siddhartha hero's journey stages

The Hero's Journey in Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha, written by Hermann Hesse, is a profound and introspective novel that explores the spiritual journey of its titular character. Through the lens of the Hero's Journey, a narrative structure popularized by mythologist Joseph Campbell, Siddhartha's transformative quest can be dissected and understood. This essay will examine how Siddhartha follo…

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| The Art of Aliveness for All

The Spiritual Hero’s Journey of a Lifetime: “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse (Book Summary)

By Kyle Kowalski · 2 Comments

Siddhartha is to spiritual growth what The Alchemist is to life purpose.

While both purpose and spirituality have been life-transforming journeys for me, I was underwhelmed by The Alchemist ( book summary ) but thoroughly enjoyed the story of Siddhartha ( Amazon ).

The true profession of man is to find his way himself. — Hermann Hesse

If you intend to read Siddhartha , the first thing to do is pick a translation. I always do a little research and read some reviews to try to pick the best translation (even though “best” is highly subjective).

I landed on the translation by Susan Bernofsky after seeing a bunch of praise for it.

Quick Housekeeping :

• All quotes are from the author unless otherwise stated.
• I’ve added emphasis (in bold ) to quotes throughout this post.
• This summary is organized by Siddhartha’s spiritual journey stages that I’ve identified (not necessarily by the author’s chapters ).

I’ve highlighted stage summaries in this color.

I’ve highlighted key aha moments within each stage in this color.

Summary Contents: Click a link to jump to a section below

• About Hermann Hesse
• About Siddhartha

The Stages of Siddhartha’s Spiritual Hero’s Journey

The mind (stages 1-3), 1. brahmin siddhartha (knowledge), 2. samana siddhartha (ascetic).

• 3. “Awakened” Siddhartha (Autodidact)

The Body (Stages 4-6)

4. lecher siddhartha (lust), 5. rich man siddhartha (greed), 6. rock bottom siddhartha (crisis), the spirit (stages 7-9), 7. ferryman siddhartha (listening), 8. father siddhartha (love), 9. enlightened siddhartha (transcendence), the spiritual hero’s journey of a lifetime: siddhartha by hermann hesse (book summary), about hermann hesse .

• “Having vowed ‘to be a poet or nothing at all,’ the headstrong youth fled the seminary in Maulbronn at the age of fourteen. Thereafter Hesse rebelled against all attempts at formal schooling. Instead he pursued a rigorous program of self-study that focused on literature, philosophy, and history and eventually found employment at the Heckenhauer Bookshop in the university town of Tübingen.”
• “Chronic wanderlust coupled with growing discontent over his bucolic Rousseau-like existence took him on a formative trip to the East Indies in 1911.”
• “The publication of Demian that same year (it appeared in English in 1923) brought Hesse immediate acclaim throughout Europe. Based on his experience with Jungian analysis, this breakthrough novel launched a series of works chronicling the Weg nach Innen (inward journey) that he hoped would lead to self-knowledge . In the existential tradition of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, Hesse portrays the turmoil of a docile young man who is forced to question traditional bourgeois beliefs regarding family, society, and faith.”
• “Hesse’s call for self-realization coupled with his celebration of Eastern mysticism earned him a huge following among America’s counterculture in the decade after his death.”
• “Hesse ‘is deeply loved by those among the American young who are questing ,’ wrote Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.”

Almost all the prose works I have written are biographies of the soul…monologues in which a single individual is observed in relation to the world and to his own ego. — Hermann Hesse

About Siddhartha (Introduction by Tom Robbins)

• “ The problem, for writers and readers alike, with all this inward gazing is how few of us ever gaze in far enough to justify the strain. To reap lasting rewards, to escape the briar patch of perpetuated trauma, the gazer must delve beneath the ego level, the personality level, the level of genetic predisposition and environmental conditioning, must penetrate more deeply even than the archetypal underworld.”
• “Gradually he (Hesse) had come to recognize that very often despair, misery, and degeneration are simply the price we’re charged for our bad attitudes and myopic vision. Once he became convinced that we humans can alter reality by altering our perceptions of it , the lid was off the pitcher. Hesse went to his writing desk and poured the nectar.”
• “Like the existentialists, Hesse seemed to view the mass of humanity as one big twitchy, squealy, many-headed beast caught in a trap of its own making . Unlike Camus and Sartre, however, he suspected the trap might be sprung through a kind of alchemical transformation and/or spiritual transcendence .”
• “Siddhartha turns orthodox Hinduism inside out, flicks the translucent lint from Buddha’s much-contemplated navel, and deserts the extremist samanas with whom he’s been starving himself in the forest; becoming increasingly convinced that ‘a true seeker could not accept doctrine.’ Finally, the seeker even rejects seeking , concluding that ultimate reality can never be captured in a net made of thought , and that ‘ knowing has no worse enemy than the desire to know .’ Strong stuff.”
• “ The road to enlightenment is an unpaved road, closed to public transportation. It is because we must travel its last miles unencumbered and alone that Hesse has his traveler remind us emphatically that ‘Wisdom cannot be passed on.’ And that reminder may be the hardest, most valuable jewel in this literary lotus.”

Siddhartha learned new things with every step along his path, for the world was transformed and his heart was enchanted. — Hermann Hesse

Stage Summary: Siddhartha’s story starts with his thirst for spiritual knowledge and wisdom. He seems to have it all together on the outside, yet he’s miserable on the inside. He’s living to please his father and those around him instead of himself. He doesn’t see the wisest of those around him able to convert knowledge into living. They know many things except for “that which was important above all else.”

• “Siddhartha had long since begun to join in the wise men’s counsels, to practice with Govinda the art of wrestling with words, to practice with Govinda the art of contemplation , the duty of meditation . He had mastered Om , the Word of Words, learned to speak it soundlessly into himself while drawing a breath, to speak it out soundlessly as his breath was released, his soul collected, brow shining with his mind’s clear thought. He had learned to feel Atman’s presence at the core of his being, inextinguishable, one with the universe.”
• “Joy leaped into his father’s heart at the thought of his son, this studious boy with his thirst for knowledge; he envisioned him growing up to be a great wise man and priest, a prince among Brahmins. “
• “Thus was Siddhartha beloved by all. He brought them all joy, filled them with delight. To himself, though, Siddhartha brought no joy, gave no delight. “
• “He had begun to suspect that his venerable father and his other teachers, all wise Brahmins, had already given him the richest and best part of their wisdom, had already poured their plenty into his waiting vessel, yet the vessel was not full: His mind was not content, his soul not at peace, his heart restless .”

Aha Moment: “ They knew everything, these Brahmins and their holy books , everything, and they had applied themselves to everything, more than everything: to the creation of the world, the origins of speech, of food, of inhalation and exhalation; to the orders of the senses, the deeds of the gods— they knew infinitely many things—but was there value in knowing all these things without knowing the One, the Only thing, that which was important above all else, that was, indeed, the sole matter of importance? “

• “But where were the Brahmins, where the priests, where the wise men or penitents who had succeeded not merely in knowing this knowledge but in living it? Where was the master who had been able to transport his own being-at-home-in-Atman from sleep to the waking realm, to life, to all his comings and goings, his every word and deed? “
• “Said Siddhartha, ‘With your permission, my father. I have come to tell you that it is my wish to leave your house tomorrow and join the ascetics. I must become a Samana. May my father not be opposed to my wish.'”
• “‘You will go,’ he said. ‘Go to the forest and be a Samana. If you find bliss in the forest, come and teach it to me. If you find disappointment, return to me and we will once more sacrifice to the gods side by side.'”

Stage Summary: Siddhartha has a new single-minded goal of becoming empty (ego eradication). He continues to learn many new things. No matter how many times he’s able to lose his Self, he ultimately returns to it. He wonders if he’s simply “walking in circles” and deceiving himself of finding “the essential, the Path of Paths.” He comes to believe there is no such thing as learning—only knowing.

• “ Before him, Siddhartha saw a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of want, empty of dream, empty of joy and sorrow. To let the ego perish, to be ‘I’ no longer, to find peace with an empty heart and await the miraculous with thoughts free of Self. “
• “Siddhartha learned many things from the Samanas; he learned to walk many paths leading away from the Self . He walked the path of eradication of ego through pain , through the voluntary suffering and overcoming of pain, of hunger, of thirst, of weariness. He walked the path of eradication of ego through meditation , using thought to empty the mind of all its notions.”
• “ A thousand times he left his Self behind, spent hours and days at a time liberated from it. But just as all these paths led away from the Self, the end of each of them returned him to it. “
• “‘And now, Govinda, do you think we are on the right path? Are we drawing closer to knowledge? Are we drawing closer to redemption? Or are we not perhaps walking in circles—we who had hoped to escape the cycle? ‘ Govinda replied, ‘We have learned much, Siddhartha, and much remains to be learned. We are not walking in a circle, we are ascending; the circle is a spiral , and we have already climbed many of its steps.'”
• “O Govinda, it seems to me that of all the Samanas that exist, there is perhaps not one, not a single one, who will reach Nirvana. We find consolations, we find numbness, we learn skills with which to deceive ourselves. But the essential, the Path of Paths, this we do not find. “

Aha Moment: “ It has taken me long to learn this, Govinda, and still I am not quite done learning it: that nothing can be learned! There is in fact—and this I believe—no such thing as what we call ‘learning.’ There is, my friend, only knowing, and this is everywhere; it is Atman, it is in me and in you and in every creature. And so I am beginning to believe that this knowing has no worse enemy than the desire to know, than learning itself. “

• “One day when the two youths had lived among the Samanas for nearly three years and shared their exercises, word reached them in a roundabout way, a rumor, a legend: A man had been discovered, by the name of Gautama, the Sublime One, the Buddha , who had overcome the sufferings of the world within himself and brought the wheel of rebirths to a halt.”
• “How sweet it sounded, this legend of the Buddha; enchantment wafted from the reports. The world, after all, was diseased, life difficult to bear, and lo! Here was a new spring bubbling up, a messenger’s cry ringing out, consoling and mild, full of noble promises. “
• “ I have become distrustful and weary of doctrines and learning and that I have little faith in words that come to us from teachers. But be that as it may, dear friend, I am prepared to hear these teachings, though in my heart I believe we have already tasted their finest fruit .”

3. “Awakened” Siddhartha (Autodidactic)

Stage Summary: Siddhartha hears Gautama Buddha teach but feels he must once more embark on his pilgrimage. He believes “no one will ever attain redemption through doctrine” and that not even the Buddha can convey in words what happened during his enlightenment. He fears that if he stayed his Self would only deceptively find peace and redemption but in truth would live on. He vows to leave behind all teachings and all teachers. He realizes there’s nothing in the world he knows less than himself and that he’s been running away from himself. He vows to study and learn the secrets of himself and believes that he has truly awoken.

• “Thus did Gautama stroll toward the town to collect alms, and the two Samanas recognized him solely by his perfect calm, the stillness of his figure, in which there was no searching, no desire, no imitation, no effort to be discerned, only light and peace. “
• “ Gautama preached the doctrine of suffering, of the origins of suffering, of the path to the cessation of suffering. His words flowed quiet and clear. Suffering was life, the world was full of sorrow, but redemption from sorrow had been found: He who trod the path of the Buddha would find redemption. ”
• “Said Siddhartha, ‘Yesterday, O Sublime One, I had the privilege of hearing your marvelous teachings. Together with my friend I came from far away to hear this doctrine. And now my friend will remain among your followers; he has taken refuge in you, while I am once more embarking on my pilgrimage .'”
• “You have heard my teachings, O Brahmin’s son, and it is well for you that you have thought so deeply about them. You have found a gap in them, an error. May you continue to contemplate it. But allow me to warn you, O inquisitive one, about the thicket of opinions and quibbling over words. Opinions are of little account; be they lovely or displeasing, clever or foolish, anyone can subscribe to or dismiss them. But the doctrine you heard from me is not my opinion, and its goal is not to explain the world to the inquisitive. It has a different goal; its goal is redemption from suffering. It is this redemption Gautama teaches, nothing else. “

Aha Moment: “Never for a moment have I doubted you. I never doubted for a moment that you are the Buddha, that you have reached the goal, the highest goal, toward which so many thousands of Brahmins and Brahmins’ sons are striving. You have found redemption from death. It came to you as you were engaged in a search of your own, upon a path of your own; it came to you through thinking, through meditation, through knowledge, through enlightenment. Not through doctrine did it come to you. And this is my thought, O Sublime One: No one will ever attain redemption through doctrine! Never, O Venerable One, will you be able to convey in words and show and say through your teachings what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment. Much is contained in the doctrine of the enlightened Buddha; many are taught by it to live in an upright way, to shun evil. But there is one thing this so clear and venerable doctrine does not contain: It does not contain the secret of what the Sublime One himself experienced, he alone among the hundreds of thousands. This is what I thought and realized when I heard the doctrine. This is why I am continuing my journey—not in order to seek a different, better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave behind me all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal alone or perish. But often will I remember this day, O Sublime One, and this hour when my eyes beheld a holy man.”

