The Path To Enlightenment In Herman Hesse's Siddhartha

In Herman Hesse’s novel, Siddhartha, the main character's path to enlightenment goes through a series of obstacles and is in constant adaptation to Siddhartha's current situation. After coming to the realization about how he is not content with his spiritual and physical life, Siddhartha leaves his family behind and seeks the path to eternal enlightenment. To Siddhartha's realization, he experiences divergent situations that could potentially lead him to enlightenment.

There were various factors in which disparate aspects led to the different building of Siddhartha’s character and potential path to enlightenment. The Samanas, were widely responsible for many of the ideas and predetermined mindset that Siddhartha continued. As quoted in the text, “He traveled

Along these and other paths did he learn to travel. He lost his Self 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.”. Clearly, this quote demonstrates an integral aspect of Siddhartha's incentive towards enlightenment. Although he makes spiritual advance with the Samanas, the Samanas have not once obtained Nirvana, which causes impatience from Siddhartha. The Samanas advocate that in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment, one must eliminate themselves and their senses. However, at this point, Siddhartha had already surpassed that and was in a dire need and has the willingness to continue to the next step beyond eliminating oneself. Despite his constant retry and readjustments to Siddhartha’s techniques, it took much more to draw up on than to just renouncing hunger, fatigue and thirst; Siddhartha always came back to his sense. He is making progress, however, but it is very subtle and unnoticeable to where it soon turns into frustration and eagerness. Although his goal was not achieved anywhere near to the extent desired, Siddhartha was still able to learn a few thing from the Samanas.