The interconnectedness of the world and time

Nov 26

Image created by A. L. Peck using Canva.

In my last post, I focused on learning and wisdom in Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, but the novel left me with a lot of questions about the Buddhist principles it introduces, namely interconnectedness. We’ll explore this and its implications.

Here’s a reminder of the takeaways from my last post:

You can’t learn wisdom
Reframe how you view your mistakes
There’s an unknowable quality in everything

Let’s dive into the rest.

Life is made up of cycles

"They were all interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand ways […] All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life."

The most powerful part about the novel is that it’s an example of its own conclusion: it’s a cycle. The reader follows Siddhartha through each phase of his life and watches as people leave him and as he leaves them, but then as they return to him decades later, and as Siddhartha returns to himself.

And the novel focuses on the ultimate cycle: reincarnation. Reincarnation is an abstract concept—it’s difficult to grasp what happens to our souls after we die, and some of us probably have a hard time believing we come back as something like a cat or tree. Instead of focusing on what happens to our souls after we die, Hesse describes how the undeniable physical changes that occur after death connect us with other beings and elements. For instance, in Siddhartha’s meditations with the Samanas (wandering ascetics), he imagines he's a bird from its birth to its death and afterward. He realizes life is cyclical in the sense that after the bird dies, its carcass is either eaten by other creatures or decays and becomes part of the soil and air. Then, the animals that consume the bird also become fodder or dust and so on for eternity: "You show the world as a complete, unbroken chain, an eternal chain, linked together by cause and effect [...] not dependent on chance, not dependent on the gods."

There’s an interesting contrast here. Siddhartha concludes that we can only reach enlightenment alone (i.e. without other people or their teachings). Yet, he couldn’t have attained enlightenment without the people around him. And enlightenment is when the individual Self merges with everything else in the world, which seems impossible without others. I think an enlightened Siddhartha would disagree with his initial conclusion—instead, it seems more likely that as long as we perceive ourselves as individuals, we can only understand the world through the lens of an individual. That mentality must dissolve when we’re enlightened.

While it’s difficult to view every existing element and being as connected, we can still apply the underlying implications. Our actions carry weight and their impacts (many of which we aren’t even aware of) are multiplied, so it’s important to be intentional with what we say and do. Think about the times the shortest interaction with a stranger has either made or ruined your day and how your subsequent actions affected those around you. We should assume a position of kindness and empathy in our interactions with others. When Siddhartha realizes we are all connected, he feels love for the world.

Time is apparently an illusion

"That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future."

Warning: this is going to get abstract. I’m still struggling to understand it, but when Siddhartha becomes enlightened, he learns that “time doesn’t exist.” Maybe it’s only possible to perceive this with deep mediation or an altered state of mind, but here we go.

Hesse writes that our perception of time is the only thing that separates us from seeing the interconnectedness of the world. When the planes of time are equal (when the past is the present is the future), everything that exists is part of each other. Going back to what Siddhartha imagined in his meditations on reincarnation, after the bird dies, it gets eaten by another creature which gets eaten by another creature or turns to dust and forms a rock after thousands of years. The only thing separating the bird from the rock is time. When time is removed, they are the same.

Enlightenment is seeing that the bird is at once a bird and a rock, that everything is simultaneously everything else. “In the deepest meditation we have the possibility of negating time, of seeing all life, all having been, being, and becoming, as simultaneous, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman.” This leads me to think that if we project out the bird’s future even further, its final form isn’t a rock—it’s an enlightened being. And the final form of every existing thing must also be an enlightened being because if something’s being reincarnated, that means it hasn’t reached its end. Reincarnation is not an end, enlightenment is. And when you’re enlightened, you live out your life until you die a final death; there are no further reincarnations. So then doesn’t this mean that the world converges to nonexistence? If everyone eventually reaches enlightenment, dies, and leaves earth for good, there will be no one left.

I’m seeing some issues with the whole “time doesn’t exist” idea. First of all, time only ceases to exist when you have an altered state of mind, like with deep meditation. But that’s just changing your perception of time, not changing time itself. We have the physical markers to show that time exists. And the fact that it will take thousands of years for the bird to transform into a rock and then eventually an enlightened being means that in your lifetime, it will always be a bird or dust. So why should you view it as otherwise? Meditation isn’t reality, and that’s something Siddhartha acknowledges—he was only able to become enlightened by living a moderate life and letting things exist as they are without alteration. So isn’t viewing time this way a distortion of reality?

Anyways, let’s bring this back into the land of the non-abstract for a simpler message we can extract about time. Even if we don’t accept that time is an illusion, we can appreciate that the past is just a memory (which your brain misremembers, forgets, or warps over time) and the future is just an imagined scenario that isn’t guaranteed. Only the present exists, so dwelling on the past or living for the future is a waste and we should live fully in the present.

Buddhism (perhaps) offers an ultimately negative outlook on life

I’m left with another question (yes, I know I’ve had a lot of them—it’s a confusing topic, ok?!). The impetus for Buddhism is suffering. That’s why Siddhartha and the Buddha leave their homes—they want to figure out how to eliminate their suffering and they learn that we suffer because we constantly have desires. Once they attain enlightenment, they no longer suffer and die a final death. But is it enlightenment that ends their suffering, or the cessation of the cycle of reincarnation? And why is enlightenment the trigger for their final deaths?

Reading between the lines, the outcome Buddhism essentially advocates for is death. It seems to say that because the inherent nature of life is suffering, death is the only way to end our suffering. So, enlightenment is kind of like a reward—you get to end your cycle of reincarnation and die permanently. But Siddhartha doesn’t seem to suffer when he attains enlightenment, so it’s unclear to me whether it’s enlightenment that ends our suffering or death. If it’s the former, I still don’t see the causal relationship between enlightenment and permanent death.

Instead, I would think it’s better to figure out and practice how to manage and counteract our suffering; to accept it as part of our lives and grow from it, as opposed to abandoning our existing lives. The positives life offers outweigh the suffering tenfold.

Forge your own path (SPOILER ALERT)

Although Siddhartha achieves his goal and attains enlightenment, I finished the novel thinking that this was in some way a waste. Siddhartha spends his entire life searching for something instead of savoring his time with the people around him and appreciating the world. He left a family who loved him dearly, abandoned his best friend, rejected the woman who loved him, and lived a separate life from his son. I’m having trouble reconciling what’s required for enlightenment with what enlightenment preaches—universal compassion. It doesn’t seem compassionate to abandon your family and friends, but it must have been a difficult choice to leave them behind and the path to enlightenment seems to require prioritizing yourself above others. We’re only around for a short time, so a part of me feels like it’s not worth the sacrifice.

It's important to forge your own path, but I think relationships and love are invaluable to everyone, so it shouldn’t come at the cost of losing them. Other people enrich our lives and contribute meaning too.