From Eternity to Momentary: Siddhartha's Journey in Hesse's Siddhartha

Abstract

The understanding of Self has been the all time challenge forall spiritual thinkers, teachers, and seekers. Siddhartha, the hero of Hesse's novel Siddhartha, also endeavors to understand the Self. He leaves family back along with the entire possibility of material prosperity for the spiritual quest. The hero struggles for years to reach his goal. Hisinitial quest for understanding Self clashes with his experience and destroys his earlier idea of eternity of the Self. In his quest for the Self, Siddhartha negates its eternity to establish the idea of its momentariness that is constructed by his desires, actions, and experiences. Siddhartha rejects the notion of Self as the divine, immortal Soul. After years-long struggle and experience, he realizes that there is no permanent Self to represent the cycle of rebirth.Siddhartha realizes that everything culminates in nothingness and the Self is just an impression constructed by different aspects of experiences and desires.