• “It is not fitting for me to pass judgment on another’s life! Only for myself, for myself alone, must I judge, must I choose, must I reject. Redemption from Self is what we Samanas seek, O Sublime One. If I were one of your disciples, O Venerable One, what I fear might happen is that my Self would only apparently, deceptively find peace and be redeemed, but that in truth it would live on and become huge, for I would have made the doctrine and my adherence to it and my love for you and the fellowship of the monks my Self! “
• “ Something that had accompanied him throughout his youth and been a part of him was no longer present: the desire to have teachers and hear doctrine. He had left behind the last teacher to appear to him on his path, this highest and wisest of teachers, the holiest one, Buddha; he’d had to part even from him, unable to accept his doctrine.”
• “Thinking, he walked ever more slowly and asked himself, What is it now that you were hoping to learn from doctrines and teachers, and what is it that they—who taught you so much—were unable to teach you? And, he decided, It was the Self whose meaning and nature I wished to learn. It was the Self I wished to escape from, wished to overcome. But I was unable to overcome it, I could only trick it, could only run away from it and hide. Truly, not a single thing in all the world has so occupied my thoughts as this Self of mine, this riddle: that I am alive and that I am One, am different and separate from all others, that I am Siddhartha! And there is not a thing in the world about which I know less than about myself, about Siddhartha! “

Aha Moment: “That I know nothing of myself, that Siddhartha has remained such a stranger to me, such an unknown, comes from one cause, from a single cause: I was afraid of myself, was running away from myself! I was searching for Atman, searching for Brahman; I was prepared to chop my ego into little pieces and peel off its layers so as to find, in its unknown innermost core, the kernel that lies at the heart of every husk: Atman, Life, the Divine, that final utmost thing. But I myself got lost in the process. “

• “I won’t let my life and my thought begin with Atman and the world’s sorrows. No more killing myself, no more chopping myself into bits in the hope of finding some secret hidden among the debris. I will no longer follow Yoga-Veda, or Atharva-Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine. I’ll be my own teacher, my own pupil. I’ll study myself, learn the secret that is Siddhartha. “
• “ Everything was beautiful, everything mysterious and magical, and in the midst of all this was he, Siddhartha, in the moment of his awakening, on the path to himself. “
• “ Meaning and being did not lie somewhere behind things; they lay within them, within everything. “
• “When a person reads something and wishes to grasp its meaning, he does not scorn the characters and letters and call them illusory, random, and worthless husks; he reads them, studies them, and loves them, letter for letter. But I—I who set out to read the book of the world and the book of my own being—I scorned the characters and letters in deference to a meaning I assumed in advance , I called the world of appearances illusory, called my own eye and my own tongue random and worthless illusions. Enough of all this. I have awoken, have truly awoken, and this day is the day of my birth. “

Stage Summary: “Awakened” Siddhartha begins to look at the world without searching. It’s himself he now has to experience. He never truly found his Self because he was “trying to capture it with a net made of thought.” He believes the only thing necessary is to obey the secret voice of his innermost core. He begins to trade his abilities (thinking, waiting, fasting) for money to learn “love.”

• “ But now his liberated eye dwelled in this realm, saw and recognized the visible, and was searching for a home in this world; no longer was it in search of Being, no longer were its efforts directed toward the Beyond. How beautiful the world was when one looked at it without searching, just looked, simply and innocently. “
• “How beautiful, how lovely it was to walk through the world like this, like a child, so awake, so open to what was near at hand, so free of distrust .”
• “ All these things had always been there, and yet he had not seen them; he had not been present . Now he was present, he belonged.”

Aha Moment: “ It was he himself he now had to experience. To be sure, he had known for a long time that his Self was Atman, of the same eternal essence as Brahman. But never had he truly found this Self, for he had been trying to capture it with a net made of thought. While certainly body was not Self—nor was it the play of the senses—this Self was also not thought, was not mind, was not the wisdom amassed through learning, not the learned art of drawing conclusions and spinning new thoughts out of old. No, even thought was still in this world; no goal could be reached by killing off the happenstance Self of the senses while continuing to fatten the happenstance Self of thought and learnedness. Thought and senses were both fine things. Ultimate meaning lay hidden behind them; both should be listened to, played with, neither scorned nor overvalued, for in each of them the secret voice of the innermost core might be discerned. He would aspire to nothing but what this voice commanded him, occupy himself with nothing but what the voice advised. “

• “ To obey like this, to obey not a command from the outside but only the voice, to be in readiness—this was good, this was necessary. Nothing else was necessary. “
• (Kamala) “Friend, that is something many would like to know. You must do what you have learned to do and in exchange have people give you money and clothes and shoes. There is no other way for a poor man to get money. What do you know how to do?” (Siddhartha) “I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”
• “For a long time Kamala kissed him, and with deep astonishment Siddhartha felt how she was teaching him, how wise she was, how she mastered him, pushed him away, lured him, and how behind this first kiss stood a long, well-ordered, and well-tried sequence of kisses, each different from the others, still awaiting him. Breathing deeply, he stood there and in this moment was like a child, gaping in astonishment at the wealth of things worth knowing and learning that had opened before his eyes .”
• “Simple is the life one leads here in the world, Siddhartha thought. There are no difficulties. Everything was difficult, laborious, and in the end hopeless when I was still a Samana. Now everything is easy , easy as the kissing lessons Kamala is giving me. I need clothing and money, that is all. These goals are small and within reach; they will not trouble my sleep.”
• “You see, Kamala, when you throw a stone into the water, it hurries by the swiftest possible path to the bottom. It is like this when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolve. Siddhartha does nothing—he waits, he thinks, he fasts—but he passes through the things of this world like a stone through water, without doing anything, without moving ; he is drawn and lets himself fall. His goal draws him to it, for he allows nothing into his soul that might conflict with this goal. This is what Siddhartha learned among the Samanas. It is what fools call magic and think is performed by demons. Nothing is performed by demons; there are no demons. Anyone can perform magic. Anyone can reach his goals if he can think, if he can wait, if he can fast. “
• “I lack possessions of my own free will, so this is not a hardship.”
• “Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.”
• “Each person gives what he has. The warrior gives strength, the merchant gives his goods, the teacher his doctrine, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish.” “Most certainly. And so what is it you have to give? What have you learned? What are your abilities?” “I can think. I can wait. I can fast.” “Is that all?” “I believe it is.”
• “ Once he said to her, ‘You are like me; you are different from most people. You are Kamala, nothing else, and within you there is a stillness and a refuge into which you can withdraw at any moment and be at home within yourself , just as I can. Few people have this, and yet all people could have it. ‘”

Stage Summary: Siddhartha is captured by the world (greed, property, ownership, hoarding, acquisition, lust, lethargy). He’s stricken with the maladies that afflict rich people’s souls. He seldom smiles and loses his patience and good-naturedness. He seeks to escape and numb himself as he’s surrounded by deep sadness and devoid of value and meaning.

• “ That noble, bright awakeness he had experienced once , at the height of his youth, in the days following Gautama’s sermon, after his parting from Govinda—that eager expectancy, that proud standing alone without teachers or doctrines, that supple readiness to hear the divine voice within his own heart— had gradually faded into memory; it had been transitory .”
• “To be sure, much of what he had learned—from the Samanas, from Gautama, from his father the Brahmin—had remained with him for a long time: moderate living, enjoyment of thought, hours devoted to samadhi , secret knowledge of the Self, that eternal being that is neither body nor consciousness. Much of this had remained with him, but one thing after another had settled to the bottom and been covered with dust. Just as a potter’s wheel, once set in motion, will continue to spin for a long time, only slowly wearying and coming to rest, so had the wheel of asceticism, the wheel of thought, and the wheel of differentiation gone on spinning for a long time in Siddhartha’s soul, and they were spinning still, but this spin was growing slow and hesitant; it was coming to a standstill. Slowly, as moisture seeps into the dying tree trunk, slowly filling it up and making it rot, worldliness and lethargy had crept into Siddhartha’s soul , filling it slowly, making it heavy, making it weary, putting it to sleep.”
• “His face was still more clever and spiritual than others, but it seldom smiled , and one after the other it was taking on the traits one so often observes in the faces of the wealthy: that look of dissatisfaction, infirmity, displeasure, lethargy, unkindness . Slowly he was being stricken with the maladies that afflict rich people’s souls. “
• “ The world had captured him: voluptuousness, lust, lethargy, and in the end even greed , the vice he’d always thought the most foolish and had despised and scorned above all others. Property, ownership, and riches had captured him in the end. No longer were they just games to him, trifles; they had become chains and burdens. “
• “Siddhartha lost the composure with which he had once greeted losses, he lost his patience when others were tardy with their payments, lost his good-naturedness when beggars came to call, lost all desire to give gifts and loan money to supplicants.”
• “Whenever he was assailed by shame and nausea, he fled further, seeking to escape in more gambling, seeking to numb himself with sensuality and wine, and then hurled himself back into the grind of hoarding and acquisition . In this senseless cycle he ran himself ragged, ran himself old, ran himself sick.”
• “Waking from this dream with a start, he felt himself surrounded by deep sadness . Devoid of value, it seemed to him, devoid of value and meaning was this life he’d been living ; nothing that was alive, nothing in any way precious or worthy of keeping, had remained in his hands. Alone he stood, and empty, like a shipwrecked man upon the shore.”

Aha Moment: “He had felt then, in his heart, ‘A path lies before you to which you are called; the gods are waiting for you.'”

• “‘Strive on! Strive on! You have a calling!’ He had heard this voice when he left home and chose the life of a Samana, he had heard it again when he left the Samanas to seek out the Perfect One, and again when he had left Gautama to venture into the Unknown. How long had it been since he had last heard that voice, how long since he had ascended to new heights.”

Stage Summary: Siddhartha longs to be rid of himself and wonders if it’s still possible for him to live. He reaches an impasse where all that’s left for him to do is annihilate himself. Yet, at his darkest moment, he hears the word Om and regains consciousness with a new awareness. He acknowledges the transitoriness of the world of shapes. He’s starting over from the beginning—he owns nothing, knows nothing, can do nothing, and has learned nothing. But this time he doesn’t feel sorrow; he’s full of joy. His self-hatred has come to an end. It took rock bottom for him to finally lose his Self.

• “Siddhartha wandered through the forest, already quite far from the city, knowing only this: He could never go back again. The life he had been living these many years was now over and done with. “
• “ He longed to be rid of himself, to find peace, to be dead. If only a bolt of lightning would strike him down! If only a tiger would devour him! If only there were a wine, a poison, that would numb him, bring him oblivion and sleep, and no more awakenings!”
• “ Was it still possible to live? Was it possible to continue, over and over again, to draw breath, to exhale, to feel hunger, to eat again, to sleep again, to lie again beside a woman? Had not this cycle been exhausted for him, concluded?”
• “ What reason did he have to continue walking —walking where, and with what goal? No, there were no more goals ; all that was left was a deep painful longing to shake off this whole mad dream, to spit out this stale wine, to put an end to this pitiful, shameful existence. “
• “ He had reached an impasse. All that was left for him to do was annihilate himself , smash to pieces the botched structure of his life, throw it away, hurl it at the feet of the mocking gods.”

Aha Moment: “Then, from distant reaches of his soul, from bygone realms of his weary life, a sound fluttered. It was a word, a syllable that he now spoke aloud, mindlessly, his voice a babble, the first and final word of every Brahmin prayer, the holy Om that meant the perfect ox perfection . And the moment the sound Om touched Siddhartha’s ear, his slumbering spirit suddenly awoke and recognized the foolishness of his actions.”

• “He knew only that his former life—in his first moment of new awareness , this former life appeared to him like a previous incarnation from the distant past, an early embodiment of his present Self—his former life had been left behind, that he had even wanted to throw away his life in his nausea and misery, but that he had regained consciousness beneath a coconut palm with the holy word Om upon his lips; he had then fallen asleep, and now, having awoken, he beheld the world as a new man .”
• (Govinda) “‘Siddhartha, where are you going?’ Siddhartha said, ‘It is just the same with me as with you, my friend. I am going nowhere. I am merely journeying, I am on a pilgrimage. ‘”
• “Remember, my friend: The world of shapes is transitory , and transitory—highly transitory—are our clothes, the way we wear our hair, and our hair and bodies themselves.”
• (Govinda) “And now, Siddhartha, what are you now?” (Siddhartha) “ This I do not know. I have as little an idea as you do. I am on a journey. I was a rich man and am rich no longer, and what I will be tomorrow I do not know.”
• “Swiftly does the wheel of shapes turn, Govinda. Where is the Brahmin Siddhartha? Where is the Samana Siddhartha? Where is the rich man Siddhartha? The transitory changes swiftly, Govinda, as you know.”
• “This was precisely the form of the enchantment that the Om had wrought within him as he slept: He loved everything and was filled with joyous love for all he saw, and he realized that what had so ailed him before was that he had been able to love nothing and no one. “
• “With sorrow, yet also with laughter, he thought of this time. Back then, he recalled, he had boasted of three things before Kamala, the three noble and unassailable arts he had mastered: fasting—waiting—thinking. These had been his possessions , his power and strength, his sturdy staff; it was these three arts he had studied in the assiduous, laborious years of his youth, to the exclusion of all else. And now they had abandoned him; not one of them remained, not fasting, not waiting, not thinking. He had sacrificed them for the most miserable of things, the most transitory: for sensual pleasure, for luxury, for wealth! “

Aha Moment: “Now that all these utterly transitory things have slipped away from me, he thought, I am left under the sun just as I stood here once as a small child; I own nothing, know nothing, can do nothing, have learned nothing. How curious this is! Now that I am no longer young, now that my hair is already half gray and my strength is beginning to wane, I am starting over again from the beginning , from childhood! Again he had to smile. Yes, it certainly was strange, this fate of his! Things were going downhill with him, and now he was once more standing in the world, empty and naked and foolish. But he could not quite bring himself to feel sorrowful on this account. Indeed, he felt a tremendous urge to burst out laughing : laughter at himself, laughter at this strange, foolish world.”

