“You are the best lover I have ever encountered,” she said thoughtfully. “You are stronger than the others, more supple, more willing. You have learned my art well, Siddhartha. Some day, when I am older, I would like to have a child of yours. But in spite of all that, my dear, you have remained a samana and you do not love me. You love no one, is that not so?”
“That may well be,” Siddhartha said tiredly. “I am like you. You too do not love; otherwise how could you practice love as an art? People of our type are perhaps incapable of love. The child people are capable of it; that is their secret.”
– From Siddhartha
yes you bring back memories from that movie. I feel sorry for her because I think that she DOES love him, he is the one incapable of love.
Have you read the book? I was actually unaware until moments ago that there even WAS a movie; but from what I read it sounds like it’s not a very good rendering of the book.
no I didn’t actually read the book. But on the DVD there is an interview with the writer of Siddhartha
Of course, he is capable of love, as it turns out… but that comes many years later. Is that a tragedy, or simply a matter of all things coming in their own due time? What do you think?
when my brain is capable of thinking I will get back to you. Until then I am going to bed. sorry 🙁
all things in due time.
I think people have a tendency to explain that they are incapable of [ever] behaving or feeling a certain way if at the moment they simply cannot behave/feel that way. As a result of being unable to at the moment, they cannot imagine ever feeling or behaving in whatever way is in question. Time passes and they finally experience the sensation…
Certainly not a tragedy by any means. A missed opportunity, maybe.
I think you are quite right about that. It’s very difficult for most people to see beyond their current feelings.
It’s amusing when sluts recognize each other for what they are! 😀
I think there may be a lot of depth and truth to that statement. I have often felt a paradoxical sense of loving everyone and no-one.
I know just exactly what you mean.
the dettachment that i perceive has been the largest detractor from me wanting to pursue buddhism.
did you have a chance to read my reply to your last post asking where i was these days?
It has historically been one of my biggest turn-offs to Buddhism as well. I still regard passion as perhaps the most quintessentially human trait, so I still have trouble squaring Buddhism’s (and Hinduism’s, for that matter) distaste for passion with my innate humanism.
But the sense that I’m referring to above is something that has been with me for years, long before I started reading up on eastern religion. It goes back to my apparent inability to fall in love.
Near the end of the book, Siddhartha experiences the love he had been incapable of before:
I love easily – I feel some level of love for most of the friends I’ve known for more than a few months, including a few I’ve never even met face-to-face. But at the same time, I don’t seem to be capable of falling head-over-heels in love with someone, immersing myself in them, finding my greatest joy in serving them. The kind of love that many of my friends feel, at least temporarily, for their SOs; the kind of love [some] parents have for their children; the kind of love described above which makes a man a fool – I have rarely if ever experienced something like that. I love humanity passionately, I love the divinity I see in people. But do not lose myself in love with any individual.
So the excerpt I quoted originally is, to me, not so much a goal to be aspired to as a validation, and a suggestion that perhaps it is not a failing that I cannot seem to love in that way. Perhaps some people simply are this way, and perhaps there is hope, as Siddhartha found, for me to experience all the peaks and troughs of tumultous love in due time.
Yes, I did read your reply, and I appreciate your taking the time to respond.
thanks for sharing your meaning. I don’t expect people to be anything other than who they are coupled with the influence of who they aspire to be. i never request or require validation from someone about who they are. my last relationship, one that tore bits of me apart and one that i yet consider attempting to rekindle, really showed me that people come as they are and there is not much we can do about that. I, personally, stand as a testimony to that people CAN change significantly but what the limits might be for this sort of change I do not know. I have mostly ceased attempting to find fulfillment in a single human. The best case I can imagine is finding someone who shares most of what I believe and the willingness to life a full life and then join me a mutual pursuit of it.
*nods in agreement*