One major goal that I think parallels perfectly with Siddhartha is “how to listen” (Course website). Can a person really be taught how to listen though? In class, we have these listening exercises and practices, but I’m not sure they do any good. You have to want to listen to something to truly take it in. I think that’s what Siddhartha does. As Siddhartha travels along his path to enlightenment, he realizes what he needs to be listening to. The river. To him, it embodies all of humanity. It “sang with a voice of suffering” (Hesse 125) and Siddhartha heard “the flow of events and the music of life” (Hesse 126). To me, you have to be looking out for something in particular to be able to listen. Siddhartha was looking for the meaning of life and was on a sure path to find peace and enlightenment. Because of this steady path, he knew what to listen for. So maybe that’s what we’re going here. Trying to find what to listen for.
Like Siddhartha we “endeavored to listen better” in this class and I’m sure we will continue to do so for the next three and a half years (Hesse 125). And when I say we’re looking for what to listen for, I mean (like Siddhartha), we are on our path to finding what we want in the world. We are, in a sense, looking for what to look for. And when we stop and try to listen, we do it better and better. When I’m especially interested, I also find myself listening (and understanding) better. For example, in our lecture for Perspectives last week, I was very interested in what Dr. Starbird had to say about no more wars and thus listened very carefully and attentively to his discussion. However, in Biology today, I found myself rather indifferent to our discussion and thus retained very little of the lecture. Like I said, you have to want to listen.
Through meditation, I have found that listening can unify my thoughts as well, something else we are trying to accomplish here at UT. Going along with the river and Siddhartha’s idea of unity, we are also striving for “unity, of the self, of the self and others, of the self and nature…” (Course website). Siddhartha finds a perfect unity in the river: “everything was intertwined and connected, entangled together a thousand times over” (Hesse 126). We, as students, also strive for unity. We are working to make sense of the world and how to make connections. I have especially learned that in regards to nature this year. I have never felt so in tune with the physical outside world as I do now and I really think that I have this class (and the book Siddhartha) to thank for that. There is a peace that I feel when I’m relaxing outside that has never quite been there before. At first, Siddhartha had a very fragmented picture of the world. He was dissatisfied with what he lived with and also how others lived. Through the river, he managed to find peace and enlightenment, something that we are also striving toward. While I do not necessarily believe that I will find enlightenment, I think our goal of living “in fragments no longer” (Course website) can be represented by Siddhartha’s desire to find enlightenment.
Embracing our differences, but also our sense of being together.
I think also as we move through this course, regardless of all our differences and arguments, we will find that our “voices belonged together” (Hesse 126). They probably have in the past as well. Everything just meshes well and goes along “the current of life” (Hesse 127). So unity with each other is something we are slowly but sure accomplishing through this course.
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