• “ Curious indeed this life of mine has been, he thought, it has taken such strange detours. As a boy I was concerned only with gods and sacrifices . As a youth I was concerned only with asceticism , with thinking and samadhi ; I went searching for Brahman, revered the eternal in Atman. But as a young man I set off after the penitents, lived in the forest, suffered heat and frost, learned to go without food , taught my body to feel nothing. How glorious it was then when realization came to me in the doctrine of the great Buddha; I felt knowledge of the Oneness of the world coursing through me like my own blood. But even the Buddha and his great knowledge had to be left behind. I went off and learned the pleasures of love from Kamala, learned to conduct business from Kamaswami, accumulated money, squandered money, learned to love my stomach, learned to indulge my senses . I had to spend many years losing my spirit, unlearning how to think, forgetting the great Oneness. Is it not as if I were slowly and circuitously turning from a man into a child, from a thinker into one of the child people? And still this path has been very good , and still the bird in my breast has not died. But what a path it has been! I have had to pass through so much foolishness, so much vice, so much error, so much nausea and disillusionment and wretchedness, merely in order to become a child again and be able to start over. But all of this was just and proper; my heart is saying yes, and my eyes are laughing. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the most foolish of all thoughts, the thought of suicide, to be able to experience grace, to hear Om again, to be able to sleep well and awaken well. I had to become a fool to find Atman within me once more. I had to sin to be able to live again. Where else may my path be taking me? How stupid it is, this path of mine; it goes in loops. For all I know it’s going in a circle. Let it lead where it will, I shall follow it. “
• “ No, never again will I imagine, as I once enjoyed doing, that Siddhartha was a wise man! But one thing I did do well, one thing pleases me, which I must praise: All my self-hatred has now come to an end , along with that idiotic, desolate existence!”
• “He might have remained a great while longer at Kamaswami’s side, earning money, squandering money, stuffing his belly and letting his soul thirst; he might have gone on living a great while longer in this cozy well-upholstered hell if that moment had not come: that moment of utter despondency and despair, that extreme moment when he was hanging above the flowing water, ready to destroy himself. That he had felt this despair, this deepest nausea, and yet had not succumbed to it, that the bird, the happy fountainhead and voice within him, had remained alive after all—it was because of all these things that he now felt such joy, that he laughed, that his face was beaming beneath his gray hair.”
• “ It is good, he thought, to taste for oneself all that it is necessary to know. Already as a child I learned that worldly desires and wealth were not good things. I have known this for a long time but have only now experienced it. And now I do know it, know it not only with my memory but with my eyes, with my heart, and with my stomach. How glad I am to know it!”
• “ For a long time he contemplated his transformation , listening as the bird sang with joy. Had this bird not died within him, had he not felt its death? No, something else had died within him, something that had desired death for a long time . Was it not the very thing that he had once, in his ardent years as a penitent, wanted to kill? Was it not his Self, his nervous, proud little ego that he had done battle with for so many years, that had bested him again and again, that was always back again each time he killed it off, forbidding joy and feeling fear? Was it not this that had finally met its death today , here in the forest beside this lovely river? Was it not because of this death that he was now like a child, so full of trust, so devoid of fear, so full of joy? “
• “This is why he’d had to go on enduring these hateful years, enduring the nausea, the emptiness, the senselessness of a desolate, lost existence, enduring to the end, to the point of bitter despair, until even the lecher Siddhartha, the greedy Siddhartha, could die. He had died, and a new Siddhartha had awoken from sleep . He too would grow old; he too would have to die someday. Siddhartha was transitory, every shape was transitory. Today, though, he was young; he was a child, the new Siddhartha, and was full of joy. “
• “It seemed to him that the river had something special to say to him, something he did not yet know, something still awaiting him. In this river Siddhartha had wished to drown, and in it the old, weary, despairing Siddhartha did indeed drown this day. The new Siddhartha, however, felt a deep love for this flowing water and resolved not to leave it again so soon. “

Stage Summary : Siddhartha begins to learn the art of listening from the river. He learns the secret that time does not exist. All the stages of his journey to date are separated by shadows, not real things. Life flows like a river. “Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has being and presence.” This enlightenment makes him profoundly happy.

• “But of all the water’s secrets, he saw today only a single one—one that struck his soul. He saw that this water flowed and flowed, it was constantly flowing, and yet it was always there; it was always eternally the same and yet new at every moment! Oh, to be able to grasp this, to understand it! He did not understand it, did not grasp it; he felt only an inkling stirring within him, distant memory, divine voices.”
• (Vasudeva) “Is not every life, every work, lovely?”
• “ This was one of the greatest among the ferryman’s virtues: He had mastered the art of listening. “
• “Rare are those who know how to listen; never before have I met anyone who was as skilled in listening as you are. This too I shall learn from you. ”
• “‘You will learn this,’ Vasudeva said, ‘but not from me. It was the river that taught me to listen, and it will teach you as well. It knows everything, the river, and one can learn anything from it. You too, after all, have already learned from the river that it is good to strive for downward motion, to sink, to seek the depths.”
• (Vasudeva) “There were a few among these thousands, just a few of them, four or five, for whom the river ceased to be an obstacle. They heard its voice, they listened to it, and the river became holy to them as it has become holy to me.”
• (Vasudeva) “I am not a learned man. I do not know how to speak, I do not even know how to think. I know only how to listen and to be pious; these are the only things I have learned. “
• “But even more than Vasudeva could teach him, he learned from the river, which taught him unceasingly. Above all, it taught him how to listen— how to listen with a quiet heart and a waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinion. “

Aha Moment: “‘Have you too,’ he asked him once, ‘have you too learned this secret from the river: that time does not exist? ‘”

• “Vasudeva’s face broke into a radiant smile. ‘Yes, Siddhartha,’ he said. ‘Is this what you mean: that the river is in all places at once, at its source and where it flows into the sea, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the ocean, in the mountains, everywhere at once, so for the river there is only the present moment and not the shadow of a future? ‘”
• “‘It is,’ Siddhartha said. ‘And once I learned this I considered my life, and it too was a river, and the boy Siddhartha was separated from the man Siddhartha and the graybeard Siddhartha only by shadows, not by real things . Siddhartha’s previous lives were also not the past, and his death and his return to Brahman not the future. Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has being and presence. ‘”
• “Siddhartha spoke with rapture; this enlightenment had made him profoundly happy . Oh, was not then all suffering time, was not all self-torment and fear time, did not everything difficult, everything hostile in the world vanish, was it not overcome as soon as one had overcome time, as soon as one could think it out of existence? “
• “Often they sat together in the evenings beside the riverbank on the tree trunk, sat in silence, both listening to the water, which for them was not water but rather the voice of Life, the voice of Being, of the eternally Becoming. “
• “A long time ago he had realized there was no longer anything separating him from Gautama, whose doctrine he had been unable to accept. No, a true seeker could not accept doctrine, not a seeker who truly wished to find. But the one who had found what he was seeking could give his approval to any teaching, any discipline at all, to any path, any goal —there was no longer anything separating him from the thousand others who were living in the Eternal and breathing the Divine.”

Stage Summary: Siddhartha’s son (from Kamala) now lives with him. At first, Siddhartha considered himself “rich and happy” to have the boy in his life, but this quickly changed to sorrow and worry. Regardless of Siddhartha’s approach with the boy, nothing seems to work. Vasudeva helps Siddhartha realize that no one can ultimately protect another from living life himself and finding his own path.

• “ Rich and happy is what he’d called himself when the boy had come to him. But when with the passing of time the boy remained a sullen stranger, when he displayed a proud and stubborn heart, refused to work, showed no reverence for his elders, and plundered Vasudeva’s fruit trees, Siddhartha began to understand that it was not happiness and peace that had come to him with his son but, rather, sorrow and worry. But he loved him and preferred the sorrow and worry of love to the happiness and peace he had known without the boy.”
• (Vasudeva) “Water seeks out water; youth seeks out youth. Your son is not in a place where he can flourish. Ask the river and hear its counsel for yourself!”
• “‘Could I bring myself to part with him?’ he asked quietly, ashamed. ‘Give me more time, my friend! I am fighting for him, you see, trying to win his heart and hoping to capture it with loving-kindness and patience . To him too the river must speak someday; he too has a calling .'”
• “Vasudeva’s smile blossomed more warmly. ‘Indeed, he too has a calling; he too will enjoy eternal life. But do we know, you and I, to what he has been called: to what path, to what deeds, to what sufferings? His sorrows will not be slight, for his heart is proud and hard; those like him must suffer a great deal, commit many errors, do much wrong, pile much sin upon themselves. Tell me, my friend, are you educating your son? Do you force him? Do you strike him? Do you punish him?’ ‘No, Vasudeva, I do none of these things.’ ‘This I knew. You do not force him, do not strike him, do not command him because you know that soft is stronger than hard, water stronger than rock, love stronger than violence . Very good, I praise you. But is it not an error for you to think that you are not forcing him, not punishing him? Do you not bind him with the bands of your love? Do you not shame him daily and make things more difficult for him with your kindness and patience? Are you not forcing him, the arrogant and spoiled boy, to live in a hut with two old banana eaters for whom even rice is a delicacy, whose thoughts cannot be his, whose hearts are old and still and beat differently from his? Do all these things not force him, punish him? ‘”

Aha Moment: (Vasudeva) “My friend, have you entirely forgotten that instructive story about Siddhartha, the Brahmin’s son, that you once related to me here in this very spot? Who saved the Samana Siddhartha from Sansara, from sin, from greed, from folly? Were his father’s piety, his teachers’ admonitions, his own knowledge, and his own searching able to protect him? What father, what teacher, was able to protect him from living life himself, soiling himself with life, accumulating guilt, drinking the bitter drink, finding his own path? Do you think then, my friend, that this path might be spared anyone at all? Perhaps your little son, because you love him and would like to spare him sorrow and pain and disillusionment? But even if you died ten times for him, you would not succeed in relieving him of even the smallest fraction of his destiny. ”

• “He could sense quite distinctly that this blind love for his son was a passion, something very human , that it was Sansara, a muddy spring, dark water. Yet at the same time he felt that it was not without value—it was necessary, it came out of his own being. This too was pleasure that had to be atoned for; this too, pain to be experienced; these too, follies to be committed.”

Stage Summary: Siddhartha begins to see people differently—more warmly and empathetically. He sees life in each person. He begins to realize that the goal of his long search was “nothing but a readiness of the soul, a capacity, the secret art of being able at every moment, without ceasing to live, to think the thought of Oneness, to feel Oneness and breathe it in.” Siddhartha has learned how to listen and sees all images and goals flowing together. All things are one—interlinked and interwoven—and all of it together is the world. His Self flowed into the Oneness. The story comes full circle as Siddhartha and Govinda are reunited one last time. Siddhartha shares insights on seeking, wisdom, truth, time, and love—and his own enlightenment and transcendence ultimately helps Govinda experience it as well.

• “ He now saw people differently than he had before, less cleverly, less proudly, but more warmly, with more curiosity and empathy. “
• “Although he had nearly reached perfection and still felt the pangs of his recent wound, it seemed to him as if these child people were his brothers. Their vanities, desires, and ridiculous habits were losing their ridiculousness for him; they were becoming comprehensible, lovable, even worthy of respect. “
• “All these drives, all these childish matters, all these simple, foolish, but enormously strong, strongly alive, strongly asserted drives and desires were no longer mere child’s play to Siddhartha; he saw people living for their sake , saw them performing endless feats for their sake—making journeys, waging wars, suffering endless sufferings, enduring endless burdens—and he was able to love them for this; he saw life, the living, the indestructible, the Brahman in each of their passions, each of their deeds. Lovable and admirable these people were in their blind fidelity, their blind strength and tenacity. They were lacking in almost nothing; the one thing possessed by the thinker, the man of knowledge, that they lacked was only a trifle, one small thing: consciousness, conscious thought of the Oneness of all things. And at times Siddhartha even doubted whether this knowledge, this thinking, should be so highly valued, wondered whether it too was not perhaps the child’s play of thought people, who might be the child people of thought. In all other matters, the worldly were the wise man’s equals , were in fact far superior to him in many ways, just as animals, in their tenacious, unerring performance of what is necessary, can appear superior to people at certain moments.”

