Siddhartha Research Paper

Siddhartha Philosophy of Self Paper

Manjot Sahota

Conestoga College

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Abstract

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The famous novel, Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is a story all about a young mans spiritual quest of self-knowledge and spiritual enlightenment. On his quest of meaning the main character of the novel; Siddhartha, experiences many common challenges throughout life that are very relatable and applicable to all individuals own personal experiences. The main challenges and conflicting obstacles that Siddhartha faces on his quest of spiritual enlightenment are suffering, rejection, greed, love and also wisdom. These challenges and conflicts that arise during Siddhartha’s quest are all conflicts that we as people will endure on our journey

This paper will also include a brief summary of Siddhartha journey along with relatable and contradicting material from the textbook that relates directly to the novel.

Summary

To begin, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse is a novel about a young man who is on the quest to discover the true meaning of life. This quest begins when Siddhartha is not content with his Father the Brahmins teachings, he feels as if the Brahmins have already passed on there bulk of knowledge and there is nothing else for him to learn under his fathers wing. Siddhartha asks his father for permission to leave the Brahmins and join the Samanas, the Samanas were a group of people who lived in the forest they lived by the rule of dressing in rags and taking only the barest amounts of food and water necessary to preserve life. This was supposed to teach Siddhartha that suffering is the way to remove oneself from the earth to reach ultimate bliss. Siddhartha didn’t agree with this philosophy and continued his journey for true enlightenment. Siddhartha then meets Gotama,

This means that the client expectations are basically what the client believes will happen once a mental health worker is assessing them. These pre-conceived notions can originate from anywhere, such as past experiences, media and also by word of mouth. This is relevant in the novel Siddhartha because on his journey to seek enlightenment he has preconceived expectations and notions of the people who he believed could show him how to live in complete bliss. This is first demonstrated in the novel when he left the Brahmins for the Samanas, he had expectations that with the Samamas he would achieve full bliss because he developed an expectation based on what he observed from other Samanas. This directly relates to client expectations, for example, Siddhartha is considered as the “client” and the Samanas are the” health worker”. When the clients expectations are not met this leaves a void gap in the client’s expectations and reality. This caused Siddhartha to leave the Samanas because his expectations were not