“Your soul is the whole world” (Hesse 7). Although the value of a soul cannot be underestimated, the belief that it represents the entire world does not leave room for many other people. In Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, the main character spends his life searching for answers from the world, only to discover that the answers were within him the whole time. However, by the time Siddhartha reaches this conclusion, he has abandoned everyone who has ever loved him, and he has done so in what he calls the justifiable name of the soul. Siddhartha finds his happiness, his physical, mental and spiritual peace, but at a price that is not his own. He abandons his parents for the benefit of the Samanas; he abandons the Samanas and his best friend Govinda in favor of city life; he abandons city life and the relationships he has formed there for the benefit of the unknown, to find what he considers to be his place in the world, a life as a smuggler. Siddhartha throws his family out every time he is struck by a fit of agitation, and in doing so he makes the family seem irrelevant, unimportant, and ultimately useless. Siddhartha is immensely selfish and does not deserve the contentment he finds in living as a smuggler; rather, he deserves to suffer eternally the agony of the abandonment he imposed on his mother and father, on his friend Govinda, but above all on his child and the woman who gave birth to him. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In his first act of desertion, Siddhartha leaves his mother and father behind in order to find the path to fulfillment through the ascetic Samanas. By leaving his idyllic village life, he sets a precedent that he will continue to follow throughout his life. Although leaving his parents is not incomprehensible, as he sincerely believes that there is something more to the world than the ritual mantras and meditation of Brahmins, it is the fact that it was done in vain that makes him horrible to see. “When someone searches... then it easily happens that his eyes only see the thing he is looking for, and he is capable of finding nothing, of absorbing nothing because he always only thinks of the thing he is looking for. he seeks, because he has only one objective. , because he is obsessed with his goal” (140). Siddhartha only sees his own desire for answers, regarding his soul and the world in its entirety, but he never stops to actually see what he does as a result. He wants to see the world, learn from it, take what he wants from it, but as Samana he only learns to be disgusted by it. This is why he leaves his family: to become bitter and empty himself of all real self, because this is what he and his fellow Samanas believe is the path to "enlightenment". As he feels himself learning to hate the same world from which he demands the greatest privileges, to grant him wisdom and understanding, he recognizes that in the end he has accomplished little. Yet Siddhartha never stops thinking that perhaps he was wrong and that perhaps abandoning his mother and father was not the path to enlightenment. Siddhartha fails to grasp the unequivocal value of a family that loves him without restraint, just as he fails to fully appreciate the value of the same kind of love from his friend Govinda. Govinda, who also leaves behind his home and family, his entire life, out of loyalty to Siddhartha, is also left behind by the ungrateful narcissist once again on the run. In an act that seems to come naturally to him, Siddhartha leaves Govinda behind when he chooses to follow the Buddha, the so-called "illustrious" one, as he finds what he considers to be a fault in.