Herman Hesse's Siddhartha.

Shawn and I discuss Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, and its relation to his recovery. Hesse has served as an introduction of Eastern thought to Westerners for over a century now. Hesse has been criticized by some of getting Buddhism wrong, or of "cultural appropriation" in general, or of being too individualistic and naive in his depiction of the spiritual journey as a solipsistic retreat into the balance and harmony of nature from the fallen, hectic world of family and work. While all those accusations may be valid to some degree or another, there is still much that recommends Hesse's version of authenticity or of Jungian "Individuation." Shawn recounts how the text helped him to come to certain essential realizations as he walked the paths of both decadence and recovery. It may be that JD Salinger and other Western authenticity hounds misused Hesse's thought to separate the world into the real ones and the phonies, but Hesse himself doesn't make any such facile categorizations. Shawn demonstrates how Hesse's thought can be understood as a sort of unification of opposites that neither resolves one into the the other nor becomes the sort of whole that Hesse and the great thinker of wholeness Karl Jung were both accused of. Hesse's whole is the wholeness that includes what can't be whole, something like Jung's individuation through the integration of the shadow, and it is this creative contradiction at the center of Hesse's work that still makes reading him worthwhile.

Intention without intention

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Hey Sean, how's it going? Pretty good, man. Good.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Yeah. Thanks for coming out here with me. I really appreciate it. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful day.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Sitting down here by this gorgeous little uh creek, rablin' brook, whatever you want. And we're gonna think today about Herman Hess's Siddarth. And uh we had a conversation about I don't know, books that were important to us, extra canonical books beyond beyond official AA literature. Yeah. Um, you know, like what is stuff that's been meaningful to our journey or whatever. So we'll just start off there, my friend. Why why have you picked uh this book today?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

You know, this is kind of like it it's not always like what a book is, but when it actually finds you. That kind of is like a huge thing. But uh, I don't know. It I was really early on in my uh in my recovery, like maybe like a couple months or something, and they always tell you like don't start a relationship in your first couple months.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yes, uh year sometimes is it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

I think a year is is is like that's that's probably the sweet spot. Yeah, but of course I didn't take heed to that.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Uh not many do, truthfully.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Started kind of seeing this girl, and there was nothing like crazy bad, but like, you know, one person said it really well to me in like early sobriety. They were like, you have nothing to offer somebody.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

They said it really well.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

You were like, you were like a mess of cables in a drawer that you're still trying to like figure out which end is which, and you have nothing to offer anybody. And I started seeing seeing this girl, and uh, after like a couple months, I kind of like realized it was like not, you know, a good thing for me at the time, and you know, selfishly like you know, put it to an end, and she was like pretty upset, but uh she like maybe like a month into us, like uh hanging out and stuff, she gave me this book. Oh, cool, yeah. And she really didn't explain that it had a context of like sobriety or anything like that, and it sat on my uh desk for for quite a while, and then nine months into my uh sobriety, kind of when I'd been like actually making a lot of like amends and kind of getting to like somewhat of you know seeing some of the promises and stuff like that. Like um, I went camping um in Shenandoah, beautiful, yeah. Absolutely gorgeous, and it was also just the time. I I had like traveled and made some like really hard amends, and I went out and this book was just small enough. I was like, this'll fit in my backpack, it's like really small, and I don't know, it was a really transformative experience just reading this in the woods. I don't know. It was like the perfect time perfect setting for sure. Yeah, there was a moment. Um, I think when we get when we get into it a little bit, you know, I was by a river, yeah, and it was just such a huge pivotal moment. It was it was crazy. So that's why I chose this book, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Nice, heck yeah. Yeah, well, rivers and flows are very important to me as well. Um, the idea, since we're talking about roughly about eastern uh sort of spirituality here, or at least the westernized version of it, uh, you know, talking about impermanence and just constant um ability to take in, include, move, all those kinds of things. So yeah, looking forward to uh thinking about this with you, especially those concepts have all been really important in my own my own journey. So, like what um uh when you first started reading the book, what what made you keep wanting to read it? What what what when you when you were just at the beginning there, was there anything that hooked you or or not so much?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

I mean, I you know it's really funny because you asked me to do this and I went into the woods again. I went, I went this time I went up north, uh where they had that huge storm up in Upper Peninsula Um uh Michigan in pictured rocks, and I read it again. Wow, and I could see myself, I I there's so many things I could see myself in this book. Yeah. Left home at an early age, 17, finished high school out of my car, and then like went out on my own and did my thing, joined the ascetics, if you will. Yeah. But there's like a lot of different like trajectories that I could like see myself in. And it's funny, between those two trips, there's like I I could see myself in different places, you know, and that's like like the constant cycle of life, you know what I mean? We're constantly like in a process of birth, rebirth, death, and just this like constant like circle. Yeah so I don't know, just reading the book for the first time, I was just like, Yeah, that's why I went out and drank for enlightenment. Yeah, right. That's when I that's why I went like headfirst into lust and all these things, you know. But I mean, really, that was actually what kind of hit me was that when you get sober, you kind of think to yourself, like, man, I wish I had done this so many years ago. I wish I had like done all of these things differently and like thought of things differently, but that's not the way to enlightenment, you know what I mean? You you have to sometimes hit every like every branch on a tree, and you have to like go out there and you have to, you know, love and then have your heartbreak and all these things, and that actually gets you to a place of enlightenment, I think. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

So this is one of the big themes of the book that we'll explore as we look at the different parts of it, but just this embrace of all of it, including um, you know, call it depravity or whatever, but like it's all a teacher, it's all a lesson, it's all a part of the journey. Um, and so like when we finally, you know, wrap this up with the ending kind of vision, we'll talk through some of how that happens, if it can, if it can happen or whatever. But I'm kind of curious, um, you know, starting off, Siddhartha in the book. Um, I should make this clear in in the Buddhist canon, Siddhartha becomes uh Gautama, the Buddha. And um in this one, he it's not that it's not like that. Um, one of Herman Hess's techniques that he uses in a whole bunch of books is to have different characters that seem to be aspects perhaps of the same person. So there are a number of characters that are kind of all related, but in weird ways that you don't know is this a different version of the person because he also plays with time, so that you don't know if it's a different person version of the person like appearing at a different time in a different place, but that you know is is either going to be or already was, and it just kind of like all happens, you know, simultaneously uh around the same time. So it can be a little bit tricky, but it's kind of the point too, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:18

I mean, I have uh highlighted right here, uh, time is not real. Yes, yeah, and it is all just an illusion, you know what I mean? And like, yeah, the the teachers you find, the Buddhas you find along the way and stuff like that. Well was I think I think actually when I first met you, you told me the the phrase if you find the the Buddha on the road, kill him. Well, what is what is the full phrase? I guess. Well, that's not what it is.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

That's a that's a that's a that's that is like straight from you know Buddhist teaching that like uh this paradox, like so. If you actually do find the Buddha, um, I think it's supposed to mean something like if you find like the the one or like the end or like the goal, you've reached it, you think you're there. Like that's like the most deadly of all the illusions, in a way, especially if it comes in the form of the Buddha, in the form of enlightenment. Oftentimes, if our enlightenment, I think, is a static one, like finished, I'm enlightened now or whatever. I think you know, we've grabbed on to something that is not really enlightenment. Very, very similar to an idea within Christian mysticism that um you know, Eckhart famously prayed, Meister Eckhart famously prayed, uh, God rid me of God. In other words, like what's getting in the way of my experience of God is my ideas about God. And you know, like my grasping uh at those final kind of like, oh, I've won the argument, I've I've I've I've arrived, or whatever kind of kind of things are the most dangerous. So the the phrase you know that sounds very strange when people first hear it, but I think it's pretty well-known one now. Like if you see the Buddha in the road, kill him. What's what's meant by that is like uh more metaphorical than literal perhaps, but like, but like you know, if you think that you know you've arrived and you found the guru that's going to, you know, accomplish for you, you know, what you couldn't for yourself or anything like that, then that that's you're barking up the wrong tree. And I think part of my journey, and the reason why I connect that so much is I always was looking for that. Yeah, I always was looking for that answer. I was looking for the answer. Uh-huh. The the the the teacher, the whatever. And so we see even in this book, you know, Siddhartha does find the Buddha. Um, so we'll have to kind of get to that point, though. But so um he leaves his house, he's a wealthy Brahmin. That is the regular canonical story of the Buddha, Siddhartha uh Gautama, um, Northern Nepal. This is that's also where the Buddha is originally from. Buddhism is roughly a reform movement within Hinduism, and again, it's really hard to say that any of this is like super unified. So people just imagine, oh, Hinduism is like Christianity, it's not really in the sense that it's so different, many different forms of it, which is actually true of Christianity too, but like there's not one unified set of ideas really. But we're gonna as we go through, we're gonna kind of see, you know, Hermann Hess's understanding of what um you know the Buddha was teaching. And I should say that there were a number of people within the Buddhist community, actual Buddhists, that um said, you know, this is a good start. Not that this is the end, but you know, like um I think the biggest criticism was that it's sort of like an individualistic uh journey, whereas it, you know, actually practice Buddhism in like um you know Asia is uh is like very family-oriented, it has traditions, so like, you know, it's it's not individualistic, and so like, but this is nonetheless, you know, a start from many people's perspective into um, you know, a pract a Buddhist practice or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

