Splash No. 187 - Revelation

Revelation

Every once in a while, when things start to feel overwhelming, I tend to descend into an existential crisis of sorts, thinking endlessly about the largeness of the universe and time, the smallness of our lives despite how large they seem. I often look to the ideas of Hinduism to guide me, which tell me that we live in a world of maya (illusion) and that we can only strive to become more perfect and merge with the shared spiritual energy that underlies all beings. These ideas often feel abstract and dismissive, like everyone is wasting their time living their lives, while only a unique few are able to move beyond and find these truths. It’s always been a tough pill to swallow for me — that everyone is forced to suffer something that isn’t real, and yet only some people can break through the suffering through some specific set of knowledge or access to certain teachings.

In the midst of my most recent existential crisis, I read Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, a novel about the title character going on a spiritual journey during the time of the Buddha. It was inspired heavily by Buddhist and Hindu beliefs but brought refreshing perspectives hypocrisy they could create. At the beginning of the book, Siddhartha is a Brahmin who studies the religious texts deeply, and then goes on to become an ascetic who fasts to grow closer to spiritual knowledge. Yet, later on in the book, he reflects back, realizing that all of his work had simply grown his ego even more, making him feel more important, more worthy than the other people he saw living more material lives:

Too much knowledge had hindered him, too many sacred verses, too many sacrificial rules, too much castigation, too much acting and striving! He had been full of pride, always the cleverest, always the most eager, always a step ahead of all others, always the knowledgeable and intellectual one, always the priest or the sage. His ego had hidden away in this priesthood, in this pride, in this intellectuality. There his ego had taken root and had grown, while he thought he had killed it with fasting and penitence.

In his egoism, Siddhartha started to see himself as different from all other people, thinking of them like children compared to his greater intellect. It was only after experiencing a material life and then abandoning it again was he able to see the value in the lives of these other people.

He saw people living for their sake, saw them achieving things for their sake, traveling, waging wars, suffering endlessly, enduring endlessly, and he could love them for that; he saw life, liveliness, indestructibility, Brahma in each of their passions, each of their deeds. Lovable and admirable were these people in their blind devotion, their blind strength and tenacity. They lacked nothing, the knower and thinker had nothing over them but a single trifle, a single tiny little thing: the consciousness, the conscious thought of the oneness of all life. And at times, Siddhartha even doubted whether this knowing, this thinking were so valuable.

This passage in particular was striking. Was there not beauty and strength in the actions of each man? Even if this is all an illusion, is there not great beauty in a mother’s love, a builder’s hand, a boy’s striving? And even if one was able to achieve the greater knowledge above the endless struggles of the laypeople, what could that knowledge even unlock? Would it really make an enlightened one better than anyone else? So perhaps such a spiritual journey is all for naught, or perhaps this is simply a reminder that we each walk our own paths of different actions and reasons and knowledges and feelings. That no one great revelation will save me or you, and make us any greater than any other.

Drops of the Week
 

• PLAYLIST - Winter Songs - a designer I like made this playlist of ambient tunes which are great background music

• ARTICLE - "Free Thebe: Earl Sweatshirt is coming into his own" by Dhruva Balram - great profile of one of my favorite rappers who is releasing a new album soon!

• POEM - "Love After Love" by Derek Walcott - "You will love again the stranger who was your self"

With each day, we can move closer to a more equitable world. Reminders:
 

Donate to the family of a victim of police violence Mutual Aid Networks

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Equally,
Nikhil