Sunday 4 March 2012

Guiding Messages on Self Realisation: Movie and Book Siddhartha

Siddhartha (1972) is a film based on the novel of the same name by Herman Hesse, directed by Conrad Rooks.

The film tells the story of the young Siddhartha (played by Shashi Kapoor), born in a rich family, and his search for a meaningful way of life. This search takes him through periods of harsh asceticism, sensual pleasures, material wealth, then self-revulsion and eventually to the oneness and harmony with himself that he had been seeking. Siddhartha learns that the secret of life cannot be passed on from one person to another, but must be achieved through inner experience. 

"Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself: But what is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach you?? And he found:

It was the self, the purpose and essence of which I sought to learn. It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it. Truly, no thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha! And there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about Siddhartha!"

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