And that's also kind of the thing about the book that's kind of amazing is how like simplistic it is. Yeah, that's right. It is almost kind of like almost like I I th I think someone who's like a child could probably read this and get a lot out of it because it is just read so simplistic, but at the same time there's huge depth in these just little pools of like of the story that are just like wow, I could like probably like read that like ten times and not even completely understand it.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Especially when he starts getting into duality at the end and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Huge, yeah. And it's not only do well, it is duality, it's like it is it is really yin and yang type duality, which is more of a Taoist deal, but nonetheless, it's um contradiction, which is why I'm so that's why I generally like his his his take on things. Yeah. So the unresolved contradiction that is actually productive at the same time. So uh kind of uh yeah, uh well in in productive in the sense that it moves, and that's what we want. We want to be moving, um, which is again why we're down here by this you know the river doesn't stop.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

It's a slow movement, that's right. It's not the biggest river, but it's moving, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

That's right. Well, let's start with your movement. So so you left at 17, the house. That's uh uh you said, and that's actually when I I left my house too. But I so but yours was a little bit different than me, uh a lot of bit different. I was going to college, but you were hitting the road, and uh yeah. So let's talk about that a little bit, the beginning of the journey.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Toward towards the end of me, like in like high school and stuff, it was just me and my mom, and we did not get along, you know. I I think, you know, um like Sid Hartha, just like I I was thirsty, you know. I had this like insatiable thirst. I wanted to go and spir experience life, and I couldn't do that at home. And I also wanted to experience the pain and hardship of like leaving, you know what I mean? And I did. I I finished out high school living in my car. Um like I was completely completely homeless. Um I graduated and had you been kicked out or you left? It was kind of like both, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Um yeah, it was it was it was just and stop me if I get too probing, I apologize. No, not at all.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

No, I I'm you know, people in A are pretty uh, you know, some in in recovery are pretty uh, you know, open to these kind of things. Um but you know, I mean like yeah, I definitely, you know, just had to leave and I knew it was the right time for me, and I, you know, it was really rough, especially I think I left in like December or something like that, like living in your car in the winter of Indiana. You know?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah, we should mention uh Sean is from West Lafayette that is uh a college town, but kind of a bizarre one, I have to say. Yeah, definitely. It's like your typical college campus, Purdue.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

You know, and it's weird too, because you like when people think Indiana, they think like it's a very like uh uh just cornfields and like you know what I mean? But it it and it it it it isn't necessarily because of the college either. There's just like a pocket of of really cool weirdos there. Yeah. There was like, you know, there was like a record store where they had shows. There was just like a whole like there was like a whole community of like weirdos that just loved crazy wild like rock and roll music and stuff. So you know, there was like skate shops that used to have parties and stuff like that. There was a whole skater scene and everything like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Cool, yeah. So uh wasn't just engineer nerds. I just wanted to go you've come back home to it.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

I wanted to go find my my weirdos, my my aesthetics, you know what I mean, and then learn what I could from them. Like I wanted to But also your revelers, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Like, so that's that's just the great duality of this book, too, is that both are embraced. Yes. Um, and you know, neither one is like promoted above the other, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

But anyways, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

So yeah, I mean, just learning from the thirst, learning from the you know, because it's it's crazy. He he wants to, when he's at home, he wants to find the self. And then when he finds the self, he wants to strangle it. Yeah, that's right. And and numb it. And he wants to put it away, and he wants to like meditate a million years and like find peace with the self. And it doesn't really do him anything. Yeah. Because he comes right back out of the cycle and he's still faced with the self.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

And that's what you you do when you're like when you're boozing and you're drinking, you know what I mean? You just want to completely numb yourself and you think you're reading's reaching some place of enlightenment.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

That's good, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

And you don't. Yeah. You come straight back into the mirror and see yourself.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah, I wonder sometimes people consider this differently. I I didn't find anything even close to enlightenment, but uh in you know, in my wild years or whatever, but like you for me, it was like we were saying, you know, this kind of like lesson the hard way about you know what doesn't work. But like um, I sometimes wonder, and you sometimes hear this, especially now that we're in the middle of some big psychedelic renaissance for the last 10 years, that um, you know, like and the the typical Buddhist criticism of that is that it's artificial, like it's it's it's and also that you return back, and because you didn't get there in a through practice, because you got there through a drug, that you just come right back and it's even worse the way it comes back. But I think you know, like this book shows, you know, he went out there, explored, and even was in places of great enlightenment, but eventually always kind of came back. Um, and you know, until the end, um, and then you know, we just don't the story doesn't go on. So we don't know if he's like if he's like, you know, winds up in some sense.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

We don't know if he relapses or not.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right. And so what what I mean by back is like, you know, in in the world. Yeah. So there's this very famous kind of movement. Um, think of it as a uh Joseph Campbell kind of like uh hero's journey, if you will. And I should say this is one of the things that um this book got criticized for is that it was too um individualistic in that regard. It didn't regard it didn't regard the community uh perhaps um in some of the ways that it should have. But this is my I guess my larger point is that he all he does come back into the into into society even after kind of his first time meeting the Buddha or whatever, and when he leaves, it's not really like a total rejection of it, it's just I don't know, kind of a part of the flow of the river or whatever. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

It also like I mean, he does kind of become at peace with people, you know, even though he's like being a ferryman and he's taking people across the um across the river and stuff. He c he comes to a point where he's not put off by any of their like search for greed or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

He's like very including that businessman, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

He he's like in and chilling the business guy.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

He's he's not like can condemning him or whatever. I mean he definitely has a meditation about like how money's not gonna make you happy and that kind of thing, but like, and those kinds of attachments don't make you happy. But I don't know, he's not yeah, you're right. He he's he's in it at any rate. Yeah, he's doing it, he's making the business deals, so to speak. But um, yeah, so he he tech he takes off and and very famously there's a little bit of echo in this in the book, not quite as much as in the sort of like story that of the Buddha that everybody knows. But like, you know, he's he's curious about suffering. Yeah, um, this is the kind of this is the thing, and it was a really striking to me that that was what you said too about yours. You wanted to kind of I don't know, encounter it, embrace it, something like that. But like it was the fact that his family in in the canonical version uh had tried to keep him from suffering, didn't want him to see death, that when he finally encounters uh suffering, it's fascinating to him. And like he and then it just opens up all these sort of questions. So it's almost like the thing that you were kept from becomes the one thing that you know you become obsessed by or whatever. But I don't know if there was any way you could speak to like sort of like your your the the character of your quest, especially this sort of like interest in in suffering or living hard or however you want to put it.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Like I don't know, I think being obsessed with like nirvana when you're younger kind of does a lot to you. You mean the band, or you mean like I think Kirk Cobain is in in particular, like you know, I think I I I you know I read his like you know diaries when I was younger, yeah how he had like you know, I guess, you know, been homeless and lived this life and stuff like that, and you romanticize it, you know what I mean? And and you kind of romanticize that pain. Um it's it's not to say that it actually doesn't do something for you, too. Uh-huh. To like to to like kind of reach that lower level and be around other people who are around that lower level in life and stuff like that, kind of opens your world up. You know what I mean? You've you've you've experienced things at the same time as like other people in different places, instead of just this just being a rich Brahmin's son and just like. Which you weren't, but like Yeah, but but like it's still like the the lower you go and the higher you go, like the more and the more people along the way that you meet, I think the more well-rounded you are. Yeah, for sure, yeah. And I think he had to go out and experience these things, and I had to, you know, tour with the band and like do all these like different, you know, you know, make terrible mistakes in Europe on on tour and do all these like different things that you know they they weren't good, but it uh in a way they kind of brought me to where I am, you know what I mean? And they opened up my world and you know, I dare I say like opened my capacity to love and love people who are differently than me, you know, and like you know, open my awareness of people and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

So yeah, very nice. Any uh any examples that come to mind, or should we like any anecdotes or stories that you know make sense in that regard to you?

