Siddhartha essay

Siddhartha goes through a huge spiritual growth through the course of the book. He goes through many trials and tests but in the end he is a much better person than who he started out as. He becomes enlightened in the world through learning the things he did, and he let himself learn them. He transforms from being pride and arrogant to having the ability to listen and love.

An important lesson Siddhartha learned on his mission of life is the art of listening. To know how to listen is rare knowledge that Siddhartha does not know right away, and he has to spend time to learn this. He learns how to do this from the river. “Above all it taught him how to listen- how to listen with a quiet heart and waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinion”(Hesse 90). The river teaches him the skill of listening. He learns how important to listen, and simply listen, without many other factors playing into the act, as it’s so easy to do. He learns the act that is as difficult to learn as is to do, But he does learn. He learns how listen and embraces his listening ability. “Siddhartha listened. He was now completely and utterly immersed in his listening…he felt he had now succeeded in learning how to listen” (Hesse 113). He completely learns how to listen. And he immerses himself in it, just listening. The art of knowing how to listen is important and he learns a lot from it. “…when he listened neither for the sorrow nor for the laughter, when he did not attach his soul to any one voice and enter into it with his ego but rather heard all of them, heard the whole, the oneness…”(Hesse 114). The art of listening has given him the ability to connect with the oneness of the world and completely be part of it, and understand it. Without being able to listen he would be unconnected and lost, but through listening, he learns the way of the world.

Through the course of the book Siddhartha was able to shed most of the pride he had started off with. He made prideful remarks to people he knew, and even the famous Buddha. “But now, according to you very same doctrine, this oneness and logical consistency of all things is nevertheless interrupted at one point; there is a tiny hole through which something strange is flowing into this world of oneness, something new…” (Hesse 29). During this point it was Siddhartha’s goal to point out an error in the Buddha’s teachings.  He is full of pride in this moment to think that he can deny the teachings that came to the Buddha. Through the course of his life, going through many trials, his pride is shed. And he loses this fatal flaw he once possessed. “He had been full of pride- always the cleverest, always the most eager, always a step ahead of others…” (Hesse 83). He comes to realize his own pride, and how it had held him back through the years.  This is a huge growth shown in Siddhartha and his relationship with the world.

Love is something Siddhartha had very little of in the beginning of the story, though over time he learned how to love the world and others. Near the begging of the book he claims that he can’t love while speaking with Kamala. “’I am like you. You too, do not love- how else could you practice love as an art? Perhaps people of our sort are incapable of love. The child people can love; that is their secret” (Hesse 63). While he is still in this state he cannot love. Love is something he has not experienced. Though he does not have it at the beginning he goes through a transformation and gains the ability to love, and love his son. “But he loved him and preferred the sorrow and worry of love to the happiness and peace he had known without the boy.” (Hesse 99). He learns to love the way the child people love, he learned to love someone more than himself. Even though the love of his son brings no joy, he loves him, and he prefers this feeling of love. It’s something he learns to do. As well as learning how to love others he learns how to love the world itself. “But what interests me is being able to love the world, not scorn it, not to hate it and hate myself, but to look at it and myself and all beings with love and admiration and reverence” (Hesse 123). Learning to love the world was hard for Siddhartha, and it was not something that came naturally to him. But in the end he was capable of loving the world. Siddhartha had to learn to love the world. And in the end he did.

Siddhartha goes through a lot to be enlightened and learn how to love, listen, and let go of his pride but he in the end does learn it. “He had died, and a new Siddhartha had awoken from sleep” (Hesse 83). Parts of him died, causing much pain and suffering, but he grew from that. And he learned. And he became one with the world.