Siddhartha Enlightenment

In the short story “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha, the protagonist of the story was led on a journey to reach enlightenment. Through his many realizations, stages and phases, Siddhartha underwent change: through emotional, mental and physical changes. These stages Siddhartha underwent created the path to his enlightenment; Siddhartha succeeds in his journey

In Siddhartha's first phase on his path to enlightenment, Siddhartha a wealthy Brahmin found that even though “everyone loved Siddhartha,” he could not “bring himself joy” and “please himself.” With this discontent he found inside himself, he found the cause to be that everyone around him and “the wise Brahmins had shared the majority and the best of their wisdom with him;”
At the outskirts of the city, Siddhartha encounters a woman named Kamala who he approaches, hoping to learn the “art which [she has] mastered in the highest degree,” “the joys of love.” Siddhartha through time learns what he lacks and becomes a wealthy merchant so that he may please Kamala, through having “pretty clothes, and shoes, pretty shoes, and lots of money in his pouch, and gifts for Kamala.” As a merchant, Siddhartha enjoys a rich and prosperous life, but it seemed as if Siddhartha “did not care about the business.” Siddhartha became very passive and peaceful, he spent his time watching mankind go “through life like a child or an animal that he both loved and despised at the same time.” Siddhartha welcomed everyone, the poor, the rich as he treated everyone the same. Although happy and joyous, Siddhartha realized “that real life was passing him by without touching him,” “[h]e really wanted to live, to act, and to enjoy instead of just standing by as a spectator.” Years passed, yet “Siddhartha hardly felt them fading away while he was surrounded by the good life;” his soul slowly began to rot and continued to turn on a slow “wheel of asceticism,” making his soul heavier and tired, and putting it to sleep. Siddhartha, “captured by the world, by lust, covetousness, indolence,” became ensnared by riches and possessions. Siddhartha was angry, no longer passive, he “lost his equanimity when he lost a game, he became impatient when he was not paid promptly, [and] he was no longer kind towards beggars.” Siddhartha was once again in a similar phase to