SPEAKER_00 21:12

You know, I guess, you know, um being on the road, you you kind of have your your like brethren, you know, like when you're when you're on the road, you're kind of like uh in army, so to speak. You know, and I almost think Govinda and Sidhartha are kind of like in that same capacity. They're they're kind of like, let's go out and experience the world, but you know, it's really rough going out in the world completely by yourself when you're younger, you know. But then of course, like their paths completely diverge and they they grow into completely different people and they grow like different people wanting different things. And like some of your early friendships when you're young are like that, you know. You you learn so much from each other and like see so many different things. In each other, and then you you grow from that, but you you know sometimes go completely different ways, and yeah, you know, that's that's the way it's bad, but like but like necessary for sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

I think that's there's definitely one of the lessons here about attachments in this book. Yeah. Even your attachments to your closest friends, like I mean, Govinda, like you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Have you heard of codependency or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yeah, totally. Yeah, totally. Well, I mean, it's interesting too because like so there there is this period of looking for a teacher, and they actually find the teacher, they find uh who's called Gutama, the Buddha, uh, in the book. So, like, that's the teacher, and uh and uh Govinda decides to stay, and Siddhartha decides to go. So it's interesting. Um I will say also, I think I mentioned it a little bit earlier, but like there is this kind of like confusion about identity. It's almost as if Govinda could be an aspect of Siddhartha and vice versa, like the two different paths that you know could could be and like could be taken. If he had stayed the way, yeah, that's right. Just kind of playing it out or whatever. Yeah, and I mean, famously, you know, um the Buddha um against canonical Buddha did not uh stay in a aesthetic. He spent a very long time, very severe, like was the best of the aesthetics. And there that's sort of an interesting part of the book, too. It's like it is like you you get very clear idea that's almost like a competition, and yeah, and you you know you're getting it wrong if it's like who can like you know resist the most shit or whatever the fuck.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

There's a moment when he's like praising Sid Hartha, like you have learned to sit and fast better than than even some of the elders, and some of the elders have like seen you and like you know, been kind of jealous of you and stuff like that. And it's like like in in sitting, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

That's right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

I mean, I guess there is like, you know, I don't know, you can get to like lower levels in in Zen and stuff like that, where it is kind of like, you know, your meditation isn't cre crazy strong, but still, like it is weird to be like jealous of somebody's.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Totally. I mean, I I think that I mean, if I understand the story of the Buddha correctly, that was one of the biggest things he was turned off about the whole thing. Uh, but it really is this um rejection of society, because you know, when Siddhartha Gautama, the the real uh well, the the canonical guy, you know, leaves his family, uh also, you know, a wealthy uh family, Brahmin kind of royalty basically, um, he um leaves his family, he has kids and stuff like that. So like he leaves the whole deal. Um and so part of his asceticism is a total renunciation. Um, and I think if I understand again correctly, I mean there are different versions, but like there is this sort of regret, like uh, you know, like, or at least this realization that um that somehow being in the world is still necessary, that just going off and like meditating for the rest of your life and not eating food is like maybe not the point of life. And and and and especially if it gets into this like competitive meditation crap or competitive asceticism crap, it turns into um just another um you know mistake that is definitely not gonna lead you to nirvana uh or enlightenment or or whatever you're looking calling it.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Well, you think about it and you're like you question actually in the book, you're like, Did do you think Ovenda ever fell in love? Like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Did he completely just Yeah, because he goes all the way, man.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

He just devoted his life completely to this like identity of religiosity and like and you know just finding enlightenment, but he never actually fell in love. So it's like how far into enlightenment actually could he have gone? I I don't know, you know, that is one of the the the quandaries is that like you know he he he built he became the Buddha like in in complete you know what I mean like the the illusion of that's right, that's right, yeah, yeah you know, in that he dressed like him, he walked like you know what I mean, like yeah, but never instilled any of that knowledge, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

That's right. And we sort of see it see this, and this would go back straight to the if you see the Buddha on the road, kill him. Yeah. Uh because like if you see yourself doing that, you know, if you see yourself, or it you we know the dude who like is sober for however like a week and already is enlightened and ready to tell people everything and you know knows everything all of a sudden, we kind of know that that's bullshit. Yeah. So, but even the dude who's been sober for a long ass time and like kind of like tries to attract people around him like some kind of guru type figure and wants people to like sit at his feet or whatever, we know that guy doesn't got it either. No, yeah. So it's yeah, it's a it's a it's a you know, the Buddha, the real Buddha is gonna be somewhere where you're yeah, that that that's not what you know about him. The Buddha that you call Buddha is not Buddha, which is uh the way you know the Taoist version of that is like the way that you know is the way or that you can call the way is not the way. Um so like yeah, it's a real it's a real tricky mistake, and I think our friend Govinda falls for it um and even becomes it to some degree. And I think Herman Hess is definitely like aware of that as a possible problem.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Yeah. So it's really funny because uh, you know, I I always love that part in the book when it he actually uh meets Govinda later in life and he doesn't recognize him. And he kind of like he he says, like, you know, I'm on a passage and he's wearing like a business suit and stuff like that, and he's by a river. He's like, he's like, wait, you're like you're a seeker on a pilgrimage? Like that doesn't make any sense. You don't you don't dress anything like uh someone on a pilgrimage or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah, good example.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Um and it always reminds me of like my nephew who like you know, I I should say preface this with uh, you know, I I did kind of venture into Christianity and got uh baptized and um confirmed Catholic and everything like that. Um but my nephew's young, he does not believe I'm a Christian. And he's like, he's like, Uncle Sean, you don't dress like a Christian. Like I I just don't I don't believe you're a Christian. Yeah. And it's you know, sometimes you don't know what a seeker looks like, you know what I mean? And you don't realize that like, you know, I Christianity might be one of my teachers, but like I have teachers all around. That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

I don't know, it's just funny to see uh religion in these things, like from like the way a kid like looks at things and stuff. And I I feel like sometimes like you know, Govinda is kind of like a child almost, you know what I mean? Totally. He kind of has such a naive like you know, sensibility with how he like sees these checklists of conformity to this this religion.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Good example, yeah, yeah, perfect. Um whereas the Buddha, I mean, sorry, I meant to say Siddhartha, uh, you know, he gets a woman uh and you know gets a job and has to deal with uh all that hassle.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

