Buddhism Response (prompt 2)

Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha is a novel which every person can relate to, for every person goes on a “journey”when they are young to find themselves. While it is universally relatable, the novel also celebrates Eastern religion and illustrates Siddhartha’s anomalistic path to Buddhist enlightenment. Through Siddhartha’s search to find himself, universality, Eastern religious practices and ideas, and Siddhartha’s independence are all manifested.

Eastern religion is one of the bases of Siddhartha. Although he runs away from the lifestyle in which he was raised, Siddhartha brings his sense of what spirituality is with him. From the very beginning of the novel, religion is present. Once Siddhartha has left his family, he and Govinda follow and become shramanas. However, they eventually leave to see the Buddha, Gotama, speak. When they are leaving the shramanas, Siddhartha says, “I have no desires to walk on water...let old shramanas content themselves with such skills”(26). Here, Siddhartha shows that mastering useless skills is not what is important to him, for he could learn everything very quickly from the shramanas and become a highly respected shramana. However, he would not be aware of who he was, nor would he truly understand what it is to be enlightened. Siddhartha as a whole celebrates both the struggle of the individual to understand their religion, and the concept that no one can enlighten you, you must find understanding in their teachings, or in Siddhartha’s case, find it within your own experiences and knowledge.

Siddhartha’s path to enlightenment is one which is very unconventional. When Govinda and Siddhartha go to see the Buddha, Govinda takes refuge in him after they both hear his teaching. Govinda does not understand why Siddhartha does not join him. Siddhartha later explains to Gotama that he does not take refuge because he wishes to “leave behind all teachings and all teachers and to attain [his] goal on [his] own”(36). Although Siddhartha encounters many teachers after Gotama (Kamala, Kamaswami, and Vasudeva), he does eventually leave his teachers (or they leave him) and achieve his goal. Siddhartha illustrates the struggle that most young people encounter; he cannot simply learn something and believe it blindly, he must go out, experience the world, and discover his beliefs himself.

Prior to reading the novel, I knew what samsara was and knew that in Buddhism, the universe is all Brahmin; however, I did not fully understand it. After reading Siddhartha, I understand these concepts through Siddhartha’s experiences with the river. In the same way, Siddhartha can learn many things, like he did from the shramanas, Kamala, and Kamaswami, but in order to understand them, he had to experience these things for himself.

Hesse’s treatment of spirituality is just as relevant today as it was when he wrote the novel, for the struggle of the individual to understand the world and oneself in relation to the world has not changed.