Emmeline
08-09-2004, 01:02 AM
Okay, first off I apologize if this isn't what this forum is supposed to be about but since everyone seems determined that the topic is too vague, or too hard to worth investigating, I thought I'd give it a shot and see what happened. :)
Hesse is one of my favorite writers because he delves so deep into the human psyche and creates an immense articulated dialect between the senses and spirituality, reason and feeling. To him mysticism was an attempt to seek an alternative to the meaninglessness from what I can tell.
If you would like to know more about mysticism I suggest his Narcissus and Goldmund. As with most Hesse novels, the storyline in Narcissus and Goldmund too, is an elegantly linear one, with few characters and no tangle of events. Much like tea leaves; it appears light on a perfunctory reading but reveals its deep underlying philosophy only when one attempts to read beyond the written words.
This is a tale of two medieval monks at the Mariabronn cloister in the Middle Ages - Brother Narcissus and his pupil Goldmund - both of whom are on a quest to seek peace and salvation. Though there is a convergence of their ultimate goal, the two strive to achieve it by setting out on two apparently diametrically opposite paths in life. Blessed with a superbly analytical mind guided by intelligence, reason and logic alone, Narcissus is an ascetic of the highest order. He has shunned the world of senses to devote himself completely to the service of God. By contrast, Goldmund's being is dominated entirely by 'feelings', unshackled by the bonds of intellect. He gives up the austere discipline and abstemious cloister life in pursuit of worldly pleasures as also its pains - the realm of the 'Maya'.While Narcissus represents the masculine mind, Goldmund is the embodiment of all that is feminine- imagination, creation, passion and attachment. The two epitomize the eternal battle between the mind versus the senses, thinker versus the artist. Hesse addresses the perennial question - Which of the two is superior? Which of the two roads is the shorter route to salvation? the book is a journey but it doesn’t use any dates, it measures time, seconds, hours, minutes in heartbeats, in spiritual growth, in the development of the psyche.
Quote: "There is an element of death in life, and I am astonished that one pretends to ignore it: death, whose unpitying presence we experience in each turn of fortune we survive because we must learn how to die slowly. We must learn to die: all of life is in that."
Mysticism is concerned with the nature of reality, the individual's struggle to attain a clear vision of reality, and the transformation of consciousness that accompanies such vision. So what is reality? Is it the clear analytical world of reason and the intellect goverend by the Fatherfigure of god, or the sensual world, of emotion, feeling, passion, the senses goverend by the Mother of us all?
The book leaves the reader with profound questions, it is not the answer to the meaning of life, it does not emphasize any religion, it does not even offer a hint at an answer, it shows two paths toward salvations but it leaves the reader to find his own.
Worthy read. ;)
Hesse is one of my favorite writers because he delves so deep into the human psyche and creates an immense articulated dialect between the senses and spirituality, reason and feeling. To him mysticism was an attempt to seek an alternative to the meaninglessness from what I can tell.
If you would like to know more about mysticism I suggest his Narcissus and Goldmund. As with most Hesse novels, the storyline in Narcissus and Goldmund too, is an elegantly linear one, with few characters and no tangle of events. Much like tea leaves; it appears light on a perfunctory reading but reveals its deep underlying philosophy only when one attempts to read beyond the written words.
This is a tale of two medieval monks at the Mariabronn cloister in the Middle Ages - Brother Narcissus and his pupil Goldmund - both of whom are on a quest to seek peace and salvation. Though there is a convergence of their ultimate goal, the two strive to achieve it by setting out on two apparently diametrically opposite paths in life. Blessed with a superbly analytical mind guided by intelligence, reason and logic alone, Narcissus is an ascetic of the highest order. He has shunned the world of senses to devote himself completely to the service of God. By contrast, Goldmund's being is dominated entirely by 'feelings', unshackled by the bonds of intellect. He gives up the austere discipline and abstemious cloister life in pursuit of worldly pleasures as also its pains - the realm of the 'Maya'.While Narcissus represents the masculine mind, Goldmund is the embodiment of all that is feminine- imagination, creation, passion and attachment. The two epitomize the eternal battle between the mind versus the senses, thinker versus the artist. Hesse addresses the perennial question - Which of the two is superior? Which of the two roads is the shorter route to salvation? the book is a journey but it doesn’t use any dates, it measures time, seconds, hours, minutes in heartbeats, in spiritual growth, in the development of the psyche.
Quote: "There is an element of death in life, and I am astonished that one pretends to ignore it: death, whose unpitying presence we experience in each turn of fortune we survive because we must learn how to die slowly. We must learn to die: all of life is in that."
Mysticism is concerned with the nature of reality, the individual's struggle to attain a clear vision of reality, and the transformation of consciousness that accompanies such vision. So what is reality? Is it the clear analytical world of reason and the intellect goverend by the Fatherfigure of god, or the sensual world, of emotion, feeling, passion, the senses goverend by the Mother of us all?
The book leaves the reader with profound questions, it is not the answer to the meaning of life, it does not emphasize any religion, it does not even offer a hint at an answer, it shows two paths toward salvations but it leaves the reader to find his own.
Worthy read. ;)