Aha Moment (on Oneness): “Slowly blossoming, slowly ripening within Siddhartha, was the realization and knowledge of what wisdom and the goal of his long search really was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, a capacity, the secret art of being able at every moment, without ceasing to live, to think the thought of Oneness, to feel Oneness and breathe it in . Slowly this was blossoming within him, shining out at him from Vasudeva’s aged childish face: harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling, Oneness. “

• “Had not his father suffered the same pain he himself was now suffering on account of his son? Had not his father died long ago, without ever having seen his son again? Must not he himself expect the same fate? Was not this repetition a comedy, a strange and foolish thing, this constant circulation in a preordained course ?”
• “As he continued to speak, continued to confess and recount, Siddhartha felt more and more strongly that it was no longer Vasudeva listening to him, no longer a human being, that this motionless listener was drinking in his confession as a tree drinks in rain, that this motionless one was the river, God, the Eternal itself . And as Siddhartha ceased to think of himself and his wound, his recognition of the changed essence of Vasudeva took possession of him ; the more deeply he felt it and entered into it, the less strange it became and the more he realized that all this was as it should be and natural , that Vasudeva had been this way a long time, nearly always; it was just that he himself had not quite recognized it, and that in fact he himself was scarcely different from Vasudeva any longer. “
• “Siddhartha made an effort to listen better. The image of his father, his own image, and the image of his son all flowed together ; Kamala’s image also appeared and dissolved, and the image of Govinda, and other images; they all flowed together . All became the river, all of them striving as river to reach their goal, longingly, eagerly, suffering, and the river’s voice rang out full of longing, full of burning sorrow, full of unquenchable desire. The river strove to its goal; Siddhartha saw it hurrying along, the river that was made of himself and those he loved and all the people he had ever seen; all the waves and waters were hurrying, suffering, toward goals, many goals—the waterfall, the lake, the rapids, the sea— and all these goals were reached, and each of them was followed by a new goal , and the water turned to steam and rose into the sky; it became rain and plunged down from the heavens; it became a spring, became a brook, became a river, striving anew, flowing anew . But the longing voice had changed. It still rang out, sorrowfully, searchingly, but other voices now joined it, voices of joy and of sorrow, good and wicked voices, laughing and mourning, a hundred voices, a thousand.”
• “Siddhartha listened. He was now completely and utterly immersed in his listening, utterly empty, utterly receptive; he felt he had now succeeded in learning how to listen . He had heard all these things often now, these many voices in the river; today it sounded new. Already he could no longer distinguish the many voices , could not distinguish the gay from the weeping, the childish from the virile; they all belonged together , the yearning laments and the wise man’s laughter, the cry of anger and the moans of the dying; they were all one, all of them interlinked and interwoven, bound together in a thousand ways . And all of this together—all the voices, all the goals, all the longing, all the suffering, all the pleasure, everything good and everything bad—all of it together was the world. All of it together was the river of occurrences, the music of life. And when Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to this thousand-voiced song, when he listened neither for the sorrow nor for the laughter, when he did not attach his soul to any one voice and enter into it with his ego but rather heard all of them, heard the whole, the oneness—then the great song of the thousand voices consisted only of a single word: Om , perfection. “

Aha Moment (on non-resistance): “ His wound blossomed; his sorrow shone; his Self had flowed into the Oneness. In this hour Siddhartha ceased to do battle with fate, ceased to suffer. Upon his face blossomed the gaiety of knowledge that is no longer opposed by any will, that knows perfection, that is in agreement with the river of occurrences, with the current of life, full of empathy, full of fellow feeling, given over to the current, part of the Oneness. “

Aha Moment (on seeking): “‘When a person seeks,’ Siddhartha said, ‘it can easily happen that his eye sees only the thing he is seeking; he is incapable of finding anything, of allowing anything to enter into him, because he is always thinking only of what he is looking for, because he has a goal, because he is possessed by his goal. Seeking means having a goal. Finding means being free, being open, having no goal. You, Venerable One, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for, striving to reach your goal, you overlook many things that lie close before your eyes.'”

• “Some people, Govinda, have to change a great deal, have to wear all sorts of garments, and I am one of these , my dear friend.”
• “As you know, my dear friend, I began to distrust doctrines and teachers already as a young man, in the days when we were living among the penitents in the forest, and I turned my back on them. I have stuck to this. Nonetheless I have had many teachers since then. .. Most of all, however, I learned here, from this river , and from my predecessor, the ferryman Vasudeva. He was a very simple man, Vasudeva. He was not a thinker, but he knew what is necessary to know; just as much as Gautama he was a Perfect One, a saint. ”

Aha Moment (on wisdom): “There were several thoughts, but it would be difficult for me to hand them on to you. You see, my Govinda, here is one of the thoughts I have found: Wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to pass on always sounds like foolishness. .. One can pass on knowledge but not wisdom. One can find wisdom, one can live it, one can be supported by it, one can work wonders with it, but one cannot speak it or teach it.”

Aha Moment (on truth): “ The opposite of every truth is just as true! For this is so: A truth can always only be uttered and cloaked in words when it is one-sided. Everything is one-sided that can be thought in thoughts and said with words , everything one-sided, everything half, everything is lacking wholeness, roundness, oneness. When the sublime Gautama spoke of the world in his doctrine, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into illusion and truth, into suffering and redemption. This is the only way to go about it; there is no other way for a person who would teach. The world itself, however, the Being all around us and within us, is never one-sided. Never is a person, or a deed, purely Sansara or purely Nirvana, never is a person utterly holy or utterly sinful.”

Aha Moment (on time): “ It only seems so because we are subject to the illusion that time exists as something real. Time is not real, Govinda. I have experienced this again and again. And if time is not real, then the distance that appears to lie between world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between evil and good, is also an illusion. ”

• “The sinner who I am and who you are is a sinner, but one day he will again be Brahman, he will one day reach Nirvana, will be a Buddha—and now behold: This one day is an illusion, it is only an allegory! The sinner is not on his way to the state of Buddhahood, he is not caught up in a process of developing , although our thought cannot imagine things in any other way. No, in this sinner the future Buddha already exists—now, today—all his future is already there. In him, in yourself, in everyone you must worship the future Buddha, the potential Buddha, the hidden Buddha . The world, friend Govinda, is not imperfect, nor is it in the middle of a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect in every moment ; every sin already carries forgiveness within it, all little children already carry their aged forms within them, all infants death, all dying men eternal life. It is not possible for anyone to see how far any other person has come along his path. Buddha waits within the robber and the dice player, and the robber waits in the Brahmin.”
• “ In the deepest meditation we have the possibility of negating time, of seeing all life, all having-been, being, and becoming, as simultaneous, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore everything that is appears good to me. Death appears to me like life, sin like holiness, cleverness like folly; everything must be just as it is, everything requires only my assent, only my willingness, my loving approval, and for me it is good and can never harm me . I experienced by observing my own body and my own soul that I sorely needed sin, sorely needed concupiscence, needed greed, vanity, and the most shameful despair to learn to stop resisting , to learn to love the world and stop comparing it to some world I only wished for and imagined, some sort of perfection I myself had dreamed up, but instead to let it be as it was and to love it and be happy to belong to it .”

Aha Moment (on words): “Words are not good for the secret meaning; everything always becomes a little bit different the moment one speaks it aloud , a bit falsified, a bit foolish—yes, and this too is also very good and pleases me greatly: that one person’s treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to others .”

• “For the stone and the river, for all these things that we contemplate and from which we can learn, I feel love . I can love a stone, Govinda, and also a tree or a piece of bark. These are things and things can be loved. Words, however, I cannot love. This is why doctrines are not for me. They have no hardness, no softness, no colors, no edges, no smell, no taste; they have nothing but words. Perhaps it is this that has hindered you in finding peace; perhaps it is all these words. For even redemption and virtue, even Sansara and Nirvana, are just words, Govinda. There is no thing that could be Nirvana; there is only the word Nirvana. ”
• “When this holy man (ferryman) went into the forest, he knew everything, knew more than you or I, without teachers, without books, only because he had believed in the river.”

Aha Moment (on love): “ Love, O Govinda, appears to me more important than all other matters. To see through the world, to explain it, to scorn it—this may be the business of great thinkers. But what interests me is being able to love the world , not scorn it, not to hate it and hate myself, but to look at it and myself and all beings with love and admiration and reverence .”

• “Even with regard to him (Buddha), your great teacher, things are dearer to me than words, his actions and life more important than his speeches, the gestures of his hand more important than his opinions. It is not in his speaking or in his thinking that I see his greatness, only in his actions, his life .”
• “‘Bend down to me,’ he whispered softly in Govinda’s ear. ‘Bend down here to me! Yes, like that, closer! Even closer! Kiss me on the forehead, Govinda!’ When Govinda, perplexed and yet drawn by great love and foreboding, obeyed his words, bent down close to him, and touched his forehead with his lips, something wondrous happened to him . While his thoughts were still lingering over Siddhartha’s odd words, while he was still fruitlessly and reluctantly attempting to think away time, to imagine Nirvana and Sansara as one, while a certain contempt for his friend’s words was even then battling inside him with tremendous love and reverence, this happened: He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha; instead he saw other faces, many of them, a long series, a flowing river of faces, by the hundreds, by the thousands, all of them coming and fading away, and yet all of them appearing to be there at once, all of them constantly changing, being renewed, and all of them at the same time Siddhartha …he saw all these figures and faces in their thousandfold interrelations, each helping the others, loving them, hating them, destroying them, giving birth to them anew; each one was a wanting-to-die, a passionately painful confession of transitoriness, and yet none of them died; each of them was only transformed, constantly born anew, constantly being given a new face, without time having passed between one face and the next—and all these figures and faces rested, flowed, engendered one another, floated off and streamed into and through one another, and constantly stretched over all of them was something thin, an insubstantial but nonetheless existing thing like thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, a bowl or shape or mask made of water, and this mask was smiling, and this mask was Siddhartha’s smiling face, which he, Govinda, at just this moment was touching with his lips. And Govinda saw that this smiling of the mask, this smile of Oneness over all the flowing figures , this smile of simultaneousness over the thousand births and deaths, this smile of Siddhartha was precisely the same, was precisely the same still, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps kind, perhaps mocking, wise, thousandfold smile of Gautama, the Buddha, as he himself had seen it a hundred times with awe. This, Govinda knew, is how the Perfect Ones smiled. No longer knowing whether time existed, whether this looking had lasted a second or a hundred years, no longer knowing whether there was a Siddhartha, whether a Gautama, whether a Self, an I and You, wounded in his innermost core as if by a divine arrow whose wound tastes sweet, entranced and bewildered in his innermost core, Govinda remained standing there a short while longer, bending over Siddhartha’s still face that he had just kissed, that had just been the site of all shapes, all Becoming, all Being . This countenance appeared unchanged once the depths of the thousandfold immensity had closed again beneath its surface; he was silently smiling, smiling quietly and gently, very kindly perhaps, perhaps mockingly, precisely as he had smiled, the Sublime One. Deeply Govinda bowed, tears of which he knew nothing coursed down his old face , and like a fire the feeling of the most ardent love, the most humble reverence was burning in his heart. Deeply he bowed, bowed to the very earth, before the one sitting there motionless, whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in all his life, everything that had ever, in all his life, been dear to him and holy. “

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About Kyle Kowalski

👋 Hi, I'm Kyle―the human behind Sloww . I'm an ex-marketing executive turned self-education entrepreneur after an existential crisis in 2015. In one sentence: my purpose is synthesizing lifelong learning that catalyzes deeper development . But, I’m not a professor, philosopher, psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist, scientist, mystic, or guru. I’m an interconnector across all those humans and many more—an "independent, inquiring, interdisciplinary integrator" (in other words, it's just me over here, asking questions, crossing disciplines, and making connections). To keep it simple, you can just call me a "synthesizer." Sloww shares the art of living with students of life . Read my story.

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Reader Interactions

July 22, 2022 at 7:21 PM

Absolutely love your article on this! You also have a new subscriber as well! Keep up the awesomeness

July 29, 2022 at 3:28 PM

Thanks for the kind words, Nette!

