The struggle to find enlightenment is ever present in Hesse's Siddhartha. Ultimately, Hesse rejects Eastern religion and philosophy through Siddhartha because Siddhartha finds enlightenment on his own, not with the Buddha or other spiritual groups.
The struggle to find enlightenment is ever present in Hesse's Siddhartha. Siddhartha wanders the land in search of enlightenment over the course of years, but is never satisfied with what he finds. He even leaves the Buddha, someone who knows enlightenment and experiences it firsthand, in his quest to find what he is looking for. Siddhartha is an individual in his society who believes that true enlightenment is discovered by one's self. His experiences lead to his enlightenment, going from the extremes of pious believer to the gambling merchant, where he finally settles on the medium, a ferryman. Ultimately, Hesse rejects Eastern religion and philosophy through Siddhartha because Siddhartha finds enlightenment on his own, not with the Buddha or other spiritual groups.
Siddhartha leaves the Buddha because he realizes that wisdom cannot be communicated to other people. He states that attempting to teach wisdom to others sounds foolish. To him "teachings mean nothing...they have no hardness, no softness, no color...they have nothing but words." This is what drives him away from the teachers in his youth. He never subscribes to the idea that enlightenment is learned, like the followers of Buddha believe. Rather, experiencing life and seeing the world achieves enlightenment. He states that he disbelieves the teachers from his youth and their teachings, and he always will. He does, however, list the people and experiences he has learned from since then, calling them teachers. These people did not all reach enlightenment, yet Siddhartha still learns from them. This further illustrates the point that learning from all experiences and people brings enlightenment.
The river and Ferryman Vasudeva were the greatest teachers Siddhartha had, not the Buddha. He learns from the Ferryman that the river is the key to inner peace. He sees characters from his past, present and future, and realizes that "everything is entwined and entwisted, interwoven a thousand fold" in the river. The Buddha, however, divides the world in his teachings "into samsara and Nirvana, into illusion and truth, into sorrow and salvation." Siddhartha's view is the complete opposite of what the Buddha teaches. He reaches enlightenment by understanding that everything is connected. At the instant he reaches enlightenment, he "stopped fighting with destiny, stopped suffering." He realizes that the seeker cannot find enlightenment; he must love the world and stop comparing it to the world that he wishes for or imagines. He must accept all that he sees and be receptive because everything is connected. It flows together like the river.
The characters Siddhartha sees from his past, present, and future are the people he loves. He could not learn to love with the Buddha, and therefore, could not reach enlightenment staying with the Buddha. Siddhartha learns love through his son and Kamala. Govinda loses sight of love in his quest for enlightenment, until the end of the novel, when he kisses Siddhartha's forehead and feels "the deepest love, of humblest veneration." Siddhartha is the one who evokes these feelings in him, not the Buddha. Love is the most important aspect of enlightenment, but it cannot be taught. Siddhartha merely reminds Govinda of "everything that he had ever loved in his life," but this is enough to evoke Govinda's own awesome emotion.
Hesse's view on Eastern religion is reflected in Siddhartha leaving the Buddha and finding inner peace on his own. Siddhartha rejects the teachings that he learned as a youth, and goes off on his own to seek enlightenment. He finds it not with a religious master, but in a simple ferryman and river. Siddhartha says that the Ferryman knew more than anyone else when he left for the forest, even without teachers or books. Although Siddhartha respects the Buddha and says that he is wise, he claims that the Ferryman is equally wise and saintly. This illustrates the idea that common people can reach enlightenment without the help of a religious master. Govinda spends his entire life searching for enlightenment under the guidance of the Buddha, yet he still has inner struggles when he meets Siddhartha for the final time. This proves that the individual alone must make the quest and discover his own inner peace by himself.
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