'Zobra the Buddha' concept of 'new man' in Nikos Kazantzakis Zorba the Greek

Abstract

Zorba is the major fictitious character in Nikos Kazantzakis' novel 'Zorba The Greek', he is also a famous materialist character of the twentieth century. His way of living life to the fullest and enjoying every aspect of life is fascinating to the narrator. Zorba is a perfect sensualist, who doesn't want to miss a single chance to enjoy the pleasures of life. He runs after the fundamental needs of human beings like bread, water, women, meat, and sleep. He is the perfect representation of the West where people prioritize a materialistic world. They are rich from the outside but empty inside. Whereas Buddha is a well-known name in the East. He attained the ultimate realization in spirituality. His teachings about love, life, peace, and meditation are widely spread all over the world. His focus is on long-lasting inner peace rather than fleeting material prosperity. After all, we all accept that peace of mind is more absolute than wealth, but we couldn't deny the fact that Buddha struggled his whole life to manage proper food and shelter for the community. All these contradictions are between matter and consciousness. West chooses matter and ignored the reality of consciousness, which produced science, technology, comfort, and richness. East chooses consciousness and created a Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, and Patanjali-like people with great consciousness and with great awareness. The Westhas the body but lost its soul, the East has an advanced soul but lost the body. This paper aims to analyze how 'Zorba the Buddha' can be the bridge between matter and consciousness. How Zorba, a materialistic being, and Buddha, a spiritual consciousness can be fused together and create a new man as 'Zorba the Buddha', who can be rich on both sides. This new man has everything that science and technology can provide and still have the possibility to achieve everything that Buddha, Mahavira, and Kabir find in the inner world. 'Zorba the Buddha' is the same man, who is called the 'New Man' by Osho, 'Free Man' by Kazantzakis in 'Zorba the Greek' and 'Superman' in Nietzsche's 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'. Keywords: Zorba the Buddha, New Man, Zorba, materialism, Buddha, spiritualism