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The Significance of the Hero’s Journey in Siddhartha’s Character Development as Seen in Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha

2021, Lexicon

This paper discusses the character development of Siddhartha, the main character in Herman Hesse’s novel, Siddhartha (1973). This research aims to study how Siddhartha’s character develops during his journey to reach enlightenment. The analysis is conducted by using the theory of the hero's journey by Joseph Campbell. The result shows that Siddhartha’s journey follows twelve out of seventeen stages of the hero’s journey proposed by Campbell. All of the stages appear in the same order except the stage Belly of The Whale that comes late. It functions as a turning point rather than a preparation for a greater ordeal. The analysis also shows that Siddhartha undergoes two major changes; from an individualistic to a wise person and from someone who is always persistent and thirsty for knowledge to someone who is flexible.

Related Papers

Mathew Spano

If Demian illustrates Hesse’s transformation of the puer archetype with which his ego had been inflated as he approached the beginning of his mid-life crisis, and if Steppenwolf reveals the transformation of the senex archetype that came to possess him toward the end of his crisis, Siddhartha stands as Hesse’s transformation of the youthful hero archetype with which he now identified. At this point, however, we might ask why any further individuation would be necessary at all for Hesse after Demian, since in that novel he seems to have gone through the process of individuation in its entirety. But individuation is a recursive process—i.e., one can experience all of the phases at different times and on different levels: The individuation process, as the way of development and maturation of the psyche, does not follow a straight line, nor does it always lead onwards and upwards. The course it follows is rather “stadial”, consisting of progress and regress, flux and stagnation in alter...

Rohana Wasala

Siddhartha is not a treatise on Buddhism. It is a work of fiction. The omniscient narrator is also a creation of the author. But what the individual reader may infer from the story could be identical with or at least similar to the author's own interpretation of the state of enlightenment that is the ultimate spiritual achievement that one can attain in Buddhism. Characters as well as their ideas and motives are the products of a creative writer's imagination. The novel presents Siddhartha's final state of transcendent peace as the same as that achieved by any successful disciple of the Buddha. But we know that Siddhartha says he does not accept the teachings of the Buddha while not denying that he is the Perfect One. Having praised the Buddha for proving the unity of the world through his doctrine of cause and effect, Siddhartha tells him that he thinks that " nobody finds salvation through teachings ". Knowledge can be taught, but not wisdom, says Siddhartha. I venture to propose here my personal thesis that, in the final analysis, what Hesse depicts as a realized goal in this story of Siddhartha the Brahmin's son is not a pure Buddhist ideal, but an amalgam of Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian ideals (which, at a deep level, seem to be conceived as identical with each other). Though he owed much to the influences of Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, Hesse stated: " Christianity, one not preached, but lived, was the strongest of the powers that shaped and moulded me ". His must have been a thoroughly 'Indianized' or 'Buddhisticized' Christianity. In a conversation with Miguel Serrano, Hesse said about belief in God: "You should let yourself be carried away, like the clouds in the sky. You shouldn't resist. God exists in your destiny just as much as he does in these mountains and in that lake. It is very difficult to understand this, because man is moving further and further away from Nature, and also from himself." Although, apparently, Hesse is here talking about his Christian religious belief, his words also evoke Hindu pantheistic ideas. This imputation of an element of mysticism to Buddhism, I feel, is due to Hesse's own religious heterogeneity, which he seems to subordinate to his own interpretation of the theistic religious ideology that was his patrimony.

Bryan Bardine

Com~dy has a lways been more difficult to define and pin down than tragedy. * Part of the dIfficulty may be that comedy is, by its very nature, more protean than tragedy: comedy often takes delight in breaking the rules. Moreover, tragedy has been so memorably deSCribed in The Poetics that Aristotle may have unintentionally molded the shape of tragedy through the ages. There are different kinds of tragedy. to be sure. but they are usually variations of a similar theme and form. Perhaps because Aristotle's treatise on comedy has been lost, comedy was left free to develop in numerous ways. In any event, comedy can range from the slapstick to the sublime, from the misadventures of Don QUixote to the mysticism of Dante.

SMART M O V E S J O U R N A L IJELLH

Abstract This paper explores the concepts of dialogism in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. Human existence finds expression through an open-ended dialogue. This paper is not restricted to the primary concepts of dialogism i.e. polyphony, heteroglossia and carnival as it explores broader concepts of language in relation to self, uniqueness of experience and surplus of seeing. It is the dialogic interaction of Siddhartha with others that metamorphoses his understanding of self. This paper intends to present a close analysis of these concepts in different contexts to bring forth the relationship between discourse and existence. It unveils how discourse helps in true understanding of self and conveys a meaning in totality. Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895-1975) was one of the influential theorists of discourse in twentieth century. It is his concepts on dialogism that made him a noted literary theorist of twentieth century. This paper will focus on bringing out the elements of dialogism in Hermann Hesse’s popular novel Siddhartha. Dialogics is the key term used to describe the narrative theory of Bakhtin and is specifically identified with his approach to questions of

Abstract Nigerian women are subjugated in religious and educational institutions, employed in positions of lower status, marginally situated in political bodies, and legally discriminated. The study underscores that the identity of a Nigerian woman in subordinate roles is constituted into being within varied discourses controlled by power structures in varied contexts and different time periods owing to intersecting patterns of racism and sexism. In order to fathom the performative dimension of the intersectional identity of Nigerian women, the study reads Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood (1979) and Kehinde (1974) through Butlerian lens of performativity and Crenshawian lens of intersectionality. The study undertaken is vital as it helps to understand why Nigerian women continue to be constituted as second class citizens, slaves, mammies, and prostitutes even in the twenty-first century. Keywords: Buchi Emecheta, intersectionality, Nigerian woman, performativity, slavery

David Lee Carlson

Jonathan Grossman , Sara Daniel

An intertextual reading of Ishmael's expulsion in Genesis 21 and Herman Hesse's Siddhartha illuminates Ishmael's path as a universal process of coming-of-age. We argue that the two works share major themes, which are reinforced and illustrated with common motifs. In both cases, the son is disengaged from the past and, after being reborn, establishes himself in the world.

Murali Sivaramakrishnan

Mukt Shabd Journal

ANSHUMAN SHARMA

This article made a sincere effort to outline the life of Siddhartha described by Hermann Hesse. One can find several articles on that topic, but every article has its importance and essence. In this article, the authors have tried to outline the existential aspect of the novel's protagonist. This article also briefed about the various vital aspects of Siddhartha that were important to make him as he was. The article briefed how Siddhartha's epitomic encounter with Buddha helped him to find his real existence in this world. This story portrayed Siddhartha's journey within leading an authentic life and realized that salvation is not a destination; instead, it is a path to walk on.

Journal of Nusantara Studies (JONUS)

Rana Tahir Naveed

This paper is an attempt to study Siddhartha’s spiritual quest for self-knowledge in psychological perspective. It is meant to explore how far and in what ways is the mystical experience on par with secondary integration of personality that occurs only in the wake of the disintegration of several existing psychological structures. The protagonist’s act of overcoming ego-consciousness and disassociating himself with the social labels and ultimately realizing his ‘self’ are analyzed psychologically using Kazimierz Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration as a conceptual framework. Herman Hesse’s novel Siddhartha is selected for the study, and textual analysis is employed as a tool to analyse the text culling the relevant passages as evidence. The study reveals that the protagonist of the novel achieves higher level of personality development and the previously held assumptions which confuse spirituality with psychic disorders are overruled. It also asserts the validity of mystica...

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Classic Books Keep Speaking to Us Long After They Are Written

Reflections on Siddhartha at Three Stages of My Life

I cannot think of another book that I read as a young man in the late 1960s, that was more influential on my subsequent life choices than Siddhartha by Herman Hesse . I contend that our life experiences around the time we read profound books may significantly affect the ways we receive them. In this column, In this column, I will consider how my understanding of Siddhartha changed as I went through three life key stages: young adult; career-focused family man; and reflective senior adult. I recall that Siddhartha was more of a nostalgic curiosity when I read it the second time in the 1980s, as a family man establishing a career and a new family. But what has been the most surprising is the way that I have gained new insights about this book and myself when I read and considered it a third time with a group of seniors at a recent monthly (Richmond, VA) Classic Book Club teleconference meeting. Let me start at the first stage.

As a young college youth, I was beginning to explore the boundaries of new freedoms of actions of thought and action. Like many others in my generation, I was feeling more liberated from the influences of my parents and from the strings tying me to conventional twentieth-century thinking. My generation believed that we had to ‘turn-on and drop out.”  What adults were expecting us to sign up for fell way short of our idealistic hopes, dreams, and goals. We observed that our parents were not satisfied with the lives they had created for themselves striving for the American Dream. Many had found that wealth did not bring happiness.  Their abuse of prescription drugs and alcohol was on the rise at the same time that they condemned youth who were experimenting with a new generation of psychedelic drugs. The Vietnam war was raging on, and we were wasting our human and capital resources on a senseless conflict that didn’t have any logical ending. Time Magazine was casking if both the family and God were dead.

To add to my particular confusion, my two sets of parents had been associated with the Jewish and Christian faiths as I was growing up. As I understood their respective religious messages, both faiths claimed to have been chosen as exclusive agents of God. And both placed God as being above and separate from humanity. I was told that you could strive to be like God, but unless you were a prophet, saint, or incarnation (like Jesus), you were bound to fall short. Christians emphasized that we were sinners and Jews could not even spell the word God in their holy texts. Neither religion offered man an inspiring vision for our generation.

So, with the social and cultural backdrop of the 60’s backdrop, Siddhartha arrived in the western world , along with a new interest in Eastern thought and meditation practices, and a pop-culture movement based on inward spiritual awareness and realization. Like most westerners, I did not know that Herman Hesse had first written the book in German in 1921, that it had won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, or that it was first published in English in 1951. However, with the timely messages it brought, it seemed like it was written specifically as an antidote for the disillusioned youth of the 1960s and 70s.

One of the lessons from that book that caught our attention was that we couldn’t just accept the teachings of our parents; instead, we had to learn what was important to us from our own experiences.

During Siddhartha’s youth, “he found no joy inside himself.”  He found that the world was caught up in endless suffering, both from the struggle to accumulate wealth and from the struggle to alleviate poverty. His goal was to try to find a way to eliminate suffering in his own life. The key, he believed, was to eliminate the desire for physical attractions and attachments by directing his pursuit for a connection to “the Eternal Heartbeat.” Rather than dwelling outside of himself, he believed that the divine source resided in every living being. As a young man, he looked around him and concluded that nobody around him showed him how to achieve that path: “not his teachers, not the wise men, and not the holy books.” He concluded that this realization could not be taught by his parents. But he asked his father’s blessing to release him so that he could go to the forest and study with the samanas (ascetics), who he believed also aspired to reach the path toward the highest spiritual realization. His father, who was an educated man of the Hindu tradition, agreed to release his son to go and study with the samanas, asking only that he return home and teach his father how to find bliss, once he discovered how to achieve it for himself. It seemed that the reasons Siddhartha used to leave home struck a chord with the youth of the 60s: We had to leave home and disassociate from the ways we were taught, in order to discover who we are and who we would become.

Siddhartha, like the adults around him, went through various cycles of experiences and learning at different stages of his life. Ultimately, he learned much from the samanas, and even from a meeting with the Living Buddha, but held fast that no one could teach him the wisdom he sought. In a later life- phase, he wanted to earn a living to impress Kamala, the object of his sensual desires. This choice certainly seemed like it might have been an extreme deviation from such a serious spiritual devotee, but it was simply portrayed as a key period of the life of a spiritual aspirant who was not seeking to be an ascetic or monk. His decision thus appealed to the youth of that time, who were also faced with making major career decision choices.

Siddhartha responded, “I can think, I can wait, and I can fast.”

I read the book for the second time in the 1980s when I was making important personal and family life choices. Siddhartha, who had then been an ascetic, was asked by Kamala what job skills he had. He responded, “I can think, I can wait, and I can fast.” When he said this on his one job interview to be a real estate broker for a wealthy man, he added that he could also read and write. We had read earlier that Siddhartha had the privileged classical education of a prince. One idea expressed by a participant of our group was that the book was unrealistic because it subsequently showed Siddhartha as a successful employee, even though Siddhartha had few apparent transferable job skills. But I  disagreed with this assertion, believing that the skills he had listed were more than sufficient to succeed at a worldly job and make enough money to support a family. From my experience, an employee who can think clearly will certainly be a valuable resource for any job. In my career, finding clear-thinking people to employ was often the key to my success as a job supervisor. A worker who can wait until the results of their good work became evident is more concerned with quality than taking short cuts. An employee who can fast, can delay gratification and not be attached to the results of his/her work. It turned out that when Siddhartha started working, he also related well to people, and this also helped him to be successful in earning commissions.

