the laughter of the river and join in its tide by transferring his devotion for his son to devotion for the currents of life itself. “Having known which (devotion) one becomes intoxicated, silent and enjoys in the Self” (Narada Bhakti Sutras 1997). Siddhartha finally finds enlightenment through his ability to enjoy the ‘music of life’ and to simply flow with the process of destiny in harmony with its direction. All of this enlightenment is only made possible through Siddhartha’s experiences in life, many of which were shaped by the prostitute Kamala. As he learned the physical conception of love from a woman who was not devoted exclusively to him but instead was lover to many men, he began to understand that there was a profound emptiness in this relationship. This corresponded with the profound emptiness he began to feel in the lifestyle that had been cultivated as a result of Kamala’s introductions for him into the world of business. In having these experiences, Siddhartha was able to eliminate many ideas of what might bring about enlightenment as physical beauty, sensual pleasure and abundant riches had not brought this about any faster than starving as a homeless beggar had done. By providing him with a son no longer in need of a mother’s influence just at the time she was dying, Kamala also provided Siddhartha the opportunity to understand love at a much deeper and more intimate level as he begins to try to provide his son with the benefits of his wisdom. Distressed that his son is unwilling to accept these teachings from him, Siddhartha is finally forced to understand how life has cycled back around and that there is a pattern to it all. Only by allowing himself to listen to the “song of a thousand voices; when he did not listen to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om – perfection” (111). Thus, it can be seen that through most of his life, without Kamala, Siddhartha’s enlightenment would not have been complete. Works Cited Bromberg, Sarah. “Feminist Issues in Prostitution.” Feminist Issues. (1997). July 23, 2008 Farley, Melissa. “Men and Prostitutes.” WomanSavers. (2002). July 23, 2008 Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1951. Narada Bhakti Sutras. Sankaracharya.com. (2008). July 23, 2008 “Siddhartha.” Wikipedia. (2008). July 23, 2008 Read More