Summary Of Siddhartha By Herman Hess Essay - 1316 Words

Austin Burchett Dr. Bain-Selbo Dr. Samuels RELS 200: World religious literature November 10, 2016 Siddhartha is a novel written by Herman Hess, that tells the story based off one of the past lives of the Buddha. In the story, Siddhartha Gautama is on a quest to pursue spiritual enlightenment by seeking guidance from external sources such as Buddhists, Brahmins, Samanas, and even in the material world. Throughout his spiritual pilgrimage, Siddhartha eventually discovers that he cannot learn how to achieve spiritual enlightenment by only relying on exterior sources of spiritual guidance. Siddhartha finally fulfills his Nirvana when he has an internal connection to the river that allowed him to see the complexity of existence. In my opinion, exterior paths for Siddhartha, is not essential to achieving Nirvana but I believe that without exterior guidance, finding internal guidance would be merely impossible. During Siddhartha’s youth, he would always sit and talk with the elders to further understand the Brahmin heritage and achieve all the knowledge he possi bly could. After gaining all the wisdom of the Brahmin, Siddhartha tells his father that he believes he and the other scholarly Brahmin have learned nearly everything from the holy books, but he is concerned that they have not yet achieved enlightenment. Siddhartha feels that the rituals he has been taught by the Brahmin, seem more like a custom than an actual path to enlightenment. One evening Siddhartha reveals to his