Siddhartha’s Spiritual Enlightenment What path is there to take for spiritual enlightenment? Is it full of temptations and obstacles? Or is it full of assistance and guidance? In Herman Hesse’s book, Siddhartha, a man who comes from a Brahmin family in India goes on a journey to find spiritual enlightenment. Siddhartha finds spiritual enlightenment through his journey in which he encounters his enlightening events through stages in life he undergoes. The start of Siddhartha’s journey begins at home where he mentions to his best friend, Govinda, that he will join the Samanas who believe that they can reach enlightenment through the rejection of physical desire. Siddhartha seems to feel empty inside, lost in his own thoughts, full of wise knowledge he had learned, and for that matter “Govinda realized from the first glance at his friend’s determined face that now it was beginning. Siddhartha was going his own way; his destiny was beginning to unfold itself…” (Hesse 6). Although Siddhartha joined the Samanas, his thirst was still growing stronger. He did not find enlightenment with the Samanas. So he reached out to Gotama Buddha and also did not find what he was looking for. “That was the last shutter of his awakening, the last pains of birth,” just as he realized this he continued his journey but now without his …show more content…
From the beginning of Siddhartha’s journey at home, to being a Samana, to becoming a merchant lost in desire for Kamala, and to finally being enlightened by his son’s vanishing, Siddhartha was learning through his mistakes and getting closer to his goal as he went farther away from home, from the luxurious life a brahmin son is born into, from living as a samana, and as an ordinary person. Nevertheless, all human being would go through this suffering to achieve inner peace and to find your true “Self”. Wouldn’t