(6).
.
Siddhartha is dissatisfied with much of what he has learned. He feels that religious texts .
teach everything, yet they do not say anything about seeking truth within oneself. .
Without this, he feels that nothing has true meaning. Rather than search for his soul, .
Siddhartha tries to extinguish it through the suffering of Semanic beliefs. He feels that .
the Samana's knowledge might lead him to his desired salvation. In the Hindu Caste .
system the Samanas would be considered untouchables, the lowest of all. Most .
people who were untouchables had been cast away from the caste they were born into at .
birth.
As soon as Siddhartha becomes a Samana he has a goal. The goal is for his "self" .
to die. .
Siddhartha had one single goal--- to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow--- to let the self die. No longer to be self, to experience the peace of an emptied heart, to experience pure thought--- that was his goal. (14).
The Samanas believe that through the suppression of sensual and physical desires, the .
self is negated and only then can Nirvana be achieved. Siddhartha considers that the .
Samanas knowledge might lead to salvation. Siddhartha becomes focused on letting the .
self die by freeing himself from desire, dreams, pleasure, thirst, and sorrow. Although he .
accomplishes all of this he realizes that the ways of the Samanas only allow for .
temporary escape, they alone will not lead to enlightenment. .
Siddhartha realizes that knowledge is essentially powerless without experience. .
He abandons his knowledge quests and uses his senses to help find enlightenment.
.
But although the paths took him away from self, in the end they always led back .
to it. Although Siddartha fled from the self a thousand times, dwelt in nothing, dwelt in animals and stones, the return was inevitable; the hour when he would again find himself, in sunshine or in moonlight, in shadow or in rain, and was again self.