I contend that when a person reads Siddhartha, and what they are doing at the time they read it, it may have influenced the way they interpret the book. Therefore, many adults who were the parents of 6os and 70s youth likely discounted the book. One member of our Classic Book Club, who is just a few years older than I am, was a young college professor during the period when this book was most popular. He observed that many of his college students used the book as an excuse to drop out of school or society, and do nothing but “gaze at the river,” as Siddhartha and the ferryman had done. But Siddhartha’s river gazing was symbolic of the idea that self-reflection is necessary before taking any important life action.  I countered in our book club discussion that, from my experience, dropping out of society may have been true for some of the youth our professor was teaching. However, from my own observations, it did not hold true for all students and youth of that period. I conceded that a good many of the dropouts got trapped in drugs and dropped out permanently. Of course, several dropped out to the extent that they took their own lives. But, I cannot hold Hesse’s book as being responsible for their misguided actions. Many of us who were dropping out, including me, were refecting and trying to redirect our lives in another direction from the model blazed by the previous generation. I believe that many in the positive group were influenced by the most positive themes of Hesse’s writing. Although we may have tuned in to Siddhartha and dropped out for a while, many of the baby boomers from this generation ultimately accepted both new inspirations that Siddhartha had provided: to seek greater spiritual wisdom and to prepare for better job skills for raising families.

Recently a member of the book club recommended that we read and consider Siddhartha . Although it had been at least 30 years, since I last read it, I looked forward to reading it as a senior citizen the third time. After accomplishing this, it became apparent that either I had changed, or the book had changed. But I could not discount the influence that the book club discussion had on my new conclusion. Several of our members stated that they had gained more insight into the book than they had in earlier readings. Some thought it was still a compelling book, while some others thought that it wasn’t as meaningful as it used to be. To me, this supported my contention that the reader’s responses and experiences are crucial to the ways that they interpret any work of literature, especially a period-based classic book.

In the end, Siddhartha had gained powerful accumulated wisdom from his experiences and had attained the wisdom and spiritual realization he had sought. Yet, he was still subjected to the cause and effect laws of karma. His own son, from his union with Kamala, rejected Siddhartha’s teaching and fatherly guidance and went off to society to learn his own lessons. This was as bitter to Siddhartha as it been earlier to his father. Sadly, Siddhartha never went back to visit his father and teach him the path to bliss as his father had previously requested. We can assume that Siddhartha’s son never went back to visit with him. I think that Siddhartha’s abandonment of his father in his senior years amounted to unnecessary cruelty. Janet Clements, our book discussion moderator, conjectured that  Herman Hesse may have constructed this plot outcome to reflect that he had rebelled against his father’s Protestant teachings. Also, Hesse never reconciled with his father.

In a redemption, Siddhartha’s final act was to transmit his spiritual realization, through love, to his dearest friend, Govinda. Although this was a satisfying ending to the novel, it brought up some questions about the consistencies in his teachings. Earlier in the book, Siddhartha had stated that one could not attain realization through any teacher. Was Hesse suggesting that Siddhartha had changed his mind on this subject? Or, was he implying that the path the author laid out was even superior to the traditional path of Buddhism for modern times?  Another question the book leaves with is, can wisdom be taught or learned through any other source besides self-reflection and hard-life experiences? Readers will have to respond to this challenge by examining their own life and experiences.

Above all other literary considerations, Siddhartha was and still is a bridge book, It has helped many westerners think about spirituality and alternative lifestyles in different ways than they had previously considered.  Like the river,  Siddhartha has carried us back and forth toward and away from many new ideas. Many westerners are still interested in exploring eastern ideas, and there is still a decline in the serious commitment to many organized religions. However, there is an increasing interest in exploring Christianity in eastern countries that were once strongholds for eastern thinking, such as in Japan, South Korea, and Viet Nam. Perhaps these counter-trends indicate that people are no less interested in spirituality than they used to be. It may be that some are rejecting the intolerant and exclusive holds on truth offered by some faiths. Perhaps just as many of us are still seeking the same truths about God and eternity that Siddhartha explored.

I  have now made peace with the teachings of my youth, my middle year experiences. And I and now am able to blend them with what I have learned in my later-life stages. I have concluded that experiences have taught me to see wisdom as well as inconsistencies in western and eastern religions. Both spiritual paths can point us toward a particular view of Truth. Yet, we must still continually listen to the river to find that “Eternal Heartbeat,” which, I believe, resides in each of us.

Please add to the discussion in the dialogue box below. To receive automatic blog entries, please provide your email in another dialogue box below. Also, if you have an idea for a literary discussion you would like me to include in Litchatte, with you listed as the author, please write to me at [email protected]

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Siddhartha – A journey to inspire countless more

Simple. Profound. Philosophical. Hermann Hesse ’s Siddhartha is the story of one man’s quest for spiritual illumination. Inspired by Gautama Buddha and his wisdom, Siddhartha’s quest is one that is less of an adventure, and more of discovery. A discovery that introduces our protagonist to new places, new people, new joys and miseries, and new experiences. All of which play key roles in his search for wisdom, enlightenment, and above all, his search for himself.

Siddhartha – The Plot

Siddhartha’s journey begins in an ancient Nepalese kingdom where he, the son of a Brahmana, loved by everyone around him, has so far has lived a relatively comfortable life. The only problem. Everything others loved about him meant little to nothing to Siddhartha himself. Lacking the joy those around him know. Discontent and restlessness slowly growing within him. And that, is when he decides to leave his home to become a Samana , a traveling ascetic. Not only an unorthodox decision for the son of a Brahmana, but one that is sure to invite disproval and aversion even from the ones who loved Siddhartha. All except his loyal friend, Govinda.

Accompanied by Govinda, a young Siddhartha commits himself to a journey where he will experience more than what expects. From learning the art of patience and the ability to think with clarity, to meeting Gautama Buddha himself, losing his way to greed and materialism, and finally finding the meaning he had been looking for, in perhaps the most unexpected places.  

The opposite of every truth is just as true. That is to say, any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided. Everything that can be thought with the mind and said with words is one-sided. It’s all just the half of it, lacking completeness. Hermann Hesse Siddhartha

Siddhartha’s journey through vices and virtues

A cursory read of Siddhartha’s story might make you feel that Siddhartha’s story is not the most exciting. May be it isn’t. But that isn’t the promise Hermann Hesse or Siddhartha make at any point. I would say, at the cost of inviting some criticism, that his journey is not an entirely spiritual one either. At least not in the conventional sense. Siddhartha’s journey is largely be broken into three phases.

• Wisdom Seeking the wisdom of Gautama Buddha, Siddhartha realizes early on in his journey that wisdom is not something that ‘wisdom’ cannot be taught. But must be learnt by oneself. And with this newfound realization, he decides that the Buddha’s philosophy, although wise, does not speak to or give the answers Siddhartha – and many others – may be seeking. He must find these answers himself. As must each individual on a quest for himself.
• Material Falling in love with the beautiful woman, Siddhartha soon finds himself indulging in the material joys of life. Becoming a trader, he builds riches beyond what he enjoyed in his former life as the son of a Brahmana. But as it did then, he loses a sense of self, and his discontent soon surfaces with the realization that his luxurious and materialistic lifestyle is nothing more than temporary fulfilment of the void left by a lack of spiritual fulfilment.
• Acceptance and Discovery Abandoning the riches amassed over years of working as a trader, Siddhartha once again leaves behind his life of comfort. Accepting a humbler lifestyle, he is reunited with a ferryman, Vasudeva, who had many years ago helped him cross a river. And in this river, in a ferryman’s company, Siddhartha seems to find his true purpose, and his spiritual guide.

This is where Siddhartha’s journey becomes even more profound. The chapters that follow are filled with wisdom beyond what Siddhartha had learnt or picked up in his journey so far. And among other realisations, understanding that an individual life while has purpose, does not have a finish line. It is not a race to the end or a destination to be reached. Rather, it is a circle that goes round and comes back in ways one could not have imagined…

Siddhartha – A journey of one life with the power to change many

Siddhartha’s road to realization or enlightenment was filled with his own struggles and joys. Something we can all relate to. But it still has more than a little something we can take away.

• Empathy requires difficulty and humility We can never understand the pain someone else is going through. Not unless we have experienced it ourselves. Whether it is family, friends, or even acquaintances, we can be there in their difficult times, but understanding them requires something much more.
• The perfect life – does not exist Contrary to what many – including religious groups – would have us believe, the perfect life does not exist. There is no guarantee of achieving enlightenment. Or for that matter even clarity as to what that means. But one thing Siddhartha’s journey tries to tell is that this happiness or perfection lies everywhere around you. If only we can see it. And accept it.
• Actions define a human being Siddhartha as a person does not believe in Buddhism himself. But he always respected it for the good that it did. Rather than simply preaching. Talk is cheap. After all, it is what you do, more than what you say, that shows who you really are.
• You don’t gain wisdom from books. But through experiences Siddhartha was always a well-read boy, even before he left his family. Adored for his ability to partake conversations and debates, his knowledge apparently knew no bounds. But it was only when he embarked on his quest that he realized how little he knew. And what it would take to attain true wisdom. Not teachings. But experiences.   As Brian O’Driscoll famously said, ‘Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.’

Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish. One can communicate knowledge. But not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but cannot communicate and teach it. Herman Hesse Siddhartha

The last word

Siddhartha is not the conventional story of the Buddha that we have all heard and read. In fact, it is not a story about the Buddha at all. But of a man who is on a journey not towards riches, but towards himself. Wherever that may take him. It is not a journey towards enlightenment. But towards realisation. It is a story that reflects different stages of a man’s life. And what matters most at each stage.

My life has been wondrous indeed. It has taken wonderful detours. Hermann Hesse Siddhartha

Originally written in German, it’s possible that the translation into English lost some of Hermann Hesse’s subtleties. But it is still a fabulous and insightful read that can keep you thinking for a long time after you are done reading. One of the few pieces of fiction that serve this purpose. At least, it did this for me, and I hope it will do the same for you.

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Hermann Hesse

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

In the town where Siddhartha was born, Brahmins and sages and young practitioners of the Brahma way of life are all trying to find the path to enlightenment. Siddhartha is raised listening to the guidance of the Brahmin teachers, but he concludes, based on the fact that none of Brahmin’s have themselves achieved enlightenment, that this path does not seem to lead to the celestial heights that he aims for. In search of enlightenment, Siddhartha embraces numerous different lifestyles. First, the ascetic philosophy of the samanas, who denounce physical needs. Then he meets the Buddha , who it seems should offer him the knowledge that he seeks, since he is himself enlightened.

But as with the Brahmin’s and samanas, Siddhartha finds the seeking of enlightenment through the teachings of others to be impossible. He believes he needs experience, rather than teaching. He goes to the town and follows the path of the child people, who are governed by money, lust, love, and other worldly desires. The anxiety he finds in the town leads him to the river, where he meets a ferryman, a humble servant of the river. When he finds such enlightenment in the ferryman, he too starts to listen to the river , and begins to understand the flows and unity of life.

Siddhartha ’s path to enlightenment combines learning from others and from the natural world, with a dose of stubborn disobedience and experiencing the world for himself. In contrast, Govinda follows a path that leaves him always in the shadow of another, first Siddhartha then the Buddha . Govinda seeks teaching, and huddles in the teachings of others like it was a refuge from the world. Govinda’s path of constant dependence on others highlights the independence of Siddhartha’s journey, and Govinda’s failure to achieve enlightenment in comparison to Siddhartha’s success shows that it is the untraveled path, the personal path, that leads to deliverance. Perhaps what had really set Siddhartha apart was not his unusual skill for contemplation, but for his ability to choose his own path.

Through his son , Siddhartha comes to understand the human attachments of the child people he had mocked in his town life. He also comes to understand the suffering and devotion of his own father. So, in making his own sacrifice and sending his son away, Siddhartha becomes connected to the earth—to love and connection, which he had earlier tried to eliminate from himself—in a way he hadn’t before. This poses an interesting possibility for the path to enlightenment – that it is only when Siddhartha continues a familial legacy, and the cycle returns to the paternal bond, that he gains that Buddhistic smile , making spiritual enlightenment much more of a human, earthly image rather than a lofty divine ideal.

The Path to Spiritual Enlightenment ThemeTracker

The Path to Spiritual Enlightenment Quotes in Siddhartha

He had begun to sense that his venerable father and his other teachers, that the wise Brahmins, had already imparted to him the bulk and the best of their knowledge, that they had already poured their fullness into his waiting vessel, and the vessel was not full, his mind was not contented…

Siddhartha had a goal, a single one: to become empty – empty of thirst, empty of desire, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow.

“I do not desire to walk on water,” said Siddhartha. “Let old samanas content themselves with such tricks.”

On all paths of the glorious grove, monks in yellow cloaks were walking; they sat here and there under the trees, absorbed in contemplation or in spiritual conversation; the shady gardens looked like a city, filled with people swarming like bees.

I have never seen anyone gaze and smile like that, sit and stride like that, he thought. Truly, I wish I could gaze and smile, sit and stride like that, so free, so venerable, so concealed, so open, so childlike and mysterious.

He looked around as if seeing the world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colorful was the world, bizarre and enigmatic was the world! There was blue, there was yellow, there was green. Sky flowed and river, forest jutted and mountain: everything beautiful, everything enigmatic and magical. And in the midst of it he, Siddhartha, the awakening man, was on the way to himself.

