Hundreds of Buddhist monks attempt to achieve Nirvana daily. They all follow Gotama Buddha's teachings, but most fail to achieve their goal and end up being reborn as new creatures. In Hermann Hesse's book Siddhartha, a young boy, Siddhartha, rejects the teachings of Gotama Buddha and follows his own path to enlightenment. His place of enlightenment, away from the Buddha tree, is a river. In the book, Hesse uses the river as a key catalyst to lead Siddhartha to Nirvana. The river acts as an archetype of timelessness, as a transition between phases of life and as a teacher. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayThe archetype of timelessness is one of the most obvious motifs surrounding the river. The river first shows its timelessness when Siddhartha notices that it has only an illusion of movement. He sees “that the water flowed and flowed continually and yet it was still there; it was always the same and yet every moment it was new” (Hesse 83). He realizes that the river and time are evolving in questionable ways. Just as the river seems to continually move but stays in the same place, time also seems to move but stays in the same place. The river shows its archetypal timelessness when Siddhartha listens to its voices. As Siddhartha listens to the river, he hears the "song of a thousand voices", but "when he has not listened to sorrow or laughter, when he has not tied his soul to a particular voice and does not hear it did not absorb into himself, but I heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of a single word: Om — perfection” (111). When Siddhartha focused on one aspect of the river, he felt nothing. However, when he let all the opposites form together, he found perfection. When all the voices are separated, this phenomenon represents time, since there can only be one voice at a time, but when the voices combine, they present a timelessness. This awareness of timelessness brings Siddhartha to enlightenment. Towards the end we see that Siddhartha has ingrained the idea of ​​timelessness when Govinda looks at Siddhartha and "no longer sees the face of his friend Siddhartha. Instead he sees other faces, many faces, a long series, a continuous flow of faces". — hundreds, thousands, all of whom came and passed away and yet all seemed to be there at the same time, all of whom were continually changing and renewing themselves and yet all of whom were Siddhartha” (121) became so full of timelessness that his pass. , the present and the future all appear on his face at once. He transcended time. This is one of the main ideas that ultimately leads him to enlightenment. Overall, the use of the river to symbolize the archetype of timelessness is a key element of. Siddhartha's process of enlightenment, although he only learns about it in the last stage of his life. The river is also very important to Siddhartha's transition between phases of life, allowing him to have experiences that help lead to enlightenment. The first phase change occurs when Siddhartha moves from a life of spirituality to a life of sensations. He reflected on the first time he crossed the river, when he "reached the long river in the forest, the same river across which a ferryman had once taken him when he was still a young man and he came from the city of Gotama” (71). ). He came from the “city”of Gotama Buddha, which was a spiritual place, and he left to start a new life in the city, a life of physical pleasure. This was his first change in phases of life, from spiritual to physical. Later, while returning from the city, he reaches the river and contemplates suicide. The river then puts him to sleep and purifies him with the word Om. When he wakes up from his sleep, “the past now seems to him covered by an extremely distant, very distant veil” of no importance. He only knew that his previous life... was over” (73). He woke up as a new person. This is his second change in the phases of life, from a life of physical pleasure to a life of spiritual awakening. These two phases were necessary for Siddhartha to achieve enlightenment. Towards the end, he returns to his previous phase of life when he tells Govinda: "I have learned through my body and my soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to fight for ownership and experience nausea and desire. depth of despair to learn to resist them, to learn to love the world, and no longer to compare it to a sort of desired imaginary world, to an imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, 'to like. and be happy to be part of it” (116). Although in theory his stay in the city may have been a waste of time, in reality he needed this experience to achieve enlightenment. And although he could have experienced city life alone, if the river had not purified him, he would have committed suicide. The river leads Siddhartha to enlightenment by letting Siddhartha fill himself with sin and then purifying him afterwards. Yet the river's most important role in the book is its activity as Siddhartha's teacher, the main reason he attains enlightenment. After the river purifies Siddhartha, he accepts it as his guide. He says: “It seemed to him that the river had something special to tell him, something he didn't know, something that was still waiting for him. Siddhartha had wanted to drown himself in this river; old Siddhartha, tired and desperate, was drowning there today. The new Siddhartha felt a deep love for this flowing water and decided that he would not leave it so quickly” (81). With this, he accepts his final teacher, the river. He feels that he has wisdom that he can teach him, something no other teacher was able to do. This is very special since Siddhartha had avoided teachers all his life. He never thought they could teach him anything new. However, in the end, Siddhartha learns from the river. “The river taught me to listen; you will also learn from it. The river knows everything; we can learn everything from it. You have already learned from the river that it is good to strive to go down, to flow, to seek the depths... You have also learned this from the river. You will learn other things too” (86), Vasudeva said to Siddhartha after taking him on as an apprentice. As the book continues, this statement remains true. Siddhartha learns to listen, to wait and to remain taciturn. Together, these teachings allow him to achieve Nirvana. As Siddhartha talks to Govinda, Siddhartha tells him, “There was a man on that ferry who was my predecessor and my teacher. He was a holy man who for many years believed in the river and nothing else. He noticed that the voice of the river was speaking to him. He learned lessons from it; it educated and taught him. The river seemed to him to be a god and for many years he did not know that every wind, every cloud, every bird, every beetle is also divine and knows and can teach as well as the esteemed river., 1951.