1. I believe that the quote “When you throw a stone into the water, it finds the quickest way to the bottom of the water. It is the same when Siddhartha as an aim, a goal.” is an accurate comparison. When Siddhartha has a goal, he barely has time to consider his decisions, then plunges right into what he is doing. His goal now is to immerse himself in material life. This means that he is giving in to all of his desires to find the bottom of the pond, or his answers.
2. Kamaswami and Siddhartha have different approaches when it comes to business. Kamaswami is a self-absorbed man who cares most about profit. Siddhartha is more concerned about his clients. He makes friends with many of the people he does business with. In today’s world, I bring my business to people who are concerned more about my wellbeing than what they can get out of me. Siddhartha would be much more successful. On page 67 it says “He always seemed to be playing at business, it never makes much impression on him, it never masters him, he never fears failure, he is never worried about loss.”
3.
…show more content…
The “soul sickness of the rich” is something that many wealthy people experience. People in our world are motivated by money and power. The richer you are, the more power you have. Once you earn money, the “sickness” grows stronger and stronger until you believe having wealth is the only way to be happy. Eventually, Siddhartha becomes absorbed by this which leads him to leave the city and nearly commit suicide by the river. “He, who staked ten thousand on the throw of the dice and laughed, became more hard and mean in business, and sometimes dreamt of money at night.” It is the sickness that overtakes people to fall in love with the idea of wealth, so much that you dream of it at
The first Noble Truth is, all life is full of suffering, pain, and sorrow. Siddhartha had related to this due to his riches. Siddhartha had gained great wealth due to his working for Kamaswuasi. However, the only piece that Siddhartha lacked was that he knew his wealth was superficial. Though every man wishes he be rich, Siddhartha believed that being rich was not the key to reach nirvana.
Although Siddhartha felt dissatisfied with his stay with the Samanas, in reflection there were a lot of things that he took from his experience with them. He mastered the art of self-denial and many ways of losing the Self, which was very important. He became patient enough to wait for anything and learned to live without food or any other necessities. Siddhartha makes his first significant step towards attaining Nirvana when he leaves the Brahmins to live with the Samanas. Although he could never truly attain Nirvana with the Samanas, the major step is that he began to question his method to attain enlightenment.
Siddhartha is a much respected son of a Brahmin who lives with his father in ancient India. Everyone in their town expects Siddhartha to act like his father and become successful. Although he lives a very high quality life, Siddhartha is dissatisfied and along with his best friend Govinda- wants nothing more than to join the group of wandering ascetics called Samana’s. This group starves themselves, travels almost naked and must beg for the food they survive on. This group of people believes that to achieve enlightenment and self-actualization: body image, health, physical and material desires must be thrown away. Although this is the life Siddhartha wished for himself, he soon discovers that it is not the right choice for him. Near desolation, Siddhartha happens upon a river where he hears a strange sound. This sound signifies the beginning of the life he was born to live – the beginning of his true self. Hesse uses many literary devices to assure Siddhartha’s goal of self-actualization and creates a proper path for that success.
Siddhartha does not embark on his journey until he received permission from his father. When he wishes to leave home and join the Samanas, Siddhartha approaches his father and says, “With your permission, Father, I have come to tell you that I wish to leave your house tomorrow and join the ascetics. I wish to become a Samana. I trust my father will not object” (Heese, 10). When his father rejects his request, he sits down with his arms crossed until his father allows him to go on his journey. He cares deeply about his parents, and no matter how much he wants to go on a journey of enlightenment, he will not be able to if his parents don’t allow him to. Chris, on the other hand, leaves home without telling his parents anything. This is mainly because his parents were a major reason he felt unhappy in the first place. He and his sister are traumatized by their bitter relationship filled with constant abuse, both verbal and physical. Chris loves his parents much less than Siddhartha, meaning he is able to go behind their backs and go on a journey for fulfillment without the guilty conscience that Siddhartha would have. Another key difference between the two journeys is the specificness of their goals. Chris’s goal is simple- to live in the wilderness in Alaska. Everything he does in the movie is to prepare for the Alaskan wilderness. It is a goal set in stone from the beginning of the movie, it never changes. On the other hand, Siddhartha’s goal is much vaguer. He is trying to reach enlightenment, but he does not know how exactly to reach it. He first tries to achieve enlightenment through asceticism with the Samanas, but it doesn’t work. He then meets Gotama and listens to his teachings, but yet again he is unable to reach enlightenment. Unlike Chris, Siddhartha’s plan for reaching
76). All of the spiritual aspects Siddhartha gained as being a Brahmin’s son and a Samana was turning into a memory because of his new pleasures. Siddhartha was not a man like he used to be. He went down a path that caused him to lose his kindness and became arrogant. Even though Siddhartha felt superior compared to the people around him, he had a feeling of becoming more like them. Also, he became extremely unhappy and hated himself for how he was. The teachings he learned from Kamaswami only lead to negative effects on Siddhartha. He did not gain a sense of enlightenment from having pleasure of being rich and gambling money. Siddhartha realized he needed to continue down a different path if he wanted to discover enlightenment. He felt this in his heart that made him reach for a new goal: “A path lies before you which you are called to follow. The gods await you” (83). Siddhartha went through a life of pleasures that only decreased his hope of reaching full
In the first part of the book, Siddhartha is consumed by his thirst for knowledge. He joined the samanas and listened to the teachings of the Buddha in attempt to discern the true way to Nirvana. Though he perfected the arts of meditation and self-denial, he realized that no teachings could show him the way to inner peace. While with the ascetics only a third of his quest was accomplished. Siddhartha said, "You have learned nothing through teachings, and so I think, O Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation through teachings" (27). His experiences with the samanas and Gotama were essential to his inner journey because they teach him that he cannot be taught, however this knowledge alone would not deliver him to enlightenment. Siddhartha had taken the first step in his quest but without the discovery of the body and spirit, his knowledge was useless in attaining Nirvana.
