Wisdom And Knowledge In Siddhartha

Siddhartha: Wisdom and Knowledge Knowledge is information from teachings that can be changed and improved over time while wisdom is a timeless quality from personal experiences that is used to measure the capacity to see truth. Finding the relationship between these two topics is the central objective Hermann Hesse’s protagonist in Siddhartha strives for as he tries to reach Enlightenment. Siddhartha starts as a dissatisfied Brahmin who seeks for a new life style through the Samanas, who teach him one extreme of total denial, and the people, who teach him the other extreme of over indulgence. As he experiences both extremes, he begins questioning the purpose of knowledge and wisdom in relation to Enlightenment. Siddhartha eventually encounters
With his time with the people, Siddhartha meets Kamala, a beautiful woman who teaches him about love, and Kamaswami, a business man who introduces economics and business to Siddhartha. By the time Siddhartha becomes a successful business man, “Siddhartha [has] learned how to transact business affairs… he [has] learned to eat sweet and careful prepared food… he [has] learned to play dice and chess, to watch dancers and to sleep on a soft bed… But property, possessions and riches had also finally trapped him” (Hesse 77-78). Hesse’s repetition of the word “learned” emphasizes the fact that Siddhartha has gained an abundance of information. Similar to his life with the Samanas, he is dissatisfied and feels miserable despite the amount of new knowledge he has gained. In a way, he is expressing denial again through hedonism, or the act of pursuing pleasure. He was denying his inner Atman, thinking hedonism would bring him joy and ultimately, Enlightenment. Considering the fact that wisdom is a disposition to find the truth through judgment, here Siddhartha was blinded by the knowledge and greed and thus, did not obtain wisdom. Through Siddhartha’s ironic situation, Hesse implies that even if one intentionally seeks for cognition, it does not always
Out of this breakthrough, he reaches Enlightenment not by relying on methodology and knowledge but by being constantly dissatisfied with them during his denial by way of meditation with the Samanas, denial through hedonism with the people and acceptance of the unity of life with Vasudeva and the river. This concept of the relationship between knowledge and wisdom can also be applied to the modern age. In contrast to Siddhartha, the current millennial generation lacks wisdom despite the amount knowledge they have. With the new innovations and inventions such as the internet and social media, discovering and communicating information became effortless. Suddenly life was concentrated on finding and sharing the most knowledge with others. Influenced by this shift, the modern generation no longer values how to gain wisdom but focuses on how much knowledge they attain and share. Therefore, millennials should stop emphasizing the outcome of their actions and value the purpose and the experience they obtain from