Lessons Learned In Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha

We as humans are constantly faced with choices and decisions which could lead us down many paths in our life. While Siddhartha is on a journey to discover who he is, he seems to learn many lessons, which in reality are merely just an epiphany to things he was taught during his childhood. Everything in life happens for a reason, and the choices we make are always a learning opportunity that we can look back on. We can look back to prevent making the same mistake twice, or in Siddhartha’s case, he looks back on the Brahmin knowledge from childhood to save his own life. Siddhartha seemed to learn many things on his journey, but each new “lesson” he learned was only a reflection of the lessons he had already learned as a child in different ways.

By Siddhartha hearing this word as he is sinking in the river shows him that no matter how “far off of the path” he may have gone, the lessons that he had already learned were still within him. This flashback to his days as a Brahmin reminded him of the spirit that is deep within him, allowing him to feel a sense of purpose in his life and know that his life was not wasted or worthless. The true lesson that Siddhartha realized in this moment is that the spiritual aspect of his childhood, and the Brahmin knowledge he had was not forgotten over the many years travelling in search of additional spiritual knowledge. Siddhartha had learned om so well Hesse writes that he mastered it, and that “ He had learned to fell Atman’s presence at the core of his being, inextinguishable, one with the universe”(1). Siddhartha recognizes his ridiculous idea of killing himself and says “Om pierced his consciousness”(Hesse 75). This is not knowledge that came to him, this was knowledge that was already within him and he knew it better than the back of his hand. Siddhartha looks back on the importance of Om and rediscovers it, he does not learn it for the first

The author said, “Though as for that the passing there, Had worn them really about the same.”(Frost). The path that we take may seem as the one “less traveled”, but in all honesty, I believe that the two paths would lead you to where you want to go with the only difference being the people you meet along the way. Siddhartha would not have met Kamala and had his son if he did not go into the city, but what is to say that Siddhartha would not have had the same emotional experiences of learning love with a women from his Brahmin village. Each lesson Siddhartha experienced through his life was only a remembrance of his childhood, which he used as a way to guide his