SiddHartha

by: Herman Hesse

     This week we were to discuss a passage, scene or segment of the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. We were to focus on our own understanding of the text and comment on whatever personal connections we can reach within the text. I chose the passage where Siddhartha is questioning himself and the teachings he is getting from family and The wise Brahmans.

     As I read this section, I became increasingly aware of all of the questions that were being narrated. It was one question after another doubting what he was being taught by his Father and the Brahman. This passage takes place just as Siddhartha is about to begin a great journey to Nirvana, the Ultimate Enlightenment. I to had many questions when I was a young man, and it seems so long ago now. At the age of sixteen I was questioning everything around me, from the drunken ways of my stepfather, to what I had to learn in school. I always felt as if there was more out there, and although I did not have a deeply religious or spiritual means to my journey of backpacking around the country for three years, I still reached what I would think of as my own personal Nirvana because I was just existing with the flow of things happening around me. If someone had said "Hey, let's go to Venice Beach today," and I was in Portland Oregon, my answer would have been yes. 

     

     In this short passage Siddhartha commits himself to the belief that everyone around him has nothing left to teach him, and in this I can relate with remembrances of my youth on a personal level if not a spiritual one.