Siddhartha, a book by Hermann Hesse, is a philosophical fiction piece that tells the story of the titular character Siddhartha who goes on a journey because he wants to find inner peace and enlightenment. He first travels with his friend Govinda to speak to a Buddha, but he is not unsatisfied. He then goes across the river where he meets an old boatman who helps him cross the river to the city. After living in the city for a while, he meets a woman named Kamala, whom he believes he is in love with. However, after about a decade, he discovers he is not satisfied still with the life he has, and he travels back to the river and meets the old boatman again. As they two listen to the river, Siddhartha learns the lesson from the river. Following this, Siddhartha returns to the place he lives where he finds his brother Govinda, who had chosen to stay with the Buddha several years ago. Having yet to attain enlightenment, Govinda asks Siddhartha to teach him. Because Siddhartha believes that enlightenment cannot be conveyed by language alone, he asks Govinda to kiss his forehead. After the action, Govinda learns the enlightenment through “Love.”

  Hesse’s novel is a deep work that touches upon several themes, reflecting the ideas of traditional Buddhism in China and India. One of which is that things come and go, just like the flowing water in the river. Another theme is people should listen to the destiny sometimes and follow fate because that is the arrangement of God. Last but not least, one should pay attention to those potential “opportunities” around oneself because they’re chances given by destiny. All in all, Hesse conveys the principle of being more open to “destiny.” and listening to the arrangement of god and believe in that destiny would have an arrangement that will somehow makes our life.

  To me, a 15-year-oldgirl, these lessons seem reasonable, but are very hard to practice.  Furthermore, those principles conflict with the values in my heart. Recently, I completeda project on a philosopher called Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was an American philosopher in the 19th century. He had passages like “Self-Reliance” and “The Over-Soul” which explained his core beliefs:

1) There should be no one that could affect a single individual. Every mind and brain are different, and there shall be nothing that could sway the ambition of an individual                                                                                                            

2) God is in everyone, and every god in different. There is no need of intermediary that we could simply connect to the god in our mind on our own.

For me, the idea from Emerson corresponds more closely to my beliefs: to believe in myself, to not pay too much time on what other people think, and to constantly ponder what is the “enlightenment” mentioned by those so-called ‘‘truth tellers.” Instead, I would adhere to Emerson’s ideas which can also perfectly explain what is an “enlightenment”? According to Emerson, the answer would be different for everyone, because the overall concept of enlightenment is to learn the very truth, which is different since we have different gods in our minds. Those gods are actually our unique understandings and own calibration of what is wrong and what is right in this world.