Siddhartha Love

British historian and philosopher of history, Arnold Toynbee explained how love is the answer to your goals. He once stated “love is, indeed, one kind of desire; but it is a kind that takes us out of ourselves and carries us beyond ourselves, in contrast to the kind that is self-seeking – a kind that includes the desire for the extinguishedness of nirvana.” True love allows one to look beyond and discover new things about others, showing less concern for your self and putting aside your goals. In the novel Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha learned to reach enlightenment through true love of another being. Siddhartha found his enlightenment through love by facing the belly of the whale, the influence of his son, and by learning

As Siddhartha looks into the river he sees his father, he begins to reflect on his past with his father and begins to see himself in his son. “Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him happiness and peace, but suffering and worry (106).” This is where Siddhartha notices that his arrogant son was exactly like he was in the past and sees that his arrogance is what prevented him from reaching the nirvana. “The next morning he had disappeared… I must follow him said Siddhartha (111).” Siddharthas son had run away and Siddhartha choose to follow him, but once he reached Kamalas garden he sat and meditated. He realized that he put his father through the same feeling of distress and seeing himself in his son he let him go. Without the belly of the whale Siddhartha would've never seen that his flaw through his travels was arrogance, as a samana he was a know it all and felt he couldn't be taught, but after meeting his son he discovered that to be

His son taught him love and true passion, without his son he would have never felt wounded from him leaving and never heard the river laugh in repetition of life. “Siddhartha stopped, bent over the water… it reassembled his father the Brahman, and remembered that he had gone and had never come back… this is repetition, this running around in a fateful circle (119).” He resembled his father whom he loved yet feared and began to remember he was once like his son and forced his father to let him leave. He now knows his father suffered pain, but now his son is gone. He sees the same cycle of pain. “The river laughed. Yes, so it was, everything came back, which had not been suffered and solved up to its end, the same pain was suffered over and over again (119).” This is the first time he hears all the voices of the river and he begins to feel his soul merge into unity and reaches enlightenment due to his sons absence. Without his son he would have never seen that his life was a cycle and would have never felt the pain of his son