Siddhartha has met a woman. The woman's name is Kamala. They have a great relationship with each other and they are in love. Ever since they have been together they get along and just have a bondage. Siddhartha's day just brightens up when he is talking to her. Siddhartha has found the world. He has found life, and not just darkness that he was once isolated by. Life has kidnapped Siddhartha. He finds two women and according to the world, he is introduced to the essential aspect of a mans life. Siddhartha was asked to have sexual intercourse with one of the women, but Siddhartha refuses to do any such act. He still thinks about it. Siddhartha has escaped the spiritual world. He decides to join the material part of the world and shaves his hair off his head. Siddhartha wants to experience something new, something life changing. Siddhartha still speaks with Kamala. His curiosity for sexual sensations does not leave his mind.
Siddhartha follows Kamal's advice and doesn't cause Kamaswami to get suspicious but allows him to respect him. Kamaswami wanted to test Siddhartha and see if he was ready to be a business man. Siddhartha gives nothing but honest answers and it tells Kamaswami that he is educated. Kamaswami likes the answers that Siddhartha gives him and allows Siddhartha to work with him as a merchant. Siddhartha can't take anything serious now. It ironic because there has been a transition going on in Siddhartha's life and it has made him act so much more different. Everythig for Siddhartha is a joke now. Siddhartha has been acting so silly. Everything that Siddhartha has been doing is all a joke. Kamaswami is trying everything that he possibly could but e ererything that he does.
Kamaswami must like Siddhartha because he kept Siddhartha employed. Siddhartha becomes a wealthy man. Siddhartha gains control over himself and becomes great at business. He looks and acts like a wealthy merchant, wearing the finest clothes, eating rich food, entertaining dancers, and gambling, but he finds that the spiritual voice within him has died. Even his continued relationship with Kamala brings him little peace.Siddhartha begins to have dreams that suggest the time may have come to move on. In one dream, he recalls a conversation with Kamala in which she expresses interest in Gotama, but Siddhartha dissuades her from seeking him out. In another dream, he finds the rare songbird Kamala keeps in a cage has died. He throws it out into the street, as though he discards all that is good and of value in his life. When he wakes up, he feels death in his heart. The inner voice that had prompted him to become a Samana, to turn away from the Buddha, and to face the unknown has been silent for a long time.He realizes that he has been playing at the game of Samsara, the cyclical path of normal life in which one lives, suffers, and dies. While it is important for him to have played this game, he does not need to keep playing it forever. He leaves the city in despair, without informing anyone of his departure. When Kamala learns of his disappearance, she frees her songbird from its golden cage. From this day on, Kamala accepts no more lovers, and she discovers she is pregnant with Siddhartha’s child.
After Kamala’s funeral, Siddhartha does his best to console and provide for his son, but the boy is spoiled and cynical. Siddhartha’s son dislikes life with the two ferrymen, wishing to return to the city and the life of wealth he knows. Siddhartha cannot convince him that fine clothes, a soft bed, and servants have little meaning. Siddhartha believes he should raise his son himself, and Vasudeva at first agrees. Though he tries as hard as he can to make his son happy and to show him how to live a good life, Siddhartha finds his son filled with rage. Vasudeva reminds Siddhartha that his own father had not been able to prevent him from joining the Samanas or from learning the lessons of worldliness in the city. The boy should follow his own path, even if that makes Siddhartha unhappy. Siddhartha disagrees, feeling that the bond between father and son is important and, as his own flesh and blood, his son will likewise be driven to search for enlightenment. The river, where true enlightenment and learning can be found, should be an ideal spot for the boy to spend his days.One night the son yells that Siddhartha has neither the authority nor the will to discipline him. The son screams that a ferryman living by a river is the last thing he would ever want to become, that he would rather be a murderer than a man like Siddhartha. Siddhartha has no reply. The next morning, Siddhartha discovers that his son has run away, stealing all of Siddhartha’s and Vasudeva’s money. Vasudeva believes that Siddhartha should let the son go, but Siddhartha feels he must follow his son, if only out of concern for his safety. Siddhartha gives chase but soon realizes his task is futile. He knows his son will hide if he sees Siddhartha. Still, Siddhartha keeps going until he has reached the city.
Govinda returns to the river to seek enlightenment. He has heard of a wise man living there, but when he arrives, he does not recognize Siddhartha. When Govinda asks him for advice, Siddhartha tells him with a smile that he is searching too hard and that he is possessed by his goal, and then calls him by name. Govinda is as amazed now as when he failed to recognize Siddhartha at the river years earlier. Govinda still follows Gotama but has not attained the kind of enlightenment that Siddhartha now seeks. So he asks Siddhartha to teach him what he knows.Govinda points out that he is very old and has little time to reach the final understanding Siddhartha has attained. Siddhartha tells Govinda to kiss him on the forehead. When he does, Govinda sees the timeless flow of forces and images pass before his eyes, just as Siddhartha had envisioned them in the flowing river. With tears streaming from his eyes, Govinda bows down to Siddhartha, whose smiling face is no different from that of the enlightened Buddha. Govinda and Siddhartha have both finally achieved the enlightenment they set out to find in the days of their youth.
Quote
" Listen my friend! I am a sinner and you are a sinner, but someday the sinner will be Brahma again, will someday attain Nirvana, will someday become a Buddha. Now this 'someday' is illusion; it is only a comparison. The sinner is not on the way to a Buddha- like state; he is not evolving, although out thinking cannot conceive things otherwise. No, the potential Buddha already exists in the sinner; his future is already there. The potential hidden Buddha must be recognized in him, in you, in everybody. The world, Govinda, is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people- eternal life. Everything is perfect. Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good - death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. I learned through my body and soul that it was necessary for me to sin".
( Hesse, 143-144)
Response
First of all I happen to believe that this is funny. The reason why I say so is because it just is. It's an enormous change of how in the beginning of the book, Siddhartha was very holy if I could say. Now there has been a gigantic change, it's like life has just hit him. Siddhartha is now able to accept life for what it is. I disagreed with some of the comments that were made in this quote. I do understand where Siddhartha is coming from. I just don't understand why Siddhartha would say that sin is good. What has happened to this man? Where has Siddhartha's spiritual sense went? I laugh at the fact that Siddhartha said that everything is perfect. It's crazy how he can say that. I'm surprised at that. I know that living in an evolving world, everything isn't perfect. Life is not perfect and no one is perfect. Everyone has their own opinions and that's just life. We as a people, even though this is s diverse world, we can't say that the world is perfect, not one person should be able to say that. Siddhartha says that it is necessary for him to sin, and I can't go against that because that something that people commit everyday, on a daily basis, so what can you do? Nothing.
