Siddhartha's Path to Nirvana

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“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness…Knowledge can be imparted, but not wisdom. You can discover it, it can guide your life, it can bear you up, you can do miracles with it, but you cannot tell it or teach it” (76). Siddhartha, the adolescent protagonist in Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, is a dynamic character who sets out on a journey of self-discovery that changes him internally throughout its duration. This quest to achieve enlightenment is started when Siddhartha leaves the unsatisfactory Brahmin life to join the Samanas, a group of wandering ascetics passing through town. When he realizes the path of self-denial does not provide a permanent deliverance from the self, he seeks out the Gotama with Govinda, but soon separates from his dear friend, embarking on a life free from meditation and spiritual quests, and instead learns from the pleasures of the body and material world. Caught in an endless cycle that does not satisfy him or provide enlightenment, Siddhartha leaves behind his materialistic life after he dreams of the death of Kamala’s song bird one night, which symbolizes his spiritual entrapment if he does not flee. Siddhartha lives and works beside Vasudeva, who teaches him to learn from the river, but it is not until he is betrayed and abandoned by his only son, that he stops fighting destiny, and achieves enlightenment. Siddhartha’s growth and transformation are the results of his own experiences and inner struggles, because to truly attain nirvana, one must find their own path to reach it. The first major turning point in Siddhartha’s life occurs when he acts on his dissatisfaction towards the Brahmin life and teachings. He believes that although his father has passed on all the wisdom his community has to offer, his questions about the nature of his existence will remain unanswered, and

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