Re: Teddy was Siddhartha?

AntiUtopia (AntiUtopia@aol.com)
Thu, 01 Jan 1998 01:35:43 -0500 (EST) 

In a message dated 98-01-01 00:56:17 EST, you write:

<< I just read Teddy today and I thought he said he was an Indian (person from
 India, not Native American) in his past life? He said he started out very
 well spiritually but then stopped meditating and stuff when he met a woman.
 It reminded me of Siddhartha (novel by Herman Hesse). Am I out of my mind?
 
 
 -David Schrimpf
  >>

Teddy probably had lived thousands of lives, and it is possible he had past
lives in India as well.

Now, if you read up that same page--page 188 in the neat white paperback
edition, Nicholson, the man he's talking to, says, "From what I gather, you've
acquired certain information, through meditation, that's given you some
conviction that in your last incarnation you were a holy man in India, but
more or less fell from grace..."

"I wasn't a holy man," Teddy said, "I was just a person making very nice
spiritual advancement."

So just reading these lines, he denied being a holy man, but didn't deny being
in India...it's reasonable--but not necessary--to conclude he was a man in
India.  Now, reading further Teddy's pretty clear that he's an American NOW
because of past failure, but it isn't clear that he was an American THEN.
That was an inference I made in an earlier post that isn't supported by the
text.

Now, what's Nicholson doing here?  My immediate impression was that since
Teddy saw himself as a holy man of sorts, he must have been a Hindu, therefore
in India...all according to N's shallow reasoning.  But Teddy was being
grilled by several Experts, and Nicholson was among those who had access to
the Teddy files, so it is possible Teddy did make an allusion to being in
India, which N. picked up on.

On the other hand, it doesn't exactly say that...

So there's nothing conclusive to tell us where he was before he was
Teddy...but if he was in India, that shoot the Seymour theory all to hell :)
The things that Teddy's past  incarnation and Seymour seem to have in common
are detrimental involvement with a female (not necessarily her fault), and
some significant spiritual advancement.

Also, at the top of the page, Nicholson says that Teddy holds strongly to the
Vedantic view of meditation...the Hindu...and that is distinct from the
buddhist.  This is interesting because Salinger seems more often associated
with Buddhist thought than with Hindu, and the whole tone of a lot of it is
Buddhist, especially where Buddhist thought intersects with the ethical
teachings of Christ (which is itself a buddhist emphasis).  Anyway, Teddy
believes the soul he now possesses is itself progressing thru various lives--a
direct relationship, rather than just an influence passed on...

The Hindu view of reincarnation is that my present soul moves from body to
body.  The Buddhist view is compared to a string of pearls; one soul touches
the next, but the two are not to be so rigidly identified.

And what's really odd is the idea that falling in love with a woman, having a
family, etc., is seen as a hindrance in a Hindu framework. There are distinct
phases the soul goes thru in Hinduism--first sensuality, then family, then
community, then higher spirituality.  I'm no expert on this, but I think the
idea here is that the soul has to see for itself that the lower stages are not
satisfying before it makes the decisions needed to pass on to the higher
stages.

That whole thing on page 189 about seeing everything as being God is the
central enlightenment that the soul must attain in the Upanishads (Vedic
literature...hindu).  That Teddy saw this at four years old is remarkable, and
that seeing this, he could meditate out of the physical plane just a couple
years later (I think a pretty advanced stage of yoga, but I'm really not sure
of this) is even more so.... 

Jim