So you know rivers are never straight lines, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Rivers bend, man. That's right, yeah, yeah. I mean the other thing that Herman Hass was criticized for, as a lot of Western Buddhists or Westerners who are interested in Eastern religion get criticized for, is for romanticizing it. But I don't really see that in this book. I don't really see a romanticization of of that uh so much. And also, just biographically, he um he went east and also his um his mother was actually born in India as a uh as a daughter of uh Christian missionaries there. But um, anyways, he went took a trip east and he got like suicidal afterwards. So he was so depressed because he didn't find all the things he imagined about the Eastern Guru, about the, you know, all the he imagined, you know, the Eastern um lifestyle would be like somehow, you know, the way he read imagined it or read about it, you know, in the in the texts that were becoming available uh in a major way, they really affected German um thinking just before him. So like a lot of his a lot of his uh heroes, like Schopenhauer, for example, very famously uh you know, read extensively in Eastern spirituality, but um a number of German idealists and German romanticists um had um been getting access to those texts. And you can imagine if you if you read if you like you know read the story of the Buddha and his renunciation of the world, you think, you know, all this wisdom of the East kind of thing. I mean, think Beatles or somebody like that in the 1960s, because this book is his most popular book, and it became very popular again uh in the hippie kind of movement thing. And it was it was a lot of hippies' first um experience when they were still in high school or whatever with um you know kind of eastern spirituality, and it kind of like started this whole interest in it, you know, for a lot of people. But as with the Beatles and a lot of other people, they go east, get a guru, and then get disappointed because it's like it's not the way that they imagined it in their head or whatever. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Well, we can't all be the walrus, you know. That's right, man.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

So anyway, the walrus on the road, kill them, yeah. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Yeah, for sure, that's true. But um, and so they they both go their separate ways, and uh the Buddha uh he doesn't directly reject, I mean the Buddha, I keep saying that, Sidd Arthur, doesn't uh uh doesn't directly reject the Buddha or Gotama, doesn't um, you know, w fight to have Govinda come with him or anything like that, like you're making a big mistake. Yeah, he's just like nah I'm I'm a rambling man, I gotta ramble, kind of kind of dude.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

I think the thing that he kind of like because you know he he talks with uh um Gotama in the in the grove a little bit, and he realizes that his teachings aren't actually how you get to enlightenment, it's just a way away from pain. And he even ex he even talks about how he even talks about how he's like, you know, uh, you know, Gotama did not live by these principles. He he actually had to go out and do these things and like experience life and then come to this this enlightenment. But if Gotama had just you know gone by his own rules, he would have never got there. So I mean it's like almost as if Gotama's not making an outline for you to go the path that he did. He's leading an outline for you to escape pain and suffering.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Oh that's that's nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

You know what I mean? So I I think that's why he realized like he saw straight through his like his teachings and saw that you know you you can't just it's not just a straight line. You have to you have to go out and you know, but but he does actually I think like get some enlightenment after that. You know, he goes out into nature and he does and he like he sees things differently and stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yeah, he has like a moment right before he you know goes into society where it almost is like a a a a mini enlightenment or something like that, you know what I mean? Like, I mean it's very similar, a lot of language to the final enlightenment, if you even want to call it that, but that's like the opposite of what it is in a sense. But this is um one of the things that Hess um criticized about some of the forms of Buddhism that he saw being professed, was just that, and it's this it's it's actually the exact same problem within Christian asceticism or Christian mysticism or whatever you want to call it, uh, that was recognized really early on as something along the lines of um escape uh samsara or escape suffering by the sort of like dissolving yourself so that and dissolving all your desires. So you're it's like kind of like by just extirpating yourself from the whole cycle of suffering or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Oh yes, where you can't you can just numb yourself from the pain and you'll live a I don't know, this like just detached crazy, detached, dull life. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

It's it's a form of detachment that um Hess rejected. And and actually uh some of the like early Buddhists who um reviewed them said like that's actually closer to actual Buddhism. Like actual Buddhism, like a as taken by a lot of Westerners, it's just like pure self-discipline and asceticism or whatever. And that's not what it actually is.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Real Christianity and real Buddhism are not the ones that are usually followed.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Amen. Amen. So yeah, and and that's gonna very much relate to that that final scene as well. But this is uh, you know, and then he enters into uh a city and and and the life there and gets sucked in by a woman. So this is uh another one of the criticisms that gets brought up, but I think there's answers to it. Uh so the general criticism of the hero's journey is that um all the characters along the way are just kind of like used towards your end. Yeah. And so uh reminiscent, I don't think Simone de Beauvoir was pointing at uh Herman Hess when she said this necessarily, but it see it was applied to Herman Haas is that uh Kamala, or are we saying Kamala?

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Whatever you want, dealer's choice.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Dealer's choice, but uh so so that she um is just kind of like a vehicle to like you know to further further him along. But anyways, he um is you sucked in by her beauty and falls in love.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

She's his Virgil to the the the depths of hell essentially.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

Well said, Wow, that's really good. But anyways, um yeah, so he she's a she's the guide, that's right, yeah. But I don't think Hess handles it that way. I don't think he like makes it seem like you know he's in hell or something like that, or just like it doesn't turn into something kind of moralistic, like and actually I feel like you know uh the like love making and stuff is very like it's a very mutual thing, it's very beautiful, there's no like degrading and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

There's like this immense respect in him just learning from her and stuff like that, you know. And I don't know, I I feel like that is like the way to kind of experience like intimacy and stuff like that is to like learn from each other and like you know, uh being a disciple, then being a teacher, and it was like kind of turning around and stuff like that. And I I think that was very I mean you you can say what you want to say about the fact that he kind of just like uses her teachings and then and then and then and then hits the road, and and then she is just kind of like this like muse persona, but at the same time I feel like there is kind of like this beauty in the way that like their interactions kind of you know are are mutually beneficial and they like you know are both inspired and they both like love. Um but it is funny because you know I've had so many of these books and like uh you know um because I've like given them, you know, I like get one and then I find I just whenever I see a used one I buy one and I'll like give them to people and stuff like that. And I found this one with notes and stuff, yeah. And uh I don't know if it was like some like high schooler putting notes in here for like a book report or something like that, but there's like some like really funny ones, and and one was you know, he meets like another woman, you know, who just like kind of randomly approaches him and it says uh she placed her foot on his right and made a gesture such as a woman makes when she invites a man to that kind of enjoyment of love, uh, which the holy book calls ascending the tree. Nice, okay to which there is a note that just says, wow, to the side. So I don't know if that like just blew some like kid's like mind. I mean, also instead of just going in to kiss her, it says uh he stooped a little towards the woman and kissed the brown tip of her breast. Nice, dude. Which is a pretty forward move. I mean, I never learned to just go straight to the nipple.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Yeah, that's right. Well, he's he he he was a straightforward guy, he was not playing around. You know, let's do this.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

Yeah, he's got some enlightenment from the Buddha, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Straight up, so yeah, sort of like lacks the sophistication to artfully uh, I don't know, be more playful. He's just too direct at that point, perhaps. But I I I do want to mention two things. One is that eroticism is important in a lot of Eastern spirituality, and it's actually very important in Western mysticism as well, so that like the spiritual journey is often compared to a journey of love. Yeah. Uh including, you know, a very bodily, um sensual um uh you know, part of it. Like that's that's that's all you know integrated, you know, it's very much through the body.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

I mean you think about some of your first like intimate experiences and stuff like that, and you you do feel changed. You do feel like you've grown, like you've like experienced some other side of the world, you know what I mean? Like, so I I can totally understand how that is part of the journey.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Totally. I mean, uh you very famously for uh Western mystice mystics in uh beginning with Jewish uh mysticism, however you consider that, Merkova mysticism, whatever. The Song of Songs was the most important text from the Bible, which is this love poem, you know, the kiss of the mouth and all this kind of stuff, you know. Of course, it's very metaphorical and uh well, at least it was read metaphorically by them as a love affair, a very central one between uh God and you know the the seeker, basically, or whatever. Um, but you know, the thing is is that there's this confusion that I just wanted to see if you had anything to say about, because every step along the way, at least for me in the spiritual path, there's a potential for mistakes. So we talked about, and you probably you should make that mistake. We talked about the potential mistakes for asceticism. There's also the potential, and more obvious to some degree, mistakes with eroticism or with or with this very sensual way of being in the world. Um, and so I was thinking about how when we first get sober, you know, our real addiction, maybe it's too derogatory to think of it that way, but like I would just say the thing that underlies whatever we're seeking is this sense of connection. And so, like, yeah, it's very, very common, which is why I said they tell everybody don't get into a relationship in your first in your first year, whatever. But most people already have like their hookup from recovery, like house or whatever, you know what I mean? Like they already, or they meet the person at the meeting or whatever. Um, and it's and it is this it's not I don't want to like denigrate it so much because you hear men in AA, especially in men's groups, very um uh what's the word um in in in um just hateful um kind of stuff about you know women basically as um I I'll just say the worst phrase I know uh unfortunately, which is you know, this two-legged dope thing or whatever. Uh I just dope with legs. Yeah, it's I just I despise that kind of shit.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

