FREE ESSAY ON SELF" SIDDHARTHA VS. HEINRICH

SELF" SIDDHARTHA VS. HEINRICH

Finding one's 'Self"
Siddhartha vs. Heinrich
As human beings, we sometimes can not synchronize our minds and souls. When we are at our
success of knowledge or intellect, we blind our mind with our ambition, which comes along
in reaching the knowledge or intellect. As a young Brahmin, Siddhartha, has been taught
that Brahmin is the soul of Atman or the 'Only One' (Chapter 1, page 5). It means that
Brahmin is the highest position beside the Creator. This intellect alienates Siddhartha's
'Self'. He does not think that his superior's 'Self' will give him salvation. Siddhartha
thinks his 'Self' conquers himself. He wants his 'Self to die to find wisdom and
spiritual knowledge.
Rather than searching for his soul, Siddhartha attempts to destroy his 'Self' through
suffering of sermonic asceticism. He sees that Samana's knowledge might lead him to his
salvation. In page 11 chapter 2, we read: 
...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...
Although Siddhartha does the scourge, he does not find his salvation. He discovers his
torment, which is only escaped from the 'Self' for temporarily. Again, Siddhartha rejects
and leaves the Samana ascetic knowledge. 
Siddhartha ends his knowledge quests: Brahminism, Samanic asceticism, and Buddhism. He
turns to the use of his senses in finding his goal. His main goal is to be his 'Self'.
His sense of 'being' is isolated by his knowledge. He realizes that he does not know his
'Self' which he has spent his life avoiding. He vows him self to explore the 'Self'.
The second step of Siddhartha's journey is realizing that although he has knowledge,
knowledge is not enough without experience. Experience can be gained through practicing
knowledge. Also he realizes that thought and sense must be used together to find the way.
He meets with Kamala whose beauty and intelligence overwhelms him. Kamala's observation
and sensitiveness help Siddhartha to develop his sense of love. To pay for her lector, he
has his think, wait, and fast(chapter 5 page 46). With Kamala's help in another lecture,
he gains the combination of the simplicity and intelligence.
As he grows older, he makes a friend with Vasudeva, the river's man. Their life is near
to the end of the harmonization of the universe. Siddhartha learns another secret with
Vasudeva's help, that if one is to listen long enough to the river, he will hear all of
the voices of the universe. Another secret is that if one listens even more carefully,
all the voices blend in to one sound 'Om'. He hears the universal within the 'Om'. When
Siddhartha works as a river's man, he learns that Kamala has a son from him. When Kamala
is dying in Siddhartha's hand, he is not ruined by the sorrow. But love for his son ruins
him badly. Siddhartha learns human experience that his son is resembled of the love and
the brother hood of man. His son rejection is so painful that it reduces his humanity.
Again, we see the difference between the path of knowledge and wisdom.
In the last part he finds his true 'Self'. Siddhartha says (chapter 12, page 116):
I learned through my body, and soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed
lust, that I had to strive for property and experience nausea and the depths of despair
in order to learn not to resist them, in order to learn to love the world...
He discovers that all has been harmonious and unified. A man who seeks a goal is one who
seeks something in the universe for the 'Self'. Since a man has potential to be within
the universe, he has potential to simulating the good, the evil and all the morals in
between. Wisdom is difficult to speak. 
In the autumn of 1939, Heinrich Harrer, the famous Austrian mountaineer, and a team led
by his countryman Peter Aufschnaite, set out to climb Nanga Parbat, one of the highest
peaks in the Himalayas. 
The self-centered Harrer, whose sole preoccupation is the achievement of fame and glory,
will experience an emotional awakening as he embarks on a fantastic journey. A journey
that will take him from the excitement of the climb to the depths of internment in a
British prisoner-of-war camp, then from escape and a harrowing two-year trek through the
Himalayas to the mysterious, forbidden Tibetan city of Lhasa. 
As a stranger in a strange land, which few westerners have ever visited, Harrer is
befriended by the young Dalai Lama, and becomes the religious leader's tutor in English,
geography and the ways of the western world. 
He will spend seven years in Tibet, during a period of tremendous political upheaval in
that country, graced with the friendship and the spiritual enlightenment of the eleven
year-old Dalai Lama. As the deep and abiding bond between these two isolated, lonely
people evolves, the selfish and egotistical Harrer experiences an awakening of
selflessness, allowing him to complete the emotional transformation which began on his
way to Lhasa.
In much the same way these men are on a voyage to discover them selves. Even though their
stories differ they strangely come together some how. In both stories, the main character
finds them selves and starts to respect life, that is what is similar about them.