Siddhartha Enlightenment

Meditating in the forest for six years he realized that he was becoming close to full enlightenment. Siddhartha found another spot to complete his meditation under the Bodhi Tree where he wouldn’t leave until he achieved his enlightenment. While in his deep state meditation Devaputra Mara the chief of all demons tried to stop him from achieving his goal by sending nightmarish vision to him to disturb him. With none of these tactics working Mara even tried luring him away with beautiful girls, but nonetheless Siddhartha wouldn’t break his concentration. Withstanding the chief of demons, he received the name Conqueror Buddha in which the next day of meditation he could become Buddha (“About Buddha”).

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse discusses the many paths of teaching that relate to Hinduism that Siddhartha followed on his journey through life and how each path helped him realize what he wanted with his life. Siddhartha follows many teachings or paths in which to reach his spiritual destination, which at the beginning was to reach Nirvana.

As with the Brahmins, Siddhartha’s experience with the Samanas is not a fulfilling one. Hesse writes, “he slipped out of his Self in a thousand different forms. He was animal, carcass, stone, wood, water, and each time he reawakened” (Pg-15). Siddhartha learned a great deal from the Samanas, yet he was still unable to reach enlightenment. During his time with the Samanas, Siddhartha never saw or heard of a single person achieving enlightenment. Feeling disillusioned with the teachings of others, Siddhartha decided to leave the Samanas, and seek out the venerable Buddha. Siddhartha seeks out the Buddha and hears his sermon, but he ultimately decides to seek his own path to enlightenment. In leaving the Buddha, Siddhartha begins to follow a Buddhist path. Siddhartha says, “But there is one thing that this clear, worthy instruction does not contain; it does not contain the secret of what the Illustrious One himself experienced he alone among hundreds of thousands" (Pg-34). In this part of his journey, Siddhartha realizes that no one can teach him how to achieve enlightenment. As Gautama did before him, Siddhartha heads out to find his own path to enlightenment.

    In Hesse's novel, Siddhartha the title character, Siddhartha leaves the Brahmins in search of Nirvana - spiritual peace.  The journey he endures focuses on two main goals - to find peace and the right path (http://www.ic.ucsb.edu/~ggotts/hesse/life/jennifer/html).  Joseph Mileck, the author of Hermann Hesse:  Life and Art, asserts that Siddhartha focuses on a sense of unity developed through Siddhartha's mind, body, and soul (Baumer).  Hesse's Siddhartha revolves around three central journeys - a physical, a mental, and a spiritual journey.

When Siddhartha leaves and joins the Samanas we begin to understand the origin of where his suffering is coming from; which is all seen as the second noble truth. In his search for enlightenment Siddhartha hoped that by joining the samanas that he would be liberated from

There have been many teachers in one’s lifetime, some more important than others. These teachers and instructors affect different people in different ways, and lessons are learned that are important to prepare for real life situations. In the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, a young Brahmin named Siddhartha is not content with his current spiritual self. Siddhartha is directed to spiritual enlightenment and Nirvana because of his guidance and teaching from Kamala, Kamaswami, and Vasudeva.

“What could I say to you that would be of value except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.” (113) Siddhartha, a book written by Hermann Hesse, is about this young boy who throughout the book grows to an old man who, throughout his journey, seeks to attain enlightenment. He comes from a Brahmin family and later decides to become a samana and lives in the woods with his “shadow”,Govinda. Siddhartha is distracted with obstacles throughout his life and ultimately finds a way to conquer them.

Siddhartha comes to realize that he has discovered who he really is, he is Siddhartha. He knows himself more than any other teaching or religion. As he comes to self-realization, he comprehends he has been letting himself slip away, he has been running away from himself.

The two boys leave the town to join the Samanas, a group of people who believe that spiritual enlightenment comes with the rejection of body and all other needs. The boys quickly realize that their ideas of the group are very different, Govinda loves the way that improvements that he has gained spiritually and morally. While Siddhartha has yet to reach the spiritual enlightenment that he wishes to achieve. “Siddhartha learned a great deal from the Samanas; he learned many ways of losing the Self. He traveled along the path of self-denial through pain, through voluntary suffering and conquering of pain, through hunger, thirst and fatigue. He traveled the way of self-denial through meditation, through the emptying of the mind through all images. Along these and other paths did he learn to travel. He lost his Self a thousand

In Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, a young Brahmin in the wealthier part of India, approximately three thousand years ago, decides to set a goal onto his life. He decides to journey along the path of enlightenment and reach Nirvana, a state of total bliss. His dear friend, Govinda, accompanies him on this journey. Siddhartha sets out to seek the path to enlightenment, but it is long and difficult. Along the way, he grows spiritually and intellectually from a young seeking Brahmin, to an old, wise, and content ferryman with the knowledge of

Hesse personifies the river creating it into a character of its own which also guides Siddhartha down his final steps to salvation. Vasudeva, the ferryman, who sails his ferry across this river is known to be an enlightened character he is apart of the river who also guides Siddhartha to find himself and to learn from his travelings that it is one’s own discoveries and travels that influence the mind, soul, and body to become one and at peace to achieve Nirvana, an overall inner and exterior peace.

In the departure phase of his journey, Siddhartha completely shuns both internal and external desires and lives a more than humble life. During Siddhartha’s conversation with his father about leaving home, Siddhartha’s father, “returned again after an hour and again after two hours, looked through the window and saw Siddhartha standing there in the moonlight, in the starlight, in the dark” (11). Hermann Hesse’s use of dark and light imagery, emphasizes Siddhartha’s stubbornness for his desire to go with the Samanas, whose religious ideals are severe self discipline and restraint of all indulgence; he is adamant about leaving home, as his father checked on him countlessly and Siddhartha stood there unwavering despite the many hours and change of daylight so he could earn his father’s blessing to live the lifestyle of an ascetic. Furthermore, Siddhartha travels to the Samanas with Govinda to destroy Self and the multitudinous amount of desire by quelling each desire and all together Self even though he knows it is a difficult goal to achieve, “Although Siddhartha fled from Self a thousand times, dwelt in nothing, dwelt in animal and stone, the return was inevitable” (16). The effect of Siddhartha’s multiple attempted destructions of Self as a consequence of living as a Samana are failure in his attempt to discover Nirvana. Moreover, Siddhartha travels with Govinda to the Buddha after leaving the

In Herman Hesse’s novel, the American dream Siddhartha possesses extends while he is on the road to “salvation.” Upon

In Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, the titular main character journeys to find peace, Nirvana. This self-discovery lends itself to a main theme of the path to finding peace. Hesse used the river, its ferryman, Vasudeva, and clothing to convey this theme of self-discovery and the journey to it.

Siddhartha, a novel written by Herman Hesse, recognized by many as his most influential literary work. Siddhartha depicted the life of a noble young Brahmin, Siddhartha, journey to find spiritual enlightenment. Living in both spiritual world and the material world of is an essential component in Siddhartha’s path to enlightenment. One may not notice it from a surface, but with a keen observation, the novel will reveal common elements in Abraham Maslow, “Hierarchy of Needs.” From a perspective one can define Maslow’s theory as a template to Siddhartha quest to find