But like But I think they're just addressing the fact that it is a drug, just like any other drug, and that infatuation and lust is something that you know can be natural, but our own sex drives just bring it to like a completely unnatural state.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Yeah. So like at a lot of men's meetings, um, you know, there'll just be like a lot of misogynist comments that um yeah, I mean they they sometimes go over the line, you know, where it's just like, okay, now this is like kind of exposing the way you are in the world and the way you relate to intimacy, erotic relation, um, connection, just whatever. And so, like, to me, like that's this is where like things get really um interesting in sobriety. Um, and I think everybody makes the mistake of looking for some kind of salvation in our in another person.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Well, it's such a line of relationship too in your life, you know. You're you're going through so much like self-discovery and stuff like that, and you're just completely, you know, just trying to live day by day, not drinking and not doing these things that and trying to resolve all of these like past situations in your life and like try to get your head around what actual recovery even means. And it's lonely, you know what I mean? And you just want somebody there or something like that, you know, in that way. Yeah, in that intimate way. But like it's like you know, like my friend said, it's just like you don't have that much to offer another person. You know, you're you can't even stand up on your own. You're not gonna be able to like actually like you know, be able to commit to a relationship and like be able to like live up to your end of of what a relationship is.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

That's right. You know, I've just seen so many guys over the years, and I've been in and out of the rooms since I was young. So, you know, um, and like within the first year they're married uh again or moved in or whatever, or have kids already, you know what I mean? Like, and then they kind of get this point where they realize that that that that they you know that they're not happy or whatever. Um, and and sometimes, you know, it was just like this realization that I attach to things in the wrong way, or I use people in the wrong way, even. Um Because of what? Because of like some deep sense of lack inside of me. And that's the same lack to some degree that I was trying to cover over with drugs and alcohol. And so to me, it can go one way or another. Like it can go into like the the third wife after that, and the fourth and the fifth and the whatever, or you know, just like endlessly, you know, um trying to find something uh in this cycle of like, oh, that wasn't the right one, it's gotta be this one. I, you know, I'm now I'm all now I've figured it out, so I'm gonna figure out the next one or or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Well, he doesn't just go into the city and just pursue love either, you know. He also like fills his cup with like gambling, drinking, just eating like terrible food, like you know, yeah, gains a bunch of weight, just goes to excess in every single direction. And I I think as an addict, like you can totally see yourself in that, like you just chasing after every single thing you can possibly find. Anything you can find in front of you without having to actually face yourself. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Yeah, it's a terror, it's a yeah, it's a it's a terror.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

And and I don't know that when I when I was like, you know, in the woods reading this book, I was just like, holy crap. You know, that that is totally me. I I I'd been a bartender at the same place for like seven years, uh pretty much, whenever I like kind of hit my bottom and then got sober. And you know, I had just lived that life of just like it was just like Groundhog's Day, you know, and he he had you just get so sick of people and like humanity and like you know, in in the beginning when he when he reaches the city and he starts like, you know, he still kind of has the the veneer of like just kind of that like like small enlightenment that he had, you know. So he's like you know, people's like you know, like the merchant gets angry and he's like, oh just like chill out, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Just calm down and don't attach to money so much.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Money doesn't matter, but but he he stays so long that he finally becomes like you know greedy and he needs more and everything like that, and like I don't know, and then finally, you know, decides he wants to just end himself by the river. And I don't know. I mean, just like just like a lot of people that are in recovery, I had hit my bottom, you know what I mean? I just wanted it all to end. I just wanted that that circus to just stop, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Yeah, and some people um get that after they're sober too. Because they because like so much of what's been covered up is now super raw and and and in the and and just really in your face.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

Well, I think some of those people go the go Vinda route, you know what I mean? They they put on the the the like the robes and they they go to the meetings and they learn how to say the things and they learn how to do the things and they learn how to give alms and all you know what I mean, all these different things, but they don't actually dive into the self, yeah, and they don't find the river, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Yeah, and this is kind of like one of the points of this podcast is like sometimes like you can do all the things, and like you can go to AA, and to some degree it's good advice. You you you'll be honest and you'll go there and you'll say, Hey, I don't feel like uh m Joe AA today, yeah, shit sucks and it's not working, and then you know, some other AA guy will be like, Well, that's because you don't go to enough meetings and you know you don't like you're not doing the thing, you don't know whatever, like you know, whatever. It just becomes like this um, you know, maybe that is the thing. I don't know the checklist that's right that's right totally, but like, you know, what we're trying to do here is think about like things that helped us, you know, kind of outside of the program, although I still think it's intimately related to the overall goal that we're that we're looking for in recovery, which is you know, some kind of for me, freedom.

SPEAKER_03 47:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

So this the the cut the the freedom to move to continually to flow without so much um I don't know, getting stuck in a repetition of the same, which is how I understand it, uh which is how I understand addiction, just this endless repetition of this dissatisfying, you know, cycle of sameness that sucks. Yeah. So, like, how do we, you know, become these creative open souls, which again, I agree with you, is is about learning how to love, how to be in love, how to open up in love. And um, I think, you know, like one of the nice things about the book and his relationship with Kamala is like I'm not exactly entirely sure why he left, but it wasn't because he like found it to be totally, as far as I can tell, like hollow or just like well, I think she could actually see like throughout a little bit that he had lost his like way.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

She keeps like alluding to like, you know, you used to like speak like poems to me, and you used to like have this like completely different. I think she could see that something in him was like dying, you know, that he was not fulfilled just being a merchant and everything like that, and that all of this that veneer, that like that, you know, initial wave of enlightenment had just like washed away, you know what I mean, and that he was he was becoming more and more enlightened.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

Yeah, so she's kind of crazy enlightened in a way, because she's not attached to him so much so that she couldn't let him go, you know.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

I mean, I feel like you know, as a character, you could paint her as just like this muse, uh um, but like I think she was had a little more depth than that. I think she was completely self-aware. She totally realized what she was, what she wanted, what she wasn't. You know what I mean? Like, um and could let it go.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

It's kind of amazing. I mean, probab one of the suggestions, I don't even know if it's a suggestion, but one of the criticisms too of their relationship is that it's like this typical male thing where like I had to go get a job because you know, I you know, that's what she required or whatever, like she like you know, tamed me or whatever. But like he doesn't have any, I don't know, like um anger about that necessarily that I can see. Like, he just kind of chills with the merchant and like lives the life or whatever. Yeah, there is just something that happens, and then she's just able to let him go or whatever. So, and then this leads to the the river again. Yeah, so um back to his friend down by the river whose name, of course, I forgot. Govinda. No, not yeah, he does meet Govinda again down by the river, but like his river friend. Vasudeva, yeah, who uh who is his like totally like a different ideal, something a lot like the Buddha, but like uh it's said that her all in all of Herman Hess's books, and this is another one of the possible criticisms, but I think it's perhaps avoided a little bit here, is that there's this sort of naive idea about the life of nature or living in nature. So um he is the river man who is just like totally content to just live out there uh in nature or whatever. But unbeknownst to um our friends at Arthur, he has impregn impregnated um Kamala. So she's she has a child and uh who he will he will meet shortly, but that he just like conveniently didn't know about. That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

I mean, well, it's what's weird. I mean he didn't see any writing on the wall, or he had been having since for like nine years or whatever, so like I don't know, there seemed like there was a that was at least a possibility, but sometimes you can ascend the tree a lot of times and not make any fruit, you know. Yeah, yeah. So how would you characterize this part of his life? And like, I mean, is it is there any relation to it to uh you know your own journey or your own uh the soul sickness aspect? Well, I mean, yes, like if if there's something about that, but but like yeah, having to you know you you've already been out there, yeah, you come back in, but you gotta leave again, you know what I mean? Like, or or something along those lines of like what does he find or rediscover or something like that out there? And I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

