Siddhartha's Life

Siddhartha reflects on his life, and realizes it is a cycle from child to man to child again. As boy Siddhartha was obsessed with gods and sacrifices as a Brahmins son. Then as a youth he wanted to be an ascetic, to think and meditate, he was trying to find the atman in himself. As a young man, he became an ascetic and tought his body how to survive the cold, the heat and hunger. Then he found the Buddha and he learned from him but he still left the Buddha and his teachings. Siddhartha then met Kamala and learned the pleasures of love. He learned business from Kamaswami, and made money and learned to indulge in his senses. This is significant because as he thinks about his life he begins to realize that he changed from a thinker to one of the child people. He passed through so much ignorance, revulsion, disappointment, and misery just to transform from a man back to a child again. He understands that he had to experience despair and become suicidal, to truly understand grace and the meaning of the OM. He decides, “I had to become a fool to find atman in myself.”