Why Is Siddhartha Important

We all have two choices in life: to live life joyfully or despondently. The choices we make define our future, which

As humans we tend to see the success of a person’s accomplishments rather than how it all began, the struggles that person had to experience to get to where they are in the end. What this quote means is that happiness may appear like happiness to a person on the outside looking in, but in reality you do not have a general idea of what that person had to go through for their happiness. The quote is saying we want happiness, stability, passion, and contentment, but no one wants to struggle and live through misery to get there. The success in the end is dull, but the suffrage and challenges are far more

Subsequently, he ventures out into the world and explores his senses in a desperate attempt to investigate his spiritual needs. He greets love openly and rests satisfied by the splendors his lover Kamalah. Siddhartha's contentment is terminated as he is presented with a controversial dream. He dreams that Kamala's beloved bird is found dead: " The bird, which usually sang in the morning, became mute and as this surprised him, he went up to the cage and looked inside/ The little bird was dead" (82). Siddhartha's freedom from religion and promiscuous behaviors cease along with the birds death, " he felt horror and death in his heart/ He sat and felt himself dying, withering, finishing" (82). He recognizes the materialistic things including love itself, were insufficient: "Then Siddhartha knew that the game was finished, that he could play it no longer...he smiled wearily, shook his head and said goodbye to all these things" (84).  Siddhartha's perpetual search for security and internal happiness ventures on.

As a result of this dream, Siddhartha leaves Kamala and his life as a rich man. When Kamala learns this, she releases the songbird, symbolic of how Siddhartha’s soul is now free from the sins sustained by leading a rich life. His soul now lives free of its spiritual cage, allowing Siddhartha to work towards his goal of Nirvana.

Here Siddhartha is demonstrating that he is the only one that matters when it comes to thoughts of who he is, and only his opinion of himself matters. Acceptance and the ability to look into himself will lead to that road of happiness. Also, to be minimalistic as to if there is nothing to be needed then it is not. This is something many people should take into consideration as to stay away from being materialistic.

Siddhartha dreamed about the songbird, how one day it stopped singing, and he takes the bird out and it was dead. When he holds it his reaction was to quickly throw it out

Does hope really demolish one from achieving the best or is hope the fuel that ignites one’s ambitions? According to Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun, one can only be successful if they give up all hope of succeeding. In her article, “Start Where You Are”, Chodron shares her perspective on Buddhism and how giving up hope is the solution to all problems. On the other hand, Thomas Jefferson advocates hope by persuading his nephew in a letter to always strive to become better. These two authors provide readers with two very different views on how one could live an exceeding life.

He wakes up from this dream with the realization of his wrong doings. He leaves the city and all the negative associations it came with in order to continue his pursuit of reaching enlightenment. Throughout the end of his journey Siddhartha continues to miss his son. From seeing and envying children with their parents and a man with his wife he grasps the love that ordinary people feel. Sidhartha being consumed by his grief plans to go to Samsara again to find his lost

Siddhartha underwent many challenges and obstacles within his life and travels. But with these challenges, he had many teachers and guidance to help him through it. For example, he had his best friend Govinda, his father, the Buddha, and Kamala. But his most important teachers were the river and Vasudeva. They taught him how to see life and all of its beauty while his other teachers taught him how to live and become a better person and to settle down. His main obstacle in his quest for enlightenment was that he fell in love with Kamala which distracted him from reaching his goal. Even though Kamala was one of his teachers, she was also a main disruption. After while, before he meets the river, Kamala, and Vasudeva, he leaves all his teachers and friends, and even his learnings. He left them so that he can search for his enlightenment alone. But he couldn’t do it alone, he needed guidance. And that is what Vasudeva and the river did

This is important for people today, because there is so much stuff that we want. We are blessed with so much we often times take that for granted. We get so caught up in having the newest, coolest things that we forget what it is like to enjoy the little things. This passage helps its readers take a step back and evaluate their lives, and their priorities. This passage is so important because Socrates says that one of the most beneficial results of philosophy, or human existence, is happiness.

In the dream Siddhartha sees Kamala’s extremely rare songbird in its golden cage, the songbird always sang in the mornings but Siddhartha noticed that today, it was silent. When he gives the bird further inspection, he sees that it is dead. Siddhartha weighs the bird in his hand, then throws its body into the lane and as he did, “ He received a terrible fright, and his heart ached as if he had cast away everything valuable and good from himself…” (Hesse 44). When Siddhartha has this dream he is becoming more and more greedy and troubled by petty problems. He had started spending more of his time gambling, drinking and being unhappy with his life, he is becoming less “good”. He realizes he can’t continue on the path he is on and he leaves the town and his riches

Beneeth the Wheel (1906), Demian (1919), Wandering (1920), Siddhartha (1922), Steppenwolf (1927), The Glass Bead Game (1943), etc.,-the main works of Hesse are like his own biographies. These works follow Hesse’s self-will of confessing his own life. They are the monologues in which the protagonists contemplate themselves in their relation to the world and to themselves. Concurrently, Hesse revisits his heroes in order to explore his own identity, partially exposed in each of them. According to Unseld they are sketches of Hesse’s own personality, especially Josef Knecht, the hero of The Glass Bead

“If someone lives a virtuous and morally worthy life, then no matter how advantages or disadvantages come to him (excluding those that are his fault), he will lack nothing needed for true happiness” (Balaam 25).

Happiness is the key to success. While reading the chapter on confession and how to turn back to God, there was a passage that stood out to me. “Every journey toward something is a journey away from something.” This reminded me of the presentation that was given a couple of weeks ago to the students. The speaker’s slogan was “Rock, Paper, Scissors”. A point of his speech that stood out to me was about the scissors. The speaker said that everyone need to cut out the things in our lives that are not good for us if we want to have a successful future. When I read this the chapter on confession, there was one sentence that stood out to me that reminded me of what the speaker had said. It was the sentence about your journey

During Samsara, it is concluding that Siddhartha has became very successful in the business world. Siddhartha later realizes in By the River that being successful in the real world means nothing. He contemplates suicide, but withholds himself and falls asleep beside the river. When Siddhartha awakes, he realizes that Govinda is next to him and begins to talk about what has happened in both of their lives. Then in The Ferryman, it is told that they go their separate ways once again and Siddhartha receives enlightenment finally from Vasudeva, the ferryman. Lastly, it is revealed in Govinda, that Govinda reunites with Siddhartha once more and Siddhartha tries to get Govinda to enlightenment.