I don't know. I I I like you know, like I said, like you sometimes you gotta hit every branch on a tree to to to reach enlightenment. And you know, I I definitely have regrets, like man, I wish I I could have got sober like five or six or whatever years earlier, but I really think I had to make all of those bad decisions to get to where I had to go. And I I think I had to like learn from some of the like baseless people, like the merchant, and I had to I had to learn from all these people. And I think he even really he even explicitly says like you know, to Govinda, I think later in the book that like like you know, Kamala, the merchant, all of these people were his teachers. Yeah, you know what I mean? That that he learned something from them. It doesn't have to always be the one key to enlightenment, but there's multiple keys, you know, there's multiple doors. There's you know, there's there's there's doors within doors, essentially in recovery. You're constantly like it's the samsara, it's like you're constantly like enlightened then unenlightened and going through it. And I I don't know, like Vasudeva kind of is like, you know, the ideal uh sponsor, essentially, you know. He's just like very he listens. Yeah, he's a very simple guy, he doesn't try to go over your head or anything like that. He just he just listens and he's just like and he's been around all the people, he's been like carrying people over this river for God knows how many years, you know, and he's actually like really, really experienced life, and he's you know, experienced loss of his like wife and everything like that. And he imparts that pain and that wisdom and everything like that to uh Sidhartha without ever really conveying a lot of it.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

And just by listening, you know, and just by listening to his his river, which is his higher his higher power. That's right, yeah, you know, and I don't know, rivers do have like a huge spiritual aspect. Yeah. And the one thing, you know, I I when I went out there to Shenandoah, I went on this trail, it was like pretty secluded trail, there was no one there. Yeah, and I was just in the middle, kind of like one of those little like kind of like islands in the middle of a river, and it I'm reading this book, and this like cool snake just slithers past my way and everything like that.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

And you know, I just like I felt like such a beautiful moment, and I don't know, sometimes when you're around rivers for a while, you know, like the um, especially like a fast, not not a river like this, like a fat fast moving river. Because we couldn't find a river like that, yeah. The the um the rocks will kind of like move in the river, and you'll get this like boom.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_00 54:44

And when you've when you've been in the wilderness for so long, a lot of times, like you kind of start talking to yourself, you know, after like the third day of not seeing anybody, you kind of talk to yourself, and then I swear to God, like even before I heard I got to the river scene, I could hear voices in the river. I swear to God.

SPEAKER_01 55:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:04

So, you know, you hear all the rocks blum blum blom. You know what I mean? You're hearing these like voices and stuff like that, and it's a really like surreal moment. Yeah, and then I get to the point of the I get to the river chapter talking about like listening to these voices and stuff like that. It was just like it was kind of one of those aha moments, you know.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

Totally, that is awesome.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Especially in your first, I I feel like there's such a like uh a brightness to life, the first year of sobriety, that you're like seeing all these things and you're like everything is is clicking, and you notice all of these like moments of synchronicity and stuff like that. Yeah, it was just like that was like a big, big shot. And I, you know, I I sat by the river and I read into uh the book a little bit more, and I swear to God that I believe that that was my spiritual awakening. Like, I don't know if there is like you know, everyone gets a definitive moment of the spiritual awakening or anything like that, but like I cried for the first time out of happiness my entire life in that moment. That's wonderful, and I was just I was just so happy that I didn't just like kill myself by the river and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 56:12

I am too, yeah. Thanks for not doing that.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

And I found a Vesudeva, you know, who helped me get away and like you know, kind of like listen to me rant on about all my bullshit and everything like that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Wow, that's really cool. Um maybe that brings us to the to the next thing I wanted to talk about, and uh maybe not is is your conversion to Catholicism just because um you know when you were talking about you know being alone for three days uh and you start talking to yourself, it it it it it made a connection in my mind at any rate of a part of a spiritual journey that I took and I know you took too, uh, which was to Gethsemane. Um and it's a Trappist monastery, I should explain to folks. And uh the vowels are the normal vowels of of uh Catholic um monks, and which are uh chastity, obedience, and poverty. But uh the last one that's thrown in there, it's pretty intense, is silence. Uh I couldn't take it. Um I tried to spend a summer down there, and I just pretty much I was in college and I really went crazy. I had read uh Thomas Merton's Seven Story Mountain, and you know, I was a college kid, I was very romantic to me, like, oh my god, these guys, this is you know, I the scene where Merton's like pounding on the door at Gethsemane, and they're like, Welcome home, brother, we knew you were coming back, or whatever. I was just like, Oh, that's that's you know, this must be this magical place. And I went there and seriously almost lost my mind. Um, just it was just and and then and it was like right in the middle, too. Like I had made heroes out of so many different people. It was like, um, and not that anybody poked any holes in that, but like nobody at Gethsemane was going to like um give me what I at that time wanted, which was actually exactly what I I did, I did not need to like find the thing that I needed there. I just needed to realize that the thing is the the movement, the the the you know continual awakening, not you know one big moment. There is no like, oh welcome home, brother, you're you know, you're in the right place or whatever. That was a really important thing for me to realize that I didn't know at the time. I was just kind of like, man, I'm going crazy, like I have to get out of here. But anyway, just to make the connection to that, you know, our both of our spiritual paths. Um, I mean, there are many ways in which I still consider myself Catholic, although I don't practice, but having been born and raised Catholic, and you know talking to me, like I I still know all the talk. I still, I mean, I studied so many Catholic theologians in my life. I, you know, you know, I know the catechism still. So, like, anyways, I just uh, you know, that was a major part of my life. So uh we have some connection there. I just wanted to open up any.

SPEAKER_00 58:52

I mean, like, really, Gethsemane is actually why I pursued Catholicism completely. And it was completely by accident. Another like just moment of like synchronicity where I'd been reading Thomas Merton. Um I'm glad I didn't read with Seven Story Mountain though, because it's not like my crazy favorite. Like, I really love like reading just in pieces, like his like uh the book Seeds of Contemplation or I but there's a Seeds of Contemplation classic, yeah. But there's I I started reading that and like some other books and uh some of his like diaries and stuff like that, and I was just blown away in awe by the way he writes about his love for for God and just like and in such a like almost like non-pious way or something like that, and just a such a like a beautiful, intimate, humility way. Yeah, and I'd never really read anything like that, yeah. And uh, you know, I I wasn't related uh eight like I wasn't uh raised in any like religious atmosphere or anything like that. The closest thing I had was we moved to Arkansas when I was like seven or eight, and some Baptists like circled the house trying to baptize me and stuff like that. So that's like the only background I had.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

So I read some Merton. Some uh friends of mine had invited me to go down to Gethsemane, uh-huh, but I had no clue that those were connected things at all. Oh, interesting. And I I uh I had this bike trip planned where I was going to bike from Pittsburgh to DC totally by myself for like a week.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

Um, and then right after that, I was gonna go down to um the Abbey and and meet these people and stuff. And it was so funny, right when I got there, and they were like, oh yeah, and then we're gonna go see uh Thomas Merton's grave. And I was like, Okay, wait, what?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:44

Yeah, I didn't know the body got back here. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Yeah, so he's buried, he's buried uh I didn't realize uh on the grounds there. Um but I had no clue.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

I was there and even know that, yeah. I thought I thought he was like dying in Vietnam, so that I didn't know that they were able to get him here. Yeah. But anyway, so go ahead. Killed, I think, but you know, yeah, right now there's a lot of conspiracy theories in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:03

Anyway, like you know, like like you said, like there's the um silent retreat aspect of that, which I love. Yeah, it was because I love like going into the woods by myself. I love you know biking for like a week on a trip completely by myself and barely having any any human interaction because my mind can actually like talk to itself.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mine too.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

And and I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

And I love that monastery just because it is just like so gorgeous, and you know, the way they like do their like you know, readings throughout the day and like their songs and everything like that are just like absolutely beautiful. You know, meeting brother Luke and everything, like the organist, just like so many beautiful, beautiful things there. I just realized like wow, right, I could really see myself uh going down this road and like pursuing Catholicism. Um and it was really funny because you know, I I'm a server uh slash bartender, like still.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

