The Great Song of a Thousand Voices

 

Already, he could no longer tell all the many voices a part, not the happy ones from the weeping ones, not the ones of children from those of men, they all belonged together, the lamenation of yearning, and the laughter of the knowledgeable one, the scream of rage and the moaning of the dying ones, everything was one, everything was intertwined and connected, entangled a thousand times. And everything together, all voices, all goals, all yearning, all suffering, all pleasure, all that was good and evil, all of this together was this world. All of this together was the flow of events, the music of life. And when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffeirng or the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and submerged himself into it, but when he heard them all, preceived the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was Om: the perfection. 

Herman Hesse, Sidhhartha (n.d., Amazon), page ?...no page numbers lol)

This was more or less what Singer was speaking of today in his podcast.

The psyche is so compelling and alluring.  It pulls us in and wraps itself around us so it is all we can see.  We feel and think the way it tells us to. We look out at the world through the foggy film it creates over our eyes making it all so dark and distorted. It limits our vision and our experience to the confinement it creates  and we come to believe this is it! We grasp and seek through this distortion for anything out there that might make this imprisoned experience a little better, and we push away anything we assume will make it more challenging...creating a mess inside that we spend the rest of our days trying to protect with our preferences. 

Hmm!

But it doesn't have to be this way. When we realize that we are getting lost in this distraction and  pull back a bit from the compelling drama of the psyche and what the world it creates has on us...just a bit back, without resisting any of it...without clinging to any of it...we could experience what Siddhartha in Herman Hesse's book experienced, what Jesus experienced, what the Buddha,"the other Siddharttha," experienced, what a truly enlightened and evolved soul experiences. We could be free.

Spoiler Alert! If you are intending to read the book, do not read the following paragraph: 

Hesse's Siddhartha represents all of mankind that is on a search for a truth that lay beyond words and conceptual knowing, to the truth that can only be experienced. Raised in the comfortable home of a holy man, he left his father's house to seek truer Self-directed holiness. He became a forest dweller...living a life as a renounciant and self punisher before meeting the Buddha whose wisdom touched him in ways he could not fully realize until the end of the book...Not wanting religion  or the preachings of a teacher to contaminate his quest for experiential knowledge, he left the Buddha and his much respected teachings behind and continued with his search for something more.  He went on to become a rich householder, "of child-like mind", falling in love, and getting caught in the trappings of what the sensual  material world had to offer. He, once pulled into this distraction, became filled with lust and greed and he began to cling to materiality in a way his nirvana driven  heart did not approve. Once he realized what he was doing, consumed with guilt and shame, he left that world behind to become a poor ferryman befriending the  humble tradesman who would teach him the craft of ferrying, and  who would,  unkowingly, prove to be his teacher all along. He is taught, as a ferryman, to listen and honor the teachings of the ever flowing river beneath the boat. Then he experiences something he never thought he was capable of experiencing...the true joy of a love attachment when his son comes to him and the sheer horror of human grief when his son leaves him. It is then, in that challenge of being human, that his listening takes on a deeper focus.  In a way he cound never do with his seeking, chasing, and preaching, he becomes truly enlightened through listening and being. Without leaving the Ferryman's shack he becomes an enlightened master. Without stepping out to teach, he teaches others with his mere presence. He recognizes how much he agreed with the teachings of the Buddha, for he too had reached Buddhahood.

Well that is what I got from it. It was a pretty cool book. There was so much that touched me and made me think.  But I will start with the quote above. 

Through listening to the river Siddhartha could hear all the voices of the world merging as one.  Judgement, preference, and duality fell away to show the sameness of it all. He was only able to hear when he stopped doing and talking; when he pulled himself back from the human distractions, put away his judgements and preferences and recognized from that distance, that there was a unifying essence that held everything and everyone together as one. 

We could learn to listen to the hum of the essenc on which the world flows as well, when we fall back away from the illusion of humanness and rest in the Soul. .

That which is watching the human drama through body and mind is not human.(Paraphrased from something Michael Singer said today in his podcast.)

What we are watching is just human drama, with its ups and downs and all arounds.  We do not have to fix it, or change it.  We do not have to filter through it for that which we like and that which we don't.  We just have to sit back and listen to the wonderful music it is playing. When we need to act we can act but we do not have to consumed by what and how we should do in this world.  We should be more concerned with listening.

All is well. 

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( May 23, 2024) Handling the Big Stuff.