“He is like Govinda,” he thought, smiling. “All the people I meet on my path are like Govinda. All are thankful, although they themselves have the right to be thanked. All are subservient, all want to be friends, like to obey, think little. People are children.”

“Why should I fear a samana, a foolish samana from the forest, who comes from the jackals and does not yet know what a woman is?”

“I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”

At times he heard, deep in his breast, a soft and dying voice that admonished softly, lamented softly, barely audible. Then for an hour he was aware that he was leading a strange life, that he was doing all sorts of things that were merely a game, that he was cheerful, granted, and sometimes felt joy, but that a real life was flowing past him and not touching him.

Like a veil, like a thin mist, weariness descended on Siddhartha, slowly, a bit denser each day, a bit dimmer each month, a bit heavier each year. A new garment grows old with time, loses its lovely color with time, gets stains, gets wrinkles, frays out at the hems, starts showing awkward, threadbare areas.

With a twisted face he stared into the water, saw his face reflected, and he spat at it. In deep fatigue, he loosened his arm from the tree trunk and turned slightly in order to plunge in a sheer drop, to go under at last. Closing his eyes, he leaned toward death.

“Where,” he asked his heart, “where do you get this merriment? Does it come from that long, fine sleep, that did me so much good? Or from the word ‘om’ that I uttered? Or was it that I ran away, that my flight is completed, that I am finally free again and standing under the sky like a child?”

He learned incessantly from the river. Above all, it taught him how to listen, to listen with a silent heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinion.

“Can I part with him?” he asked softly, embarrassed. “Give me more time, dear friend! Look, I am fighting for him, I am wooing his heart, I want to capture it with love and friendly patience. Let the river speak to him too someday; he too is called.”

He felt deep love in his heart for the runaway. It was like a wound; and he also felt that the wound was not for wallowing, that it must become a blossom and shine.

Radiant was Vasudeva’s smile, it hovered, luminous, over all the wrinkles in his old face just as the om hovered over all the voices of the river. Bright shone his smile when he looked at his friend, and bright now glowed the very same smile on Siddhartha’s face.

“I am going into the forest, I am going into the oneness,” said Vasudeva, radiant.

“I have found a thought, Govinda, that you will again take as a joke or as folly, but it is my best thought. This is it: The opposite of every truth is just as true!”

He no longer saw his friend Siddhartha’s face; instead he saw other faces, many, a long row, a streaming river of faces, hundreds, thousands, which all came and faded and yet seemed all to be there at once, which kept changing and being renewed, and yet which all were Siddhartha.

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Hero's Journey: A Guide to Becoming The Hero Of Your Story

What will your story be.

Be the hero of your story . It’s common advice from motivational speakers and life coaches, a call to arms to take centre stage and tackle life’s challenges head-on, to emerge victorious in the face of adversity, to transform through hardship. 

As humans, hardwired to view the world and share experiences through the medium of stories, myths often act as powerful motivators of change. From ancient cave paintings to the Star Wars and its Death Star to Harry Potter and his battle against evil, the hero’s journey structure is a familiar one. It’s also one you need to know if you want to know how to write a book , but I digress. 

This article will outline the stages, and psychological meaning, of the 12 steps of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey. So, are you ready to become the hero of your story? Then let the adventure begin...

Who is Joseph Campbell? 

Joseph Campbell was an American professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College, and an expert of mythology that once spent five years in a rented shack, buried in books for nine hours each day. His greatest contribution is the hero’s journey, outlined in his book The Hero with A Thousand Faces . Campbell was able to synthesise huge volumes of heroic stories, distilling a common structure amongst them.

Near the end of his life, Campbell was interviewed by Bill Moyers in a documentary series exploring his work, The Power of Myth .

Throughout their discussion, Campbell highlighted the importance of myth not just in stories, but in our lives, as symbols to inspire us to flourish and grow to our full potential.

How is the hero’s journey connected to self development?

You might be wondering what storytelling has to do with self-development. Before we dive into the hero’s journey (whether that is a male or a female hero’s journey), context will be useful. Joseph Cambell was heavily inspired by the work of Carl Jung, the groundbreaking psychologist who throughout his life worked on theories such as the shadow, collective unconscious, archetypes, and synchronicity.

Jung’s greatest insight was that the unconscious is a vast, vibrant landscape, yet out sight from the ordinary conscious experience. Jung didn’t only theorize about the unconscious; he provided a huge body of work explaining the language of the unconscious, and the way in which it communicates with the conscious mind.

The nature of the unconscious

Due to its vast nature, the unconscious doesn’t operate like the conscious mind, which is based in language, logic, and rationality. The unconscious instead operates in the imaginal realm — using symbols and meaning that take time to be deciphered and understood consciously. Such symbols surface in dreams, visualizations, daydreams, or fantasies.

For Jung, the creative process is one in which contents of the unconscious mind are brought to light. Enter storytelling and character development — a process of myth-making that somehow captures the truth of deep psychological processes. 

Campbell saw the power of myth in igniting the unconscious will to grow and live a meaningful life. With that in mind, his structure offers a tool of transformation and a way to inspire the unconscious to work towards your own hero’s journey.

The 12 steps of the hero’s journey

The hero’s journey ends where it begins, back at the beginning after a quest of epic proportions. The 12 steps are separated into three acts: 

• departure (1-5)
• initiation (5-10)
• return (10-1)

The hero journeys through the 12 steps in a clockwise fashion. As Campbell explains:

“The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society. The person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It’s usually a cycle, a coming and a returning.”

Let’s take a closer look at each of the steps below. Plus, under each is a psychological symbol that describes how the hero’s journey unfolds, and how when the hero ventures forth, he undergoes an inner process of awakening and transformation.

1. The ordinary world

The calm before the storm. The hero is living a standard, mundane life, going about their business unaware of the impending call to adventure. At this point, the hero is portrayed as very, very human. There could be glimpses of their potential, but these circumstances restrict the hero from fulfilling them. Although well within the hero’s comfort zone, at this stage, it’s clear something significant is lacking from their life.

Psychological symbol

This is represented as a stage of ignorance, pre-awakening. Living life by the status quo, on other people’s terms, or simply without questioning if this is what you want. At this point life is lived, but not deeply satisfying.

2. Call to adventure

Next is a disruption, a significant event that threatens the ways things were. This is a challenge that the hero knows deep down will lead to transformation and change, and that the days of normality, “the way things are,” are numbered. The hero confronts the question of being asked to step into their deeper potential, to awaken the power within, and to enter a new, special world.

Many of us embark on inner-journeys following hardship in life — the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, physical or mental illness. This stage occurs when it becomes apparent that, to move through suffering, one has to look within, to adventure into the soul.

3. Refusal of the call

No compelling story would be complete without friction. The hero often resists this call to adventure, as fear and self-doubt surface at full force, and the purpose of this new life direction is questioned. Can the reluctant hero journey forth? Do they have the courage?

The only way to grow and live a deeply fulfilling life is to face the discomfort of suffering. Campbell himself once said: “ The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek .” At this stage, fears, and anxieties about delving deep into the psyche arise. The temptation is to remain blissfully ignorant, to avoid discomfort, and to stay in your familiar world.

4. Meeting a mentor

As the hero faces a crisis of confidence, a wise mentor figure appears.

This character offers inspiration, guidance, or understanding that encourages the hero to have the self-belief to start this new adventure. In many stories, a mentor is someone else who has embarked on the hero’s journey, or someone who attempted, and failed. This person reflects the importance of this mission, reminding the hero their calling far exceeds their fear.

When the journey of exploration has to begin, people or situations enter your life at just the right time, guiding you in the right direction. This could be a close friend, a peer, a professional, such as a coach or therapist, or even a fictional character in a film or book. In most cases, these are chance encounters that contain a sense of knowing before the hero leaves on his or her adventure.

5. Crossing the threshold

This is a pivotal moment in the hero’s journey, as the initiation begins. This occurs when the hero fully commits to their quest, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. This is the point of no return, where the reluctant hero embarks on their adventure, and has accepted that the way things were must change. The hero enters a new zone, one in which the call to adventure must be accepted. The hero’s resolve is hardened, and they understand they have a responsibility to confront what is ahead of them.

Whatever your life was before the call to action, this is a crossroads which is accepted, knowing your life may never be the same. This is a point of empowerment, where you realize that journeying within will lead you to greater self-understanding, even if those insights will dramatically change your life direction. 

6. Test, allies, enemies

Now the hero has ventured outside of their comfort zone, the true test begins. This is a stage of acclimatizing to unknown lands. Unknown forces work against them, as they form bonds with allies who join them along the way, or face formidable enemies or encounters that have to be conquered. Throughout this testing time, the hero will be shaped and molded through adversity, finding deeper meaning in their life and mission.

Once the journey of self-discovery is underway, the initial burst of inspiration might be tested by the difficulty of the task. You might meet people who are able to offer advice or guide you, or those who reflect areas of yourself you have to work on. 

Often, these are inner experiences, in the forms of memories, emotions, or outward tests, such as difficult circumstances that challenge your resolve and commitment to your new life direction.

7. Approach to the inmost cave

Having already crossed the threshold into the unknown and the uncertain, having faced obstacles and enemies, and having begun to utilize their qualities along the way, the next stage is another threshold. 

This is the beating heart of the hero’s challenge, where again self-doubt and fear can arise, as another threshold has to be crossed. This is often a period of respite, giving the hero time to pause and reflect. Will the hero make the leap?

The hero’s journey has ups and downs. There may be quick wins in the beginning — your new life direction may go well, or inner-work may lead you to a new place of calm or confidence. But then, out of nowhere, comes an even bigger challenge, surfacing as a question mark to the person you’ve become. Life often has a way of presenting the right challenges at the right time…

This is the life-or-death moment. This can be a meeting with an ultimate enemy or facing the hero’s deepest fear. There is an awareness that if the hero fails, their new world, or their life, could be destroyed. 

Everything the hero has fought for up to this point, all the lessons learned along the journey, all the hidden potentials actualized, will have to be utilized to survive this supreme ordeal, for the hero to be victorious. Either way, the hero will undergo a form of death, and leave the ordeal forever changed.

There are inner challenges that have to be confronted on the journey of self-discovery. This might be in the form of trauma that has to be confronted and healed, people with whom you have to have difficult conversations, or fears you have to face, actions that in the past you never thought you’d be capable of. But, with the skills you’ve learned along the way, this time you’ll be ready. But it won’t be easy.

9. Reward (seizing the sword)

Through great adversity comes triumph. Having confronted their greatest fear, and survived annihilation, the hero learns a valuable lesson, and is now fully transformed and reborn — with a prize as a reward. 

This object is often symbolized as a treasure, a token, secret knowledge, or reconciliation, such as the return of an old friend or lover. This prize can assist in the return to the ordinary world — but there are still a few steps to come.

When confronting deep inner fears or challenges, you are rewarded with deep insights or breakthroughs. That might be in the form of achieving a significant goal or inwardly having a sense of peace or reconciliation with your past, or moments that have previously felt unresolved. As a spiritual process, this may also be the realization that behind suffering and pain lies freedom or inner peace.

10. The road back

Having traveled into distant, foreign lands and slain the dragon, now it’s time for the hero to make their return journey. This stage mirrors the original call to adventure and represents another threshold. 

The hero may be understanding their new responsibility and the consequences of their actions, and require a catalyst to make the journey back to the ordinary world with their prize.

The hard work has been done, the ultimate fear confronted, new knowledge found. Now, what’s the next step? For many, the initial stages of growth come with a period of renunciation or are symbolized by an outward journey away from home, or away from familiarity. 

Then comes the stage of returning to familiarity, or the things left behind — be it family, friends, locations, or even behaviors that were once loved and sacrificed during the journey.

11. Resurrection

When it appears the hero is out of the woods, there comes a final confrontation — an encounter with death itself. Transformed inwardly and with a personal victory complete, the hero faces a battle that transcends their individual quest, with its consequences far-reaching, for entire communities or even humanity itself. 

This purification solidifies the hero’s rebirth, as their new identity fully emerges just in time to return to the ordinary world.

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-actualization is secondary to self-transcendence. In other words, once inner battles have been faced, and the alchemy of psychological transformation is underway, the next stage is to apply the newfound insights and knowledge to a bigger cause — supporting others, or standing up a mission that will benefit the wider world.

12. Return with the elixir

Following the final battle, the hero finally returns home. By now, personal transformation is complete, they’re returning home a different person. Having faced indescribable hardship, the hero returns with added wisdom and maturity. The elixir is the treasure they’ve returned with, ready to share with the ordinary world. This could be a sense of hope, freedom, or even a new perspective to assist those originally left behind.

The hero has a new level of self-awareness, seeing the ordinary world through fresh eyes. They’ve left internal conflict behind. There’s an understanding that things will never be the same, but that the hero’s journey was part of their destiny. 

