In Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, a man was in search to find his inner peace. This man, Siddhartha would encounter many different stages in his life, creating both successes and failures. Throughout life, Siddhartha came across many experiences that changed his life and at the same time helped him to conquer his goal of reaching his Nirvana. From adolescence to old age, he encountered many different people, each educating him in a different manner and bringing him one step closer to succeeding in his quest. As a child, the life that Siddhartha was living was not the ideal way in which he wished he could live. Siddhartha had asked permission from his father to let him go and join the Samanas but his father refused.
“I will stand and wait” (Hesse 11) was how Siddhartha reacted to the response from his father and he would indeed do that until his father had finally given him consent to leave. This is where Siddhartha comes across his first experience in such a way that, all his life he had obeyed his father and for the first time, he had done what his heart told him instead. When he entered the Samanas way of life, “he traveled along the path of self-denial through pain, through voluntary suffering and conquering of pain, through hunger, thirst and fatigue” (Hesse 15).
He gave up all of the material things in life to try and find himself.
“But although the paths took him away from self, in the end they always led back to it” (Hesse 15-16).
The Essay on Siddhartha Life Path Buddha
... Hesse Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse is the story of a young Brahmin who ventures off in the world to find the meaning of life. ... however, unable to acknowledge Siddhartha's sacrifice for him ventured out by his self just as his father had when he was ... he had. Raising Little Siddhartha was not easy for him. Unlike his father, Little Siddhartha was ignorant and spoilt. Siddhartha was unable to communicate ...
The way of the Samanas was not the way that Siddhartha would find inner peace and therefore would have to move on. Through the teachings of the “Illustrious One,” Siddhartha would learn that teachers and preachers was not how you attain Nirvana but instead you must experience it yourself. Being aware that the best teacher is himself, he would continue on his defined path. As Siddhartha grew older and moved away from the Samanas, he spent his adulthood in the city for about 20 years. There, Kamala, a rich courtesan would teach Siddhartha love.
He had not loved nor cared to love but Kamala was a goddess to him. Not only did she show him how to love by having his child but she had taught him how to dress and look rich and sent him to Kama swami, a wealthy merchant. Here, Siddhartha would come across the life of greed. His life as a businessman was flourishing but he was not yet satisfied.
Therefore, as he reached his old age, he continued on his quest and returned to the river. As Siddhartha realizes in his old age, his only satisfaction would be in the river where he would find his inner peace. As Vasudeva explained to him, the river symbolized rebirth and renewal. It became aware to Siddhartha that everything in life was united and flowed together and that everything comes back, just like he returned to the river now.
“In his heart he heard the newly awakened voice speak, and it said to him: Love this river, stay by it, learn from it” (Hesse 101).
Consequently this is what Siddhartha did in order to find his true self and accomplish his goal as he did at the river. When Siddhartha had begun his quest, he had one single goal- “to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desires, dreams, pleasure and sorrow and to let thy self die” (Hesse 14).
He was able to do this through a long, untravelled path. He would choose and reject through his entire quest to find what he was looking for. Through all three stages of his life, Siddhartha learned that no matter who or what tried to teach you, the most influential teacher is yourself along with experience.
He gave up his prior life to find himself and went out into the world, experienced and listened to his many teachers and finally found what was sitting at the end of the path waiting for him.
The Essay on Siddhartha River Bird Longer
In Herman Hess's, Siddhartha, Siddhartha's constant growth and spiritual evolution is elucidated through the symbolism of the snake, the bird and the river. As a snake sheds it's skin in order to continue its physical growth, Siddhartha sheds the skins of his past: " he realized that something had left him, like the old skin a snake sheds/ Something was no longer with him, something that had ...
