Siddhartha

A set starting point, and a set ending point, with nothing set in between. As Hermann Hesse shows in his Short Novel, Siddhartha, the way from one point to another can be interpreted many different ways, and yet with each interpretation, you can reach the same outcome. There is never a set way to do anything in life, never a best way, never even a "right" way, but rather your way of doing that thing. And every time, your way works best for you. Siddhartha takes many journeys in his life, trying to accomplish the one thing he wants, never seeing that it is right there in front of him until the end, when he realizes any way could of done it, it just matters that you set your heart to it, and do it truthfully and honorably, no matter what path he chose, he could have found his way to enlightenment one way or the other.

Siddhartha starts out as a Brahmin's son, trying to be the best he can be, and succeeding at that. But he doesn't feel satisfied, he doesn't feel as if he is going to reach enlightenment by staying as the best of the Brahmin's sons. He feels his knowledge has reached the highest it can reach as a Brahmin and he has a calling to join another caste. He wishes more than anything to reach Nirvana, along with his friend Govinda. So they both decide to leave and become Samanas. After becoming amazingly knowledgeable as a Samana, and after hearing of Gotama's teachings, Govinda and Siddhartha decide to go off in search of Gotama. Siddhartha when he hears Gotama's teachings goes off to speak to Gotama and tell him how he agrees with what he said, but he cannot follow Gotama because he doesn't believe that you can learn by hearing, but you must learn by doing yourself. Gotama agrees, and during this time Siddhartha loses his friend Govinda to the teachings of Gotama and Siddhartha sets off to find himself only using himself. After doing this for a while Siddhartha has the urge to live with the regular people, so he meets Kamana, his courtesan, who teaches him love, and Kamaswami, who he is apprentice for and learns to be a merchant from. After living with the "regular" crowd for a while, he learns of love, but also learns of many of the human problems and starts to gain them, he becomes rich, and lustful, and finally realizes he has gone too far. So in a turning point for his life, he leaves all his money, his house, his food, and goes off to try to kill himself, but in this