LucieRSB

Lucie Rigaldies' Scrapbook = This is the place where I will write about the journey I follow to self-realization. My goal is to gain wisdom and takes steps towards enlightening myself. I will be following the journey of Siddhartha, the title character of Herman Hesse's // Siddhartha //, as a model for my own journey. The steps I have taken follow. =

= With the Samanas =

The Assignment
To get a feeling for how the Samanas, Indian ascetics that are found in the novel // Siddhartha //, try to reach enlightenment, we gave up something we enjoy for a week. I chose to give up twirling my pencil in my hand, because it's technically not something I ** need. **

**Getting Started**
The first few days of not twirling my pencil were excruciatingly difficult. This was probably due to the fact that normally, I am constantly twirling my pencil in class. Whenever a pencil touches my hand I immediately begin to twirl it, and to such an extent that it has become like second-nature to me. And since I have school everyday for seven hours, I have a pencil in my hand the whole time. This makes it extremely difficult to keep from twirling my pencil, not to mention it's very fun to do. So while I would sit in class, with my pencil quietly resting in my hand, I would stare at it with an unbearable itch to twirl it. I would get agitated and frustrated with my intense desire to twirl it that if I was not constantly in the act of writing during class I would have to put my pencil in my back pack and zip it up. Overall, I felt like, "the world tasted bitter. Life was pain" (Hesse 14).

Mid-Week
The temptation to twirl my pencil was starting to get a little better. I still thought about it constantly but it seemed much easier to overcome the need I usually felt to do it. However, I felt like I kept burying the desire to twirl my pencil deep inside and trying to forget about it. I would be able to sustain myself by doing this for a while, but eventually all the temptation I was burying inside of me would lash out and it was hard to resist. But every time that happened, I managed to keep myself from twirling it and continued on with my goal. I tried to drive myself to not twirl my pencil with "one single goal––to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow" (14), just like Siddhartha and the other Samanas would do.



By The End
After about 5 days without twirling my pencil, the temptation had got substantially better. I thought about twirling my pencil much less than I used to, and I no longer felt that desperate need to do it. I felt like I had overcome this desire in a similar way Siddhartha had when he "stood in the fierce sun's rays, filled with pain and thirst, and stood until he no longer felt pain and thirst" (14). However, I think a large part of this may have been because by this time in the week, it was the weekend. Therefore, I did not have a pencil in my hand the whole time. This made resisting from twirling my pencil incredibly easy. Since I wasn't holding, looking, or thinking about my pencil, I pretty much forgot about the whole project and my mind was completely at ease. So I was able to finish a whole entire week without twirling my pencil even once. On the day when I was allowed to twirl my pencil again it felt strange to do it. My hand felt stiff and numb when I twirled it and took me several tries to get it right.

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In case you are confused about what I mean when I say pencil twirling, here is a video...

= Awakening =

The Quote
After leaving the Samanas and Gotama (the Buddha), Siddhartha becomes awakened to the world around him. He sees "the world for the first time. The world was beautiful strange and mysterious. Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, sky and river, woods and mountains, all beautiful, all mysterious and enchanting, and in the midst of it, he, Siddhartha, the awakened one, on the way to himself. All this, all this yellow and blue, river and wood, passed for the first time across Siddhartha's eyes. It was no longer the magic of Mara, it was no more the veil of Maya, it was no longer meaningless and the chance diversities of the appearances of the world, despised by deep-thinking Brahmins, who scorned diversity, who sought unity. River was river, and if the One and Divine in Siddhartha secretly lived in blue and river, it was just the divine art and intention that there should be yellow and blue, there sky and wood -- and here Siddhartha. Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them" (39).

Analysis
The setting is described as being filled with nature and the colors of green, blue, and yellow. I drew the "woods and mountains" to show the "green" and the nature that was described. To show the "yellow", I drew a setting sun that falls over the entire land making everything glow with a golden tint. Lastly, I drew a river going down the middle to show the color "blue" that was included in the description. Hesse most likely chose this particular spot to describe because of this river. This river is a very important part in the setting because it is a symbolic archetype that greatly effects the story. This place becomes very special and important to Siddartha as he gains knowledge and personal enlightenment from this river and everything around it.

[[image:kamalalalalalaaaa.jpg width="250" height="245" align="left"]]

 * Name:** Kamala


 * Location:** I live in the Grove of Kamala


 * Eyes:** My eyes are "...dark eyes, clever and observant..." (51).


 * Hair:** My hair is "...heaped-up black hair..." (51).


 * About Me:** I am a beautiful and superior women with very high maintenance. I am very attractive to men for they constantly moon over me. A man once described me as having, "...heaped-up black hair, a bright, very sweet, very clever face, a bright red mouth like a freshly cut fig, artful eyebrows painted in a high arch, dark eyes, clever and observant..." (51).


