Siddhartha With The Siddhartha Analysis

Experience goes a long way In chapter two of “Siddhartha, With the Samanas” Hesse begins to show the reader the learning experiences Siddhartha is going through. A continual process of self-discovery to help him find the Self. Just as with the Brahmins, Siddhartha learned many things from the Samanas; He learned to practice self-mortification, he learned to transcend himself from living things to inanimate objects to carcass, he even learned to hypnotize. For Siddhartha this was not enough to reach his ultimate goal of finding the Self. On the contrary, by experiencing the life of an ascetic, and learning the teachings of a Samana. Siddhartha is learning about himself towards discovering the Self.

After living for many years with the Samanas,

He traveled along the path of self-denial through pain, through voluntary suffering and conquering of pain, through hunger, thirst and fatigue” (Hesse 15). Through deep concentration he learned the boundaries of his mind and transcends himself. “…and Siddhartha took the heron into his soul, flew over forest and mountain, became a heron, ate fishes, suffered heron hunger, used heron language, died a heron’s death.” (Hesse 15). In these passages, Hesse explains the many things he learned with the Samanas. However, their teachings did not reach his ultimate goal of finding the Self. “What is meditation? What is abandonment of the body? What is fasting? What is the holding of breath? It is a flight from the Self; it is a temporary escape from the torment of Self. It is a temporary palliative against the pain and folly of life. The driver of oxen make the same flight, takes this temporary drug when he drinks a few bowls of rice wine or coconut milk in the Inn… he finds what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape from their bodies by long exercises and dwell in the non-Self” (Hesse 17). “I suffer thirst, Govinda, and on this long Samana path my thirst has not grown less” (Hesse 18). At this point, Siddhartha begins to doubt the path he has taken. After many years with the Samanas