Moments of Being

       Part one of the book Siddhartha has many cool descriptive passages and quotes. These quotes really make one think of nirvana. One thinks about how to achieve peace and happiness in our every day life. This book really shows how in this modern time one has so many things they must look out for that it is hard to live in the moment and be happy. For students it getting a good education so you can raise a family and be some what wealth. Hessa is also very good at conveying descriptions that make one feel at peace or seea new light. "He looked around as if seeing the world for the first time. How beautiful and mysterious! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green; sky and river were flowing; forests and mountains stood fixed: Everything was beautiful and mysterious and magical and magical, and in the midst of this was he , Siddhartha, in the moment of his awakening, on the path of himself" (Hesse 35). In this passage Siddhartha has almost become enlightened and is seeing more of the world around him then he as ever noticed. This relates to a "Moment of being" which is a experiences that we will remember for the rest of our lives. Hesse really does a good job on describing the passage in a way that makes you relate to that feeling and makes you feel like you have just had a great realization too.
       Another idea that is prevalent through out part one is Siddhartha ignorants. When one starts to read this book they do not think that Siddhartha will have any bad quality's. The book is about a religious figure and so one would assume that they have almost every good quality. This is not true for Siddhartha. One can see when reading the book that when Siddhartha begins his training and has some experience he becomes ignorant and feels like he knows all about his practice. He even goes as far to tell the Buddha about a flaw in his doctrian that shows how he believes he knows much more then he does. "There is one thing in particular, O Most Venerable One, that I have admired in your teachings. Everything in your doctrine is utterly clear, is proven; you show the world as a perfect chain, a chain never and nowhere interrupted, an eternal chain forged of causes and effects. Never has this been so clearly beheld, never so irrefutably presented. In truth, it must make the heart of any Brahmin beat faster when, through your teachings, he is able to glimpse the world as a perfect continuum, free of gaps, clear as a crystal, not dependent on chance, not dependent on gods. Whether this world be good or evil, and life in it sorrow or joy—let us set this question aside, for it is quite possibly not essential. But the oneness of the world, the continuum of all occurrences, the enfolding of all things great and small within a single stream, a single law of causes, of becoming and of death, this shines brightly forth from your sublime doctrine, O Perfect One. But now, according to your very same doctrine, this oneness and logical consistency of all things is nevertheless interrupted at one point; there is a tiny hole through which something strange is flowing into this world of oneness, something new, something that wasn't there before and that cannot be shown and cannot be proven: This is your doctrine of the overcoming of the world, of redemption. With this tiny hole, this tiny gap, the entire eternal unified law of the world is smashed to pieces, rendered invalid. May you forgive me for giving voice to this objection.”(Hesse 28)In this citation Siddhartha is talking to Buddha and pointing out his flaw. He is told that opinions are sometimes bad which is also referenced by Joseph Campbell. This is where one feels that Siddhartha is talking out of ignorance which can be a bad quality. Even though this quality slows Siddhartha sown now in the future it could be non-existent.