Pieces of a Puzzle The places we visit and live in affect us in some way, shape, or form; they help mold us into who we are. In Siddhartha, written by Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha tries to find a way to reach enlightenment by trying out different religious practices. He leaves his home with the Brahmins, and travels around with different religious groups to find his enlightenment. In Siddhartha the different environments that he lives in helps shape him and find inner peace. In the story, Siddhartha becomes void of human feelings and temptations due to his life with various cultural practices. “A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow.” (12). Siddhartha …show more content…
“Siddhartha had learned … he had learned to wear beautiful clothes, to give orders to servants, to bathe in perfumed waters … learned to play with dice and on a chess-board, to watch dancing girls, to have himself carried about in a sedan chair, to sleep on a soft bed.” (56). He indulged in life’s physical pleasures; he enjoyed them and reverts back into a human with desires. All of the material wealth he acquires is a representation of the human lust that he had sworn to cast off, and because of this he slowly drowns out his religious self. “Listen to the divine voice in his own heart, had slowly become a memory, had been fleeting; distant and quiet, the holy source murmured…” (55). He stops investing and trying to find his peace and maintain his religious side, and by doing so he loses it to the physical objects in life. The physical aspects of life null the religious side of him that he obtained during his time with the Brahmins and Samanas. The physical world has shaped him into a human who has desires, but it has also taken away his religious voice. The pain, joys, and emotions he regains during his time with the physical world is an important step for him finding the answer to