Siddhartha Essay

The story of Siddhartha follows a young Brahmin boy throughout his life and his journey of self discovery. He encounters many situations and is acquainted with many personalities during his life, slowly building his understanding of himself and the world around him. Though he was born a Hindu, Siddhartha strayed off of the traditional path, often indulging in ideas and facing new consequences, and while at first he visits formal teachers for wise enlightenment, he quickly discovers that the true way to know one’s self is from no one but himself and his experiences, and while the many teachers he is taught by share with him great wisdom, the one true wisdom could only be unlocked by Siddhartha himself and above all, the message in the story of Siddhartha is to find wisdom, Nirvana, and spiritual enlightenment through intuition and experience.

At first, Siddhartha seeks enlightenment through a very direct approach, traveling at an early age to find the wise teacher, the Buddha, to help them reach Nirvana, but after much time with the Samanas, while Govinda is satisfied with his current state and Siddhartha learns many new skills and virtues such as patience and listening, he once again feels unsatisfied and does not seem convinced by the Buddha and his teachings. Siddhartha, now frustrated, embarks from his lifestyle of renouncement and meditation to indulge in the material world. He meets his second major teacher here: the elusive woman, Kamala. Once in the city, Siddhartha occupies himself with the material world of the Child-People. Obsessed with gambling and sex, Siddhartha renounces his previous values and unleashes his lust. Following his current path Siddhartha soon becomes a businessman, enjoying an affluent life where monetary value is everything. His teacher here, Kawaswami, taught him more practical life skills and while Siddhartha seemed to be unaware of his deteriorating spiritual form, he is caught in a trap of believing that it can help enlighten him. Disillusioned and upset, Siddhartha then leaves out of the city and will soon encounter his most influential and vital teachers.

Near the end of Siddhartha’s journey, he is reacquainted with the ferryman, Vasudeva who seems to have reached enlightenment. Vasudeva tells Siddhartha about the river, and what it represents, and this is where Siddhartha would gain some of his greatest teachings, realizing that the world comes together as one organism, and the string and nature of time. Vasudeva teaches Siddhartha that he must find enlightenment in himself, and through the river he finally achieves total peace and in a way, a sense of Nirvana. Throughout this tale, Siddhartha travels in search of reaching enlightenment, and comes across many teachers along the way. In the end, although Siddhartha seems to reach Nirvana through the river, I believe that all of the teachers and people that Siddhartha came across as well as his rejection of them were vital to his peace. At first, when Siddhartha learns the teachings of the Buddha, he finally realizes that a direct approach of renouncement and meditation may not be the ideal way of reaching an understanding, and while Kamala and Kawaswami bring Siddhartha down to a more material, immediate and unsatisfactory lifestyle, they teach Siddhartha the dangers and benefits of love, lust, and indulgence and most importantly the importance of it if one is to be completely enlightened. But of course, the final man who helps him, Vasudeva, realizes that problems Siddhartha is facing, and rather than take a direct method, he just recommends that Siddhartha listen to the river, and learn from, guiding him in the direction of Nirvana.

The search for knowledge and complete enlightenment plays a huge role in the life of Siddhartha, who ultimately aims to find Nirvana. Through the early teachings from the Buddha and Vasudeva that he received, he understood that a direct approach at achieving his goal was contradictory to the meaning of enlightenment itself. He learned from Vasudeva that everyone has wisdom and knowledge inside of them, and by searching for it in a direct approach we are only furthering ourselves away from it even more. By participating in an organized religion with the Brahmins and Samana he realized that wisdom could not be taught, but had to be experienced and so Siddhartha left to embark on his journey. Siddhartha finally reaches peace when he is enlightened by the river, which was the unity of the entire world, containing the whole universe and time itself, and it was here where he heard the Om. Govinda on the other hand, fails to reach total Nirvana as he could not gain wisdom from the teachings of the Buddha. Although he had spent his whole life listening to his teachings, he was not as satisfied and as at peace as Siddhartha was, and at the conclusion of the story, finds Siddhartha and asks him to teach him. He teaches Govinda to listen to the river, and reach enlightenment through his experiences, but his final statement is that to reach enlightenment, Govinda must accept love, which most must religious renounce, and for him to achieve Nirvana, he must first accept love.

Another major moment that Siddhartha had to undergo was his transition and search for balance between the material and spiritual world. Like wisdom itself, Siddhartha had to find the balance between complete renouncement and indulgence with the Child-People who knew nothing of the spiritual world and worried only about money and love, and while love may not have completely pure when he met Kamala, when he meets his son Siddhartha feels his first attachment to someone else, and in turn learns to accept the world and love the people around him without resisting. By doing so, Siddhartha finds the complete balance between the material world of love and spiritual world of renouncement.

As we follow Siddhartha’s life and his journey to seek Nirvana, we see him encounter many teachers to help enlighten him and reach his goal. However, he ultimately understands that his enlightenment and wisdom must come from within, and throughout his life, he experiences many losses, affairs, teachings and transitions between both the spiritual and material world that help him. Wisdom and teachings are the major themes in the story of Siddhartha and his path to enlightenment.