Siddhartha Page 2

Hermann’s Dream:

In the first dream,

I found myself on the upper story of a house

That I knew was ‘my house’ even though I didn’t recognize it,

Since the walls were covered with precious old paintings

And the rooms furnished with elaborate antique furniture.

It occurred to me that I didn’t know what the rest of ‘my house’ looked like,

So I went down to the first floor where to my surprise everything was much older.

The furnishings were medieval and dated from the fifteenth or sixteenth century –

The floors were red brick and everywhere it was shadowy and dark.

ìNow!’ I thought, ìI must explore the whole house.î

I found a large heavy door – I opened it

And behind it was a stone stairway that led to the cellar.

I followed my way down the stairs noticing on the way down

That there were layers of brick among the stone blocks

And pieces of brick in the mortar.

When I reached what I thought was the bottom

I realized I was in an incredibly beautiful vaulted room

From the Roman period.

There were two stone slabs on the floor.

One of them had an iron ring embedded in it,

So I lifted it

And another stone stairway was revealed,

This one narrower than the first.

I followed it down and entered a low cave cut into the rock.

There was a layer of thick dust on the floor

With scattered bones

And broken pottery like the remains of a primitive culture.

And there in the dust,

Very old

And half

Disintegrated,

Lay two human skulls.

Siddhartha had learned to do business,

To exercise power over people -

To take pleasure with women.

He had learned to wear beautiful clothes, to command servants,

And to bathe in perfumed water.

He had learn to eat delicately and painstakingly prepared dishes –

And to drink wine that leads to lethargy

And oblivion.

The world had caught him –

Pleasure, greed, and indifference –

And finally even the vice that he had always despised and derided

As the most foolish of all – craving for possessions.

By some strange and devious path

Siddhartha had fallen into the ultimate addiction – gambling.

Money – possessions and wealth – had finally snared him.

He lost his equanimity toward losses...

Lost his patience with people slow to pay,

Lost his kindliness towards the homeless.

The same man who gambled away ten thousands on a single throw of the dice

With a laugh became ever more exacting and mean in business –

And even occasionally dreamed at night

Of gold...

Every time he saw his face in the mirror on the bedroom wall

Changed by age and grown ugly,

Every time shame and revulsion came over him,

He escaped further and further and harder into another gambling session,

Into the oblivion of pleasure and wine –

(Beat)

And from there back to the preoccupation of amassing and gaining wealth.

He drove himself on in this meaningless cycle

Until he was tired –

Until he was old –

Until he was sick.

Vasuveda’s Theme

Kamala’s Theme