Siddhartha Theme Of Love

There are many types of love: familial, romantic, platonic, or even spiritual. In the context of Siddhartha, from a Buddhist worldview, love can bring a person closer or farther away from enlightenment depending on how they look at humanity. When someone has a full understanding of the world and the knowledge in it, they begin to leave the cycle of the world as a result of attaining enlightenment. It takes Siddhartha much of his lifetime to reach enlightenment, and when he does he realizes that loving the earth in its entirety: people, places, and objects, is what will bring him to enlightenment. Hesse uses the theme of love and the various relationships that Siddhartha develops throughout his life to help him reach a universal love, with
no attachments, and then reach enlightenment.
The different types of love that Siddhartha experienced in the novel helped impact his understanding of universal love. In the Western world, romantic love is described as a physical attraction between two people which normally comes with desires. Romantic love is different than the type of love that is established with a friend or a family member because the connection and/or physical attraction between the two people is greater. This type of love comes with desires and it can take someone, like Siddhartha, away from their spiritual love and attaining Nirvana. In particular, the romantic love he had with Kamala created suffering because of the desires that he felt from being with her, but in the end it helped him gain wisdom from his experience. Throughout their relationship Kamala was able to teach Siddhartha about the physical desires of love. In the story he stayed with Kamala for multiple years because he desired the romance and attraction in their relationship, “Siddhartha saw how beautiful she was and his heart rejoiced. ” After he first saw Kamala and his heart began to “rejoice” he started to desire Kamala’s love because he had been introduced to a physical attraction to a woman. Until Siddhartha left the buddha he was not interested in women, but after he learned that knowledge cannot be taught he started observing the world around him, and he began to notice other things. Siddhartha later goes on to say, that he wants to learn the pleasures of love from Kamala. He does not directly say that he wants to love her and to be in love with her, instead he wants to get the pleasure from a relationship with her. Kamala then tells Siddhartha, “He must have clothes, fine clothes, and shoes, fine shoes.” She does not want to be showered with love but instead showered with lavish things, and she is not concerned with kindling a relationship. As a result of this he begins to want money, nice clothes, and sex because he desires these things. Kamala told Siddhartha, “you cannot love” (122). Even though Siddhartha did not love Kamala, his relationship with her was different than his familial relationship with Govinda, and he stayed with her because he desired the physical attraction between them.
The reader can conclude that the romantic love that Siddhartha had with Kamala was not a real love, but instead it was a desire for a woman. He had to accept that his romantic relationship with Kamala was not moving him any closer to enlightenment and therefore he had to move on.
Ultimately, his relationship with Kamala created desires and suffering, and the individualistic love that he has with Kamala is an obstacle of the universal love of the world that he has to reach.
In addition to Siddhartha’s romantic relationship with Kamala, he establishes a paternal love for his son that awakens him on his spiritual journey. This love puts him one step closer on his path to enlightenment, and helps him reach his final goal of enlightenment, however, it becomes an obstacle when he is first introduced to it. The son causes him much stress while he is with him because he was raised in a lavish lifestyle with Kamala, and he does not like the life that Siddhartha lives along the river. Young Siddhartha is disobedient and does not wish to live the same life as Siddhartha. As a parent this frustrates Siddhartha because his son is not following the same path to enlightenment that his father has. Since Siddhartha worries about his son he gets drawn away from his spiritual journey, and this comes as a result of the paternal love he has for him. Siddhartha had experienced the physical attraction of love with Kamala, and the familial type of love with Govinda, but the love that Siddhartha has for his son is one that he has not felt before, a paternal love. He described the love for his son as “the strongest, and strangest passion”(122). In western culture as well, the paternal/maternal love that parents have for their children is among the strongest love. Parents want what is best for them even though children do not want to be just like their parents, and they too can cause their parents stress. Young Siddhartha also wanted to be free and live on his own where he could be happy. Siddhartha has to learn to accept this paternal love even though it is painful for him to let his son go, because it diverted him from his path to enlightenment and caused him suffering. However, Siddhartha was able to accept this suffering as experience and knowledge, and he was
brought another step closer to reaching enlightenment.
Throughout the novel all the different types of love that Siddhartha experiences have different effects on him. Some, like his romantic relationship, and his paternal relationship, drift him away from his path to enlightenment, but they also help him attain a better understanding of love. The love that he experiences with both of them cause him to suffer, and to desire worldly things. Throughout the suffering, “he felt that is was not worthless, that it was necessary, that it came from his own nature” (122).
In conclusion, the love that Siddhartha had with various people throughout the novel and his understanding of this love is what led him to attain Nirvana. When Siddhartha realizes that the pain he felt from love strengthened his wisdom and experience, the romantic and paternal love he experienced became a universal love of the earth, and he reached Nirvana. The many ways that Siddhartha is introduced to love and the difficulties that come with them help him reach success. Siddhartha had trouble finding his enlightenment with many different teachings and people, like the Samanas and the Buddha, but in the end he was able to reach enlightenment by accepting the idea that everything is love. In the end, Siddhartha established a universal love of the world free of desires. The universal love is not a love for a person or an object, but instead it is the idea of loving everything as one, and by doing this Siddhartha can let go of his desires.The love that he experienced along the way of his journey was only an obstacle. Understanding what enlightenment is and how Siddhartha was able to reach enlightenment through love helps the readers understand the context of the novel. Hesse’s use of the theme of love throughout the novel demonstrates the importance of it in the book and its impact on Siddhartha’s character. The theme also creates an understanding of the love that Siddhartha undergoes and how it brings a person to enlightenment.