Reading Blog Sidartha 1

Connect to other creation
A Teenager's Life

Section 1

In this section, which comprises Chapters 1-4, the book I of Siddhartha shares the experience of teenagers going to college. At the beginning of the book Siddhartha decides he wants to become a Samana, so he meditates over it and finally talks to her father about his decision. When his father hears his decision, he isn't very excited about as he disagrees with it. I connected the reaction of  Siddhartha’s father with the reaction of many teenager’s parents when they tell them they want to study something different from what their parents had in mind. The teenager's parents don't agree with that decision and don't support it and when the teenager really shows them that that’s what they want to do, the parents come around and finally say yes. This is what happens in this story since at the beginning, Siddhartha’s father was in complete disagreement but when Siddhartha stood still for a whole night, his father saw how committed he was to his decision and finally gave him permission to go.

In chapter 2 of the first section Siddhartha and his friend Govinda join a group of Samanas. As soon as they join this group they start participating in some self-tortures that were part of the traditions that the groups practiced. For example, not eating for as long as you can, or standing still in the burning sun. These actions also reminded me of the time when a teenager is going to college and wants to make part of a fraternity like KAPPA. When a teenager wants to join a fraternity, he or she has to make weird challenges like eating a live goldfish or cleaning the boys bathroom and similar challenges like that to make part of the group. I really connected with Siddhartha’s painful practices in the Samanas group with the challenges a teenager has to make to get in to his/her dream fraternity house.

The last aspect of section 1 with which I connected in relation to the experience of a teenager growing up, was in chapter 3 when Siddhartha and Govinda decide to leave the Samanas group and try to experience the Buddha life .At the end of chapter 2 Siddhartha  starts realizing that the practices of the Samanas are not really enough nor what he is really looking for, so he and his friend Govinda decide to leave the Samana group. Then they decide to learn some things from the Buddha and start hearing some of the lessons he gave including the well-known  Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold path. I related very much to this part of the section and with the part of a teenager's life when they apply to a college and get in and soon realize it is not really what they were hoping for and drop out and decide to apply to another college. I thought these two things really had a similar connection and in general Section 1 of the book was really similar and had many things in common to the life of a teenager when leaving home of to college.