I thought you meant like an altar boy, but anyways, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:05

They call them servers now. Okay, it's really okay. But uh I could believe it. I was just out I was working at a restaurant and stuff, and uh this guy just like blurts out Thomas Merton, and it's not something you hear like every day, you know what I mean? And I just started talking with him, and he was like, you know, maybe you should like get coffee with me and we'll we'll like talk about this, you know. I've I've helped people through Catholicism and stuff. Really? And I I was like blurts it out. Like, well, he was just talking with another person about Tom Thomas Merton and something. Gotcha. And I kind of like chimed in, I was like, oh wow, Thomas Merton. I I love that. And I told him about going down to uh Gethsemane, and uh he you know mentioned that his father went down to Gethsemane so many times every year, and he passed away, and he he'd never been himself, so he kind of like you know helped me across that river and uh actually get confirmed in uh Catholicism.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:59

And it's funny that I ended up going back with him, taking him across the other river to uh Gethsemane and stuff like that. Oh, cool, yeah. Which I I do not think he did well with the not talking because yeah he kept on wanting, he kept on wanting to talk to me, and I'm like, dude, just like Come on, guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

Come on, I get I get it, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, I get close to psychosis if I am quiet for too long. I mean, maybe I'd be better now. I don't know. I should test it out, but um, yeah, but it's uh it's again this uh especially in Merton's life, and this is like really related to the book. To me, there's this incredible sort of like worldliness and then detachment. And then even in Merton's detachment, he was not um a strict aesthetic in the sense of like you know, like a lot of his like meditations are about like sensual things, like food and you know, like uh just different uh experiences in nature and those kinds of things. There's not uh a total rejection of the body or anything there, and there's also a lot of speculation, again, rumors who knows that he had little trists with you know various uh women throughout his time where he was supposedly cloistered, because after being cloistered for a certain amount of time he became a celebrity and like you know would go out to speak and uh and you know eventually even died in Vietnam again because of this connection between uh East and West, especially with Tikna Han and that whole you know rapprochement between um uh Western mysticism and eastern mysticism.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:32

One thing I have to say is that I don't understand somebody who wants their saints completely clean. Right on, right on. I mean, yeah, totally. Like, I don't I I love that this Sid Hartha actually goes into the world and experiences like sin. And it's like, you know, like uh Thomas Merton is is kind of taken off the list of being a saint because he had some some random uh affairs and stuff like that, you know. But like I I don't see how that taints him at all. Yeah, yeah. It actually makes me love him more. Totally. You know what I mean? Yeah, and I mean, you know, I don't know, maybe I'm I'm just of the uh um, you know, the mentality of uh last temptation of Christ. I love that he goes into uh into sin and stuff like that and conquers it instead of just completely being holy his entire life. It's like the difference between Siddhartha and in Govinda essentially. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

I I love that. Yeah, I totally love that. And I and I think it's I think it's like so related to the next episode in the book, uh we're you know, coming to the close, but um he's out there perfectly contented, and the world comes back for him. Uh his past kind of comes back for him. So uh Kamala wants to go find the Buddha, I think, but like kind of like runs into um uh Siddhartha, and then you know, is like this is your kid or whatever, and then our our snake friend comes. And you know he didn't bite me. And uh bites Kamala, she dies, and then uh you know Siddharth has his has his son. Um, and his son is very unhappy with their way of life because his son is used to life, I guess, with a relative amount of wealth. It sounds like Kamala had somewhat independent means, was from a somewhat wealthy family uh in the city, and so was just used to a totally different lifestyle and was like just belligerently angry about having to be out there. Um, and so I guess this is just one more kind of like worldly connection that becomes kind of interesting to me. I'm glad they didn't just like end blissed out on the on the river. Uh, but I will say that this is another criticism that we're where Herman Hess gets majorly criticized because it seems like he's making excuses for his own life.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

Um, he was married three times. The first time he had three kids, um, and right after he was married, he like went off to go live by himself. It almost seems in this instance where it's like he's playing that out so that like, well, the kids didn't like, you know, the this, you know, out there in the middle of the you know, woods, you know, not connected to city kind of lifestyle. And so, like, you know, the way it's portrayed in the book is like I had to let him go. Uh and I would have just been a burden to him or whatever. Whereas critics would say, no, that's your responsible pardon me, that's we that's your responsibility, so you know, you need to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

Which kind of goes to the whole thing that, like, you know, uh, do you just completely go to a hermitage and like escape the world, or do you, you know, become immersed in the world and just like stay there? And I think like I think for me at least, I like my trips where I go completely by myself and do my own thing and like have these like moments where I don't talk for like a week or something like that. But I don't neglect the people in my world, you know, to go on, you know, you have to keep on searching, you have to keep on going towards yourself, but you still have to like be there for people and you still have to like love and support people, you know what I mean? And and that is kind of it is an individualistic story of like you know, finding, you know, uh finding your path and stuff like that. But your path can also involve people and stuff. Probably doesn't make for a as uh easy to read book. Yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

If there's well, too, like his son, um he's portrayed, it's like he his love for his son is very real and very much portrayed in it. He does love and care for him. So they have to make it so that, or Herman Hess has to make it so that when he lets him go back to the life he knew, that like he's doing that out of love. Um so there's that. Um, but like there's also this like struggle that Sid Arthur is having. Like, am I falling back into like the world in a negative way because of my tremendous love for my kids? So um, you know, I'm doing all these things like because the kid's pissed, he doesn't get enough food, doesn't get I'm like making all these exceptions, I'm letting him like I'm indulging him in ways that um you know I've rejected myself or whatever, but like uh he it just kind of like, but I'm doing it for the love of my child and all this kind of stuff. So for me, it just brought up so many issues around um you know, children and like you know, or very just relationships in general, I suppose. That just like I again think it's good, and I think probably Herman Hess does too, if I can if I'm reading this right, I think it's good to be called back into the world via love. Like, like, like, yeah, we fall. Like, and and that's good. Like, you should fall in love. You should fall, you know, like love should always be a fall. I mean, that's the only way it can be. It can't be something you're in control of, something that you call the shots around and all that kind of stuff, and like so, like his son not being able to dig his lifestyle or whatever, and you know, him um not being, you know, and and him being okay with that, I guess, like letting him go or whatever, is kind of a you know, you could read it positively on on one side. Uh you could also say, I mean, I and I get this too, and this is part of the confusion about love and being in love, is like, you know, if you really loved the kid, you would have gone lived in the city. Yeah. And raised him in the city or whatever, if you really would have, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:29

But also, I I think there's this thing of, you know, especially at a certain age with kids, you have to, you know, they they they need you so much in the beginning, and then they don't need you as much later in life. And you have to have this kind of detached love where you're not choosing the path for them, you know, you're not saying like you need to do this or you need to you need to pursue this, like, you know, because they're gonna grow into whoever they want to be. Yeah, you know what I mean? And I think I I when I was young, I I just I don't think my mom could understand where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. And you know, you know, now like you know, I'm in a relationship uh and I have a stepson and everything like that, and you know, it he's he's getting to be like 14, and it's like almost like you have to be supportive and you have to like show love, but you know, if he wants to pursue this or that or that, it's like yeah, every day is completely different, and you just have to like kind of stand but beside that, and I think that like detached love is kind of the way it has to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:35

The only way to love, really.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:36

