To Understand Your Path

"So that was what he had come to; he was so lost, so confused, 

so devoid of all reason, that he had sought death" p72

       I never thought Siddhartha could become more confused than I've been during the book. Taking his confusion to a point where he wants to escape from it that bad that he even considers suicide. I never thought suicide would come to his mind since he reflected on temporal escapes and how stupid the mere idea of escaping from something was. 

Siddhartha, I have something to say to you:

♫No you didn't have to stoop so low♫

.....

♫Now you're just somebody that I used to know♫

He stopped himself from stooping so low and fell into deep sleep as he pronounced "Om". Somehow, he woke up as a new man, loving everything around him (when he shouldn't, since he's not ordinary) He was so renewed that not even Govinda, in his random appearance, recognized him. Not only his rich clothes made it impossible to recognize his old friend, but his attitude was completely different with this awakening. 

He still knew that he had to find his path. As soon as Govinda left him again, he reflected on the waste of time that all those years had been. How he might have achieved mindfulness and became a thinker, but steeply fell back to being an ordinary person. He thought his path, until now, had been stupid, but there was a reason for all of that to happen and so he decided to keep on following that path.

"This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles,

but whichever way it goes, I will follow it." p78

Siddhartha had to go through all those teachings to notice that those weren't the right paths. Even if those years had been a waste, he was still happy because his inner voice had given him the opportunity to acknowledge and terminate that part of himself. So he could understand his newly awakened self.