Assignment #2

Siddhartha gave his garments to a poor Brahman in the street. He wore nothing more than the loincloth and the earth-coloured, unsown cloak. He ate only once a day, and never something cooked. He fasted for fifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight days. The flesh waned from his thighs and cheeks. Feverish dreams flickered from his enlarged eyes, long nails grew slowly on his parched fingers and a dry, shaggy beard grew on his chin. His glance turned to ice when he encountered women; his mouth twitched with contempt, when he walked through a city of nicely dressed people. He saw merchants trading, princes hunting, mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians trying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day for seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children—and all of this was not worthy of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank, it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful and beautiful, and it all was just concealed putrefaction. The world tasted bitter. Life was torture.

Siddhartha is looking upon the society with disdain because he feels that they are pretending to be holy or pretending to have achieved a meaningful relationship with the universe. But it’s all a front because how can one be only while their neighbor is whoring themselves? How can that be ignored? This is why he is disgusted.

The Dada artists protested the war through their artwork. They took various body parts and machinery and mushed them together in order to make light of the things that we take so seriously. I think by taking these elements and making a collage of them, this can relate to Siddhartha’s journey of finding nirvana. The Dada artists are destroying the old norms in attempts to find new meaningful norms.

I chose this passage because it relates to todays’ society as well. America is a country that claims to be about democracy however its citizens aren’t being treated properly. As I walk through the streets, I often look around in disgust at the people who go to church every Sunday and praise God but every other day of the week they turn their cheeks to the evil in their neighborhoods and in their very own houses. This is the best and freest country in the world on the outside but on the inside we still have a lot of issues. There is still racism and prejudices. It seems like the society has become hypocritical and everyone is pretending to be holy and moral while doing otherwise. The world is definitely bitter when there is such a great disparity between the rich and the poor. There are children suffering, crime is high. The law gives criminals the same rights as victims.