Otherwise, it's super and Vesadeva even kind of you know, he wants to go across the river and go find him, and Vesadeva is just kind of like, you know, you're gonna do what you're gonna do, but you know it's kind of not, you know, and he even listens to the river, the river's kind of laughing at him, you know. And then he has this moment where he's in pain with the loss of his son, and he looks into the river and he sees a reflection of his dad, and he starts reflecting on how his dad, yeah. And it's the same cycle all over again. And I remember getting sober and finally, you know, seeing some of the things that my parents like, you know, like did to me when I was younger and stuff like that, just like not treating me well or not like being great parents and stuff, and realizing that like they were just people like doing the things that they had to do, and you know, they they you know had been hurt in their lives and all of these like different things, and you actually start to see yourself in them. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? You don't see that when you're younger. Right, right. Because you haven't you haven't lived all of the different like the ways of life and experienced all the different people and all the different things. And I don't know, I just like when he kind of like sees his reflection in the water and sees his like uh you know his father, it was kind of like a big moment in my life when especially when I had to make amends to my parents. You know what I mean? I hadn't talked to them in like 10, 15 years when I got sober. So like going to them and like apologizing, they were kind of like, Why are you apologizing to me? It's like because you know, I did things when I was younger, you know, punched walls and did all this like stuff, you know. And you know, just like apologizing for that and making amends for it without saying, Well, you did this to me in my life, you know, and all that stuff. And just realizing that they're they're people that I hurt too. Okay, you know what I mean, was like a huge thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:28

Yeah, that cycle is so tremendously interesting and very present in the book as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:34

It's part of samsara is like becoming your parents in a way, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:37

It's like Yeah, and this and this brings us really to this last final embrace of samsara, which I think um we can talk more about the vision. I don't know if you had anything to to read about it, or it was just something we could we we should should just talk through. But the um final embrace of some samsara, I'm putting it on the river there after his son has left or whatever. And um I think Govinda has uh died or left or what I I forget.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:04

Um left and then has like come back. He like left the oh right, yeah, and left the Buddhists, and they have that last conversation about like Govinda Govinda's like, you know, tell me what you've learned and that's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:18

I I think the biggest, and this is the thing that I I always like say at leads, you know, whenever I'm asked to like lead at uh meetings and stuff, is that like you know, Govinda's really trying to under like help me get some of your wisdom essentially. And this is Siddhartha says, Yes, I have thoughts and knowledge here and there, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a day. I have become aware of knowledge just as one feels life in one's heart. I have had many thoughts, but it would be difficult for me to tell you about them. But this is one thought that has impressed me, Govinda. Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish. And it's it's it's because he didn't get wisdom just from a checklist or or like you know, doing all the right things, you know, he did the wrong things, and that's how he got wisdom. And you can't you can't express that to people. And I think that's sometimes the shortcomings of recovery is that like you know, the wisdom of recovery is not, you know, transferable. It's not explicitly in the big book, you know. It's you can read those 164 million times and like you will get a lot of different things, and as you live, you will understand them more. Yeah. Um, but the wisdom is not just in the words, you know, it's it's in your life and it's in who you love and and and all of the things that surround that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:43

So yeah, I I really like that because uh I think there's a certain intellectual knowing that's sort of one thing that I've pursued a lot in my life, uh, per sap perhaps sometimes as an escape from just sort of the terror of love. But um, you know, like knowing through experience is through this embrace of love that if we are to embrace all of it, the all the samsara, all of the cycles, all the suffering, as well as all the joys and all the pleasures, um, you know, where we have to be able to take in all of it. And uh, you know, there is this idea in both Western and Eastern philosophy that love is uh the only way to know. Like I don't know you until I love you. Yeah. Um, I can just I can know like facts about you or whatever, but I don't really know anything about you. There's this different kind of knowing through loving. And so, you know, I I like to think of recovery um, you know, in its most expansive form as like this lesson in how to love basically, how to learning, learning or building capacities uh for that love. And so um one of the ways in which I kind of juxtapose various relations to samsara is like the escape or the embrace. Um, or you could maybe combine the two and say something like escape through embrace, but it's like it's still it would be like still being in it or being there. So in Western philosophy, most famously, uh Heraclitus and uh his little saying about the river is you know, you can never be into step into the same river once or whatever, because it's like so like the question is always like what is the identity of a flow? It's it's all because it's not never a thing, it's never a static thing or whatever, it's a flow. You call it a flow, but it's almost like this name for something that can't be named because it's moving too fast to name it, or whatever. It's always it's always other than itself, it's always becoming other than itself. And so, you know, that's kind of how I like to see this end vision down by the river is like there's a lot of particular people that he sees in this vision, there's a lot of particular moments that he sees in this vision, but he sees them kind of all at once. Another big big Hess theme is like this simultaneity of time, like all big one um thing happening together or whatever, and so um you know, but like at the same time it's rolling out over time, so it's like this final embrace of the absolute contradiction of time, you know, like that, you know, there's this eternity now, and also it's it's it's not yet. Um in Christian theology, um, it's called already but not yet theology, uh, which is yeah, you often centered around Jesus proclaim proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God, and then people taking it one kind of way, thinking it was about to come, and then it didn't come in the form they thought, and so they thought, like, okay, well, um, you know, it's some sort of different thing. You know, the there's this e it's either there's just either like he's a kook, like like there's no no way to take that, or it means something, but you know, not what we originally thought, which is like the kingdom has already come, this kingdom is within kind of a thing, eternity is now kind of a thing, and also it hasn't happened yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:09

I mean, I don't know how you can look at the world with absolution. I don't I don't I don't even understand how you could look at the world and see b like black and white, like you can just see it as like a flat plane. Right. It's like it's ever changing and and one thing means another, and like the one the there's like one whole part in this book where he's like kind of talking about the duality to Govinda, and it it there's just so many things that I'm just like you could like pretty much read this like a million different times. Um and it's you know, he kind of asks him, he's like, uh he's like, what if you know the river is just you know, is you you think this river is like a god or something like that, and it's actually like what if it's not? You know, and he kind of just says, he's like, This is not troubling me much. You know, if they are illusions, then I am also an illusion. And they are also always the same nature as myself. He's like, it is which makes them so lovable and venerable. This is why I can love them. And here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. Seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:18

You know, yeah, preach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's not, it's not it it really, you know, one of the criticisms is about like, oh, this like um naive view of nature, naive view of time, where it's like this all-at-once kind of time or whatever. Um, but it's like it's not, it's a contradiction. Like the like the love and the and the built-up capacity for love is this a built-up ability to include this contradiction uh and to live by it, really, to live as a flow. That's what that's the only thing it could possibly mean. And I think you know, Hess was or Hesse was so uh influenced by Nietzsche, read lots of Nietzsche, who you know had this whole thing about you know the Dionysian and the Apollonian, that central contradiction. Um, and then you know, he uh actually met Young, but he did therapy with a Jungian whose name I can't remember. Um, and so you know, in Jung you have this idea of the embrace of the shadow. So, like this it's like this wholeness that includes incompleteness. So, you know what I mean? It's like there's this great contradiction around embracing that which you can't embrace, that which is unbraceable, you know, unembraceable or whatever. Um, so it is this um I don't know for me it's not liable to some of those charges that it gets that gets thrown against him. Uh it's not liable in the easiest possible way.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:42

If you looked at it from a very set like surface level, yeah, if you didn't dive deep into it and you just looked at like the oh, this book is about a guy who goes out into the woods and like becomes lightning. That's right, yeah, yeah. Um I and they may be talking about the escapism of his own life, like, you know, or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:59

But I think there's a lot more depth to to some of the the I mean, if you if you go into some of the parts of the book, it's just like just extreme duality and like well very clear embrace of contradiction, so then you just really can't say that there's any like, and this is the same thing that gets thrown against Jung all the time. It's like, oh, he like he's all about wholeness and completeness, uh, but then it's like, yeah, but it's a weird kind of wholeness. It's like it includes what can't be made whole, it includes like the shadow. So like it's it's like it is a tendency towards bringing together, including you know, that which can't be, you know, brought together uh in a in a you know in a one. It's almost like uh a two-ness that creates you know this third thing or whatever, this third non-thing, however you want to put it. So yeah. But anyway, Sean, I really appreciate it. Um I don't know if any last thoughts about this. No man, thanks for having me off.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:55

You know, I see myself in a different part of this book every single time I read it. Uh sometimes I'm emergency, sometimes like enlightened. So, you know, ask me another 10 years maybe to read the book again. I'll see where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:09

That'll be great, man. And any other any other books you ever want to do, that would be awesome. So this was really great, and I learned a lot. So thanks again for coming to read this again, sir. Thanks, brother. All right, yeah, brother. Peace. Peace.