The beautiful courtesan, Kamala, taught Siddhartha the importance of love along with the pleasures of it. While in the town of Samsara, he was introduced to a life of luxuries by her. She taught him how to please a woman and how to keep her satisfied. He also learned how to gamble and the art of running a business from her friends. Although Siddhartha felt moments of joy, nothing fulfilled the longing in his soul. Over the years, one of the more important lessons he gained from Kamala was that he could have this life of pleasurable things and yet still yearn for a deeper meaning in his heart.
Frequent allusions to the river correspond w/ Siddhartha's infinite thoughts of Unity and his initial plans to strive for it. Siddhartha has a number of specific goals during the course of this novel, but in no way does this detract from the bare nature of his ultimate goal. The accomplishment of specific goals was an important part of the progression approaching his absolute state of Unity.
While it seems as if Siddhartha’s early stages of following the teachings of others and immersing himself in material goods did not help Siddhartha on his quest, Siddhartha views these stages in a positive way. “I experienced by observing my own body and my own soul that I sorely needed sin, sorely needed concupiscence, needed greed, vanity… and to love it and be happy to belong to it.” (120). Siddhartha states how he needed sin, vanity, and all of these feelings to realize how corrupt his view of enlightenment was. Siddhartha understands, through viewing his own body and soul, that he needs to accept the world he lives in for what it is, and learn to love it. This flaw that Siddhartha has throughout much of the novel is crucial, as Hesse is able to display how wisdom can only be achieved by looking within the self, not through the words or doctrines of others.
Through out the novel Siddhartha had constantly taken risks that he believed would lead him to nirvana. He would take these risks even if it meant leaving his family, his best friend, and having to live as a poor man searching for himself. Siddhartha has many teachers during his journey. Although he had many teachers he believed that with or without them he would have learned what he needed to learn to obtain nirvana.
Many people say that being knowledgeable is the same as being wise; however, in Hermann Hesse’s novel, Siddhartha, knowledge is differentiated from wisdom. Siddhartha, the protagonist, is the knowledgeable son of Brahmins, whose thirst for enlightenment forces him to step towards an unknown journey. Govinda is Siddhartha’s best friend who accompanies Siddhartha because he believes in Siddhartha’s knowledge. The Buddha, the enlightened founder of Buddhism, plays an important role in Siddhartha’s journey. After meeting the Buddha, Siddhartha realizes that no one can show him the path to enlightenment because wisdom can be only found through experience. Therefore, he leaves Govinda and begins to discover the world himself. The more he experiences,
Throughout the tale, Siddhartha strives to be one with Atman, or internal harmony/eternal self, but by his own attainment. Even when he is offered the insight of Gotama, the divine and perfect one, who is the embodiment of peace, truth, and happiness, he refuses following him and decides to attain Nirvana in his own way. In this, Siddhartha shows his prideful nature but also reveals a positive aspect: self-direction. He realizes that others' ways of teaching can only be applied to their past experiences, but is still reluctant to ac...
Siddhartha, a member of the wealthy Brahmin Caste, is unhappy due to his inability to achieve nirvana. Siddhartha appears to be perfect, possessing the good luck, charm, and intelligence. This is what all Brahmins wish to possess. The young Brahmin cannot be taught anymore by the Brahmin teachings and rituals, and this makes him discontent. Siddhartha believes that knowledge is required to attain Nirvana and he feels that he is held down by his material possessions.
Siddhartha has the urge to become enlightened There was something telling him to endure on his journey to enlightenment and thus begins the Hero Journey This is the first step towards his journey After seeing the Samanas, he decides he wants to follow in their footsteps to learn more about himself and the world that he has been sheltered from his whole life When he tells his family about his decision of becoming and Samana they refuse to let him go, especially his father who has done most of
The four sights that Siddhartha was hidden from all his life are what compelled him to find the Four Noble Truths. When Siddhartha set out to see the outside world he saw the sights of old age, sickness, death, and the wandering monk. Siddhartha’s ultimate goal was to end all the suffering he had experienced as well as what he had seen others experience. His discovery of the solution began with the recognition that life is suffering.