 * Hobbies / Professions:** I enjoy meeting new men, entertaining them, and having them moon over me. I also like teaching men about the art of love. Throughout my life, "many young men come to me, including Brahmins' son..." (54), and they almost always, "...come to learn about love" (55).


 * Looking For:** I am looking for a man who is rich and of high class. He must come to me with gifts and wealth and treat me like his queen. I also want a man who I can talk with and have deep conversations with. Some specific requirements of what I am looking for include, "... clothes, fine clothes, and shoes, fine shoes, and plenty of money in his purse and presents for Kamala" (54).

My Daily Life
1. Wake up 2. Shower/ get ready for school 3. Get on bus and go to school 4. Go to class 5. Eat lunch and talk to friends 6. Go to more classes 7. Get on bus and go home 8. Procrastinate 9. Go to soccer practice 10. Eat dinner 11. Do my homework 12. Go to sleep

The Comic


Everyday of my life is usually the same. Sometimes this gets kind of boring, but every now and then I do something pretty exciting that almost always involves me and my friends. Each weekday, I get up around 6:45 or 7:00 and get ready for school. I ride the bus to school and in between each class I always go to the breeze way to see and talk to my friends. School days are more or less the same and are usually never very exciting. Sometimes in the middle of a boring class I feel similar to the way Siddartha felt when he became a merchant. After years of this proffesion, "a veil, a thin mist, a weariness settled upon Siddartha, slowly, every day a little thicker, every month a little darker" (78). After school I ride the bus home and as soon as I get there I go straight to soccer practice. Once I get back, it's already pretty late so I eat dinner then start my homework immediately afterwards (my homework normally consists of hours of outlining since I'm in AP world history). By the time I finish, I'm so exhausted that I go straight to sleep. Overall during the weekdays I pretty much have no free time. Fridays and the weekends are when I hang with my friends and finally get to relax.
 * Analysis **

**The River**

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"In the middle of the night I go walking in my sleep From the mountain of faith To a river so deep
 * Song: "River of Dreams" by Billy Joel**
 * Lyrics:**

I must be looking for something Something sacred I lost But the river is wide And it's too hard to cross

And even though I know the river is wide I walk down every evening and I stand on the shore And try to cross to the opposite side So I can finally find what I've been looking for" "but he had come to himself by a river, under a cocoanut tree, with the holy word Om on his lips. Then he had fallen asleep, and on awakening he looked at the world like a new man" (90). In this song, the narrator is talking about going down to a river in search of something very important that he has lost. Siddartha experiences the same kind of thing when he leaves Kamaswami and quits his profession as a merchant. After fleeing, Siddartha goes straight to the river in desperation for an answer to his life as a whole. Siddartha is conflicted since he feels that he has just wasted many years of his life and does not understand why his life should continue. He began to ask himself "why should he go any further, where, and for what purpose?" (88). But as hoped for, the river gave him what he was looking for. After falling asleep on the shore, Siddartha is "awakened" and experiences an overwhelming happiness, rejuvenation, and clarity of thought, inspiring him to continue on his way.
 * Quote from text:**
 * Analysis:**

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"Keep our sights on the way ahead Don't look back, it won't help us now The storm we left so far behind seems a dark memory that starts to fade, but 'till we see the light we will not be safe ....... Upstream, the river gets too wide so we must build the bridge right here" "He only knew that his previous life seemed to him to be covered by a veil, extremely remote, very unimportant. He only knew that his previous life (at the first moment of his return to consciousness his previous life seemed to him like a remote incarnation, like an earlier birth of his present Self) was finished" This song emphasizes that you should look forward towards the future and not dwell on the past. Siddartha goes through the same kind of experience after he has gone to the river and has been "awakened." He feels that his past is now unimportant, a faded dark memory, and forever finished. He now seeks a new life; one with meaning, with purpose, and with happiness.
 * Song: "River so Wide" by Phil Collins**
 * Lyrics:**
 * Quote From Text:**
 * Analysis:**

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"Don't go chasing waterfalls Please stick to the river and the lakes that you're used to I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all But I think you're moving too fast" "Siddartha reached the long river in the wood, the same river across which a ferryman had once taken him when he was still a young man and had come from Gotama's town. He stopped at this river and stood hesitatingly on the bank." This song says how you should stick to the "rivers" and "lakes" that are used to and/or already know. This is exactly what Siddartha does when he leaves Kamaswami in a desperate search for his life's meaning. He goes straight to the river that he once traveled across with a kind ferryman. The old memory of this river comforts Siddartha and makes him feel somewhat more secure by going to a place that he already knows pretty well.
 * Song: "Waterfalls" by TLC**
 * Lyrics:**
 * Quote From Text:**
 * Analysis:**