A Wholly Holy Life: Siddhartha's Spiritual and Intellectual Growth

This is an A paper. I got a 192/200 on my essay in my 9th grade honors english class.

10/4/06
Wholly Holy Life
In Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, a young Brahmin in the wealthier part of India, approximately three thousand years ago, decides to set a goal onto his life. He decides to journey along the path of enlightenment and reach Nirvana, a state of total bliss. His dear friend, Govinda, accompanies him on this journey. Siddhartha sets out to seek the path to enlightenment, but it is long and difficult. Along the way, he grows spiritually and intellectually from a young seeking Brahmin, to an old, wise, and content ferryman with the knowledge of enlightenment and possessing many insights on life.
When he first leaves his family, he takes to the path of the Samanas and goes to the forest to live with other Samanas and to learn their knowledge of the path to Nirvana. When he lives with them and abides by their teachings, "Siddhartha had one single goal - to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow - to let the Self die. No longer to be Self, to experience the peace of an emptied heart, to experience pure thought - that was his goal"(14). When Siddhartha thought this, he believed that the only way to enlightenment was the way of the Samanas who starved, isolated themselves, and tolerated pain to kill their Self and senses so they could reach their inner Being. They believed that with no obstructions they could reach the inner subconscious Being and enlightenment. Along with Govinda, who had also chosen to follow the path of the Samanas, Siddhartha travels down this path for the next few years, and through repetition, learns the three essential skills; thinking, waiting, and fasting, and through them he escaped his Self to attempt to reveal his inner Being or god.
After three years, Siddhartha realizes that he is not progressing toward his goal. He had learned all the Samanas could teach, and "he lost himself a thousand times and for days on end he dwelt in non-being. But although the paths took him away from Self, in the end they always led back to it" (15-16). Siddhartha discovers this was not the path he sought; escaping from one's Self did not bring one to salvation. His wisdom grew when he accepted there was another path and this short escape from Self is experienced by others in a quite different way such as people who drink numbing their senses like he did with the Samanas. He sees that in truth, there is no learning and that his questioning and thirst for knowledge could not be satisfied by teaching. Seeking another path, Siddhartha hears of a Buddha named Gotama, and with Govinda, who also chooses to leave, ventures to see him.
After a short journey, Siddhartha and Govinda arrive at the resting place of the Buddha and meet many others who had also come to hear him preach. After one of the Buddha's speeches, Govinda chooses to diverge from Siddhartha's path and follow the path of the Buddha with many other followers and is shocked when Siddhartha refuses to. Before leaving, Siddhartha meets and talks with the Buddha face-to-face seeking console. Siddhartha says to the Buddha, "You [Gotama] have learned nothing through teachings, and so I think, O Illustrious one, that nobody finds salvation through teachings" (33-34). When he discuses this with the Buddha, he discovers that enlightenment cannot be taught and that he must discover it for himself. He must strive to gain his own knowledge and find his own path through experience. As he thinks this over while walking away from the Buddha's garden, leaving Govinda behind, sudden realization overcomes him.
He sees he must find his own path to enlightenment through experience of the world. As he decides to set out on this path he says to himself, "I [Siddhartha] will learn from myself, be my own pupil; learn from myself the secret of Siddhartha" (39). He means that he will teach himself the new path and that since he has been escaping from his Self and the world for so many years, he should explore himself, test his senses and explore things that he has ignored. The first thing he chooses to explore is love. He finds the opportunity to with a rich courtesan, Kamala, who gives him guidelines, to become a suitable man for any woman.
Soon, Siddhartha is rich and has a job as a merchant so he can fulfill the requirements of the courtesan. As a merchant, he learns the many pleasures of wealth. "Siddhartha had learned how to transact business affairs, to exercise power over people, to amuse himself with women, he had learned to wear fine clothes, to command servants, to bathe in sweet smelling waters" (77). He had learned many new ways of pleasure. He had explored himself through stimulating his senses. He had become part of a society that seemed alien to him and had reached the point where his happiness peaked and he was living a very enjoyable life.
However, the carefree attitude Siddhartha had adopted was, over time, replaced by greed and obsession, and he turned to alcohol and gambling to numb his needs and give him excitement and happiness. This escape brought him to madness and one night, after a dream about a dead songbird, he realizes he has thrown away his life and attempts suicide. After his attempt, he realizes "I [Siddhartha] had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear Om again…" (97). When Siddhartha finds the errors of his ways, he no longer seeks knowledge for he has explored both the Samana and merchant ways and he now truly understood that he had to experience these events for himself, no matter what he had been warned of the outcome would be. In order to quench his thirst for knowledge, he had to explore himself further and experience the pain and emptiness of life so he would be able to reach enlightenment.
Shortly after making his choice, Siddhartha sets off to the ferryman, of the river in which he had attempted suicide, to seek apprenticeship in return for lodgings and food. He learned many things from the river during his stay. He learned "… the river is everywhere at the same time, at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadows of the past, nor the shadow of the future" (107). He learned the secrets of the river, and that it was transitory, only in the same for a moment and is constantly changing. He learned how to listen to the different voices of the river and guide himself by them. He was learning about himself and his environment by following his own path of self-exploration. Siddhartha remained with the river for many years.
In these years, he had lost and found his love, Kamala, and his bastard son, and the ferryman had left to the forest to live out his final days. He once again encountered Govinda and showed him "a stone, and within a certain length of time, it will perhaps be soil and from the soil it will become a plant, animal or man… I do not respect and love it because it was one thing and will become something else, but because it has already long been everything and always is everything" (145). Siddhartha had seen the unity of life. He saw that everything was always in "flux" and changing. He saw that since everything is changing, it is all one thing and because of this idea, he had reached Nirvana and Enlightenment. He had gained a new perspective on life because he saw that all things were and will become everything. He could see all things in their present, past, and future, at once, and had a greater understanding of the world.
Siddhartha had devoted his entire life to find Nirvana and reached it, after long days as a Samana, a corrupted merchant, and a ferryman. He saw the world in a new light and now new all of its secrets. Many to this day follow paths similar to the Samanas or others, like that of Zen Buddhists, to find enlightenment. Herman Hesse tells a fictional story that is the embodiment of the beliefs of this area other world three thousand years ago. This book may not be significant to you, as you cannot learn solely through its teachings, but it does contain a deep understanding that may help awaken many and help them see the world through Siddhartha's eyes.
Sadly, not many people can go through this nowadays due to our hectic lives. Some however get close to what our new enlightenment is. A rehabilitated drunk now sees the world in a new way and appreciates it greatly just as Siddhartha did. In the end after his difficulties striving to gain knowledge and wisdom through his experiences in life, he finally found the true happiness and peace of enlightenment. Siddhartha had achieved his goal, and was there, atop the peak of knowledge and wisdom, appreciating the troubles he went through to get there, just like many struggling people in the world who go through hell just to survive. In the end, you know that the ones who make it through and learn from their experience truly lived a wholly holy life