Then comes the ultimate prize: a final reconciliation, acceptance from the community, celebration, redemption. Whatever the prize, there are three elements: change , success , and proof of the journey .

Following a transformative psychic process, there’s an understanding of what is within your control. The “ordinary world” may have many elements that remain the same, but this is accompanied by a realization that when you change, so does your reality. Previously modes of thinking may be replaced, as bridges are built with your past, giving opportunity for a renewed approach to life.

What can we learn from the hero's journey?

At the time of writing this article, I’m in the UK visiting my family for the first time in 18 months. As I walked down paths I’d walked throughout my childhood, I was struck by how much I’ve changed over the years. A passage from T.S Eliot’s poem Little Gidding came to mind:

“We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring. Will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time.”

I reflected on the notion of coming full circle — to begin a journey, outwardly or inwardly, before finding yourself back at the beginning, transformed. In spiritual traditions, the circle is a powerful symbol of timelessness, death and rebirth, totality, and wholeness. Aptly, the 12 steps of the hero’s journey are depicted as a circle. It’s not a coincidence.

What can we learn from the hero’s journey? In a way, it is similar to the writer’s journey. Above all else, it’s a reminder that we each within us have a purpose, a quest and a mission in this life that can and will invoke our truest potential. The path isn’t easy — there are many, many challenges along the way. But at the right time, people and situations will come to our aid.

If you’re able to confront the mission head-on and take bold steps along the way — just like all the heroes of fiction before you, from Shakespeare’s characters to Luke Skywalker and Rey from the universe brought to us by George Lucas —  then you will be transformed, and then you can return to where you started, reborn, ready to share your gifts and your lessons with the world.

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Plus-size Passenger Refuses to Give Up Extra Seat To Toddler

Flying may be the quickest way to travel but it isn't always the most comfortable. The seats are small, legroom is almost non-existent, and there's always that one annoying passenger in front of you who seems to find extreme enjoyment in testing the limits of just how far back that reclining seat can go.

Airlines are notorious for cramming in as many people as possible in the smallest spaces possible, which can be especially difficult for plus-sized passengers.

One woman decided to combat this by purchasing an extra seat.

But instead of sitting back and enjoying her flight, she found herself at the center of attention after refusing to give up the extra seat she had rightfully paid for to accommodate a toddler on the crowded flight.

Obese Woman Refuses to Give Up Extra Seat

Taking to the Reddit forum, Am I The A**hole , a 34-year-old woman explains that she is "actively working toward losing weight" but is still obese.

After having a bad experience on a previous flight, she opted to book an additional seat.

"...because I’m fat, I booked an extra seat so everyone can be more comfortable. I know it sucks having to pay for an extra seat but it is what it is."

At first, everything goes smoothly. She checks in, makes it through security, and boards the plane.

But just as she is settling into her seat, her trip takes a nosedive.

"This woman comes to my row with a boy who appeared to be about a year old," she writes. "She told me to squeeze in to one seat so her son could sit in the other."

Not only does the mother disparagingly tell her to "squeeze in" but she doesn't even bother to ASK her to move, she TELLS her to.

Understandably, the woman refuses to budge. "I told her no and that I paid for this seat for the extra space," she writes.

Despite the fact that the woman has every right to deny the order, and she has the ticket to prove it, the mother digs in. Her "huge fuss" attracts the attention of a nearby flight attendant.

"She told the flight attendant I was stealing the seat from her son, then I showed my boarding passes, proving that I, in fact paid for the extra seat."

And here's where things really take off. The flight attendant sides with the mother and asks the plus-sized passenger if she "could try to squeeze in."

She again refuses. "The boy, who the mom said is 18 months old was supposed to sit in her lap so he could do just that," she explains.

Eventually, the flight attendant tells the mom to put her son on her lap.

But the flight is already ruined. The Redditor shares that the unhappy mom wouldn't let it go, giving her dirty looks and passive-aggressive remarks for the entire flight.

She ends her post begging the question, "I do feel a little bad because the boy looked hard to control so AITA?"

The Internet Weighs In

The plus-sized woman's refusal to give in to the mom's demand has sparked a whole lot of feelings. The post has gone viral on Reddit with over 18,000 upvotes and nearly 5,000 commenters "weighing in."

The comments are overwhelmingly in support of the OP (original poster). In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a comment that supported the "entitled mother."

"She’s TA for not buying a seat for her son and assuming someone else would give up a seat they paid for. Odds are she was hoping there’d be extra seats on the flight so she didn’t have to pay and used the lap thing as a loophole."

"NTA. Look, at the base level, you paid for the seat regardless of the reason. You're entitled to use it, not the mom with a wriggly toddler. Not your kid, not your problem."

Commenters praised the OP for selflessly dishing out for an extra seat to accommodate her size in an attempt to make others flight comfortable too.

"NTA, and I hope it doesn't sound condescending to say, but good for you buying the extra seat. You being the sort of conscientious person who will spend the extra money to avoid encroaching on others is probably why you are having (needless) self-doubt about the encounter. The mom was entitled and fully in the wrong, and if the flight attendant gave you attitude then they are in the wrong, too."

And this brings up a valid point about the flight attendant's response. Should she have tried to force the issue?

"What's even the point of the extra seat if the flight attendants are going to let entitled people bully others into giving up the extra seat?"

"The cabin crew should have stopped this straight away once they saw you had booked both seats, it should have been obvious why. They should not have asked you to squeeze in to 1 seat."

Standing Up For Your Rights

While it is possible to have empathy and compassion for the mother (flying with little ones is challenging at best) she did, essentially, try to commandeer a stranger's seat.

A seat she had no right to and didn't pay for. Now there's no telling if she tried to purchase a seat for her toddler and there were no more tickets available or if she was banking on a stranger to accommodate her child.

Either way, the plus-size woman specifically paid for an extra seat so she wouldn't have to deal with the uncomfortable and frankly dehumanizing experience of trying to "squeeze in" to a seat made for bodies that conform to ridiculously narrow societal standards.

While it can be difficult to stand up for your rights in the face of opposition, it is important to advocate for yourself.

What do you think? Did she do the right thing?

*Featured image contains photos by George Zografidis and Gustavo Fring

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Childhood Sweethearts Shave Each Other's Heads At Wedding

Weddings are full of surprises, but Jony Macapagal, 20, and her husband, Alistair Lee, 20, pulled off one that no one saw coming.

It wasn’t a quirky dance or a dazzling fireworks display. Instead, they shocked their guests by shaving their heads at their own wedding. And the reason behind it is heartwarming.

After Saying "I Do," The Couple Shocked Everyone

When Jony and Alistair tied the knot at the Allely Estate in Kumeu, New Zealand, their guests were ready for a traditional Filipino dance, as is common at weddings. But this couple had something far more meaningful planned.

After their first dance, the DJ announced that they’d be shaving their heads — in solidarity with Jony's mom, Luna, who had been bravely fighting stage 4 ovarian cancer for three years. What might have been an ordinary wedding transformed into a deeply moving moment of unity, love, and support.

As Alistair sat down for Jony to shave his head, the room was a mix of laughter and tears. The surprise didn't end there — Alistair then took the clippers and shaved his bride’s head too. It was a powerful statement about their support for Luna and anyone battling cancer.

From Childhood Friends to Lifelong Partners: They Met When They Were Just 5 Years Old

Jony and Alistair's journey together began way before their wedding day. They met as children and went to the same school, sharing years of memories. After dating for three years, Alistair proposed to Jony in the beautiful Auckland Botanical Gardens. Of course, he made sure to ask Luna's permission first, showing the deep respect and love he had for Jony’s family.

Their unique proposal set the tone for a wedding filled with love and compassion. The couple's decision to shave their heads wasn’t just a touching tribute — it was a continuation of the bond and solidarity that had grown over their lifetime together.

Watch Jony Macapagal and Alistair Lee's Video:

The Bride Never Wanted To Go Viral

When Jony and Alistair shaved their heads at their wedding, it was meant as a private gesture to comfort Luna, who felt insecure about losing her hair during chemotherapy. Tragically, Luna passed away two months after the wedding, leaving the couple and their family devastated. However, what they didn’t expect was the attention their heartfelt act would receive.

Their goal wasn't to go viral but to show Luna she wasn't alone. Despite their intentions, the story spread like wildfire, catching the world's attention. Some detractors claimed it was just for show, but Jony and Alistair explained that they hadn’t shared any footage — their wedding photographer had posted it, leading to its viral spread.

Their Family Never Expected So Much Love and Support

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jony Lee (@jonymlee)

Jony and Alistair's story resonated with people worldwide, triggering an outpouring of love and support. Jony shared on Instagram how grateful her family was for the positive response. What began as a personal tribute to her mother grew into a global expression of empathy and compassion. The couple never anticipated the momentum their story would gain, but they were grateful for the connections it created.

"My family and I have been overwhelmed with the response we've gotten from our wedding tribute to mummy. I know for a fact my mummy would have loved to give you all a big hug. She would love to let you know you are not alone and to stay strong." Jony Macapagal

Jony explained that although their donations page has since closed, the funds raised were donated to Cancer Society New Zealand. For those interested in donating, she encourages supporting any organization that has positively impacted your family.

If this story touched your heart, you can donate here .

Copyright © 2024 Goalcast

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• Story Writing Guides

12 Hero’s Journey Stages Explained (+ Free Templates)

From zero to hero, the hero’s journey is a popular character development arc used in many stories. In today’s post, we will explain the 12 hero’s journey stages, along with the simple example of Cinderella.

The Hero’s Journey was originally formulated by American writer Joseph Campbell to describe the typical character arc of many classic stories, particularly in the context of mythology and folklore. The original hero’s journey contained 17 steps. Although the hero’s journey has been adapted since then for use in modern fiction, the concept is not limited to literature. It can be applied to any story, video game, film or even music that features an archetypal hero who undergoes a transformation. Common examples of the hero’s journey in popular works include Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

• What is the hero's journey?

Stage 1: The Ordinary World

Stage 2: call of adventure, stage 3: refusal of the call, stage 4: meeting the mentor, stage 5: crossing the threshold, stage 6: tests, allies, enemies, stage 7: the approach, stage 8: the ordeal, stage 9: reward, stage 10: the road back, stage 11: resurrection, stage 12: return with the elixir, cinderella example, campbell’s 17-step journey, leeming’s 8-step journey, cousineau’s 8-step journey.

• Free Hero's Journey Templates

What is the hero’s journey?

The hero’s journey, also known as the monomyth, is a character arc used in many stories. The idea behind it is that heroes undergo a journey that leads them to find their true selves. This is often represented in a series of stages. There are typically 12 stages to the hero’s journey. Each stage represents a change in the hero’s mindset or attitude, which is triggered by an external or internal event. These events cause the hero to overcome a challenge, reach a threshold, and then return to a normal life.

The hero’s journey is a powerful tool for understanding your characters. It can help you decide who they are, what they want, where they came from, and how they will change over time. It can be used to

• Understand the challenges your characters will face
• Understand how your characters react to those challenges
• Help develop your characters’ traits and relationships

In this post, we will explain each stage of the hero’s journey, using the example of Cinderella.

You might also be interested in our post on the story mountain or this guide on how to outline a book .

12 Hero’s Journey Stages

The archetypal hero’s journey contains 12 stages and was created by Christopher Vogler. These steps take your main character through an epic struggle that leads to their ultimate triumph or demise. While these steps may seem formulaic at first glance, they actually form a very flexible structure. The hero’s journey is about transformation, not perfection.

Your hero starts out in the ordinary world. He or she is just like every other person in their environment, doing things that are normal for them and experiencing the same struggles and challenges as everyone else. In the ordinary world, the hero feels stuck and confused, so he or she goes on a quest to find a way out of this predicament.

Example: Cinderella’s father passes away and she is now stuck doing chores and taking abuse from her stepsisters and stepmother.

The hero gets his or her first taste of adventure when the call comes. This could be in the form of an encounter with a stranger or someone they know who encourages them to take a leap of faith. This encounter is typically an accident, a series of coincidences that put the hero in the right place at the right time.

Example: An invite arrives inviting the family to a royal ball where the Prince will choose a wife.

Some people will refuse to leave their safe surroundings and live by their own rules. The hero has to overcome the negative influences in order to hear the call again. They also have to deal with any personal doubts that arise from thinking too much about the potential dangers involved in the quest. It is common for the hero to deny their own abilities in this stage and to lack confidence in themselves.

Example: Cinderella accepts the call by making her own dress for the ball. However, her stepmother refuses the call for her by not letting her go to the ball. And her step-sisters ruin her dress, so she can not go.

After hearing the call, the hero begins a relationship with a mentor who helps them learn about themselves and the world. In some cases, the mentor may be someone the hero already knows. The mentor is usually someone who is well-versed in the knowledge that the hero needs to acquire, but who does not judge the hero for their lack of experience.

Example: Cinderella meets her fairy godmother who equips her with everything she needs for the ball, including a dress and a carriage.

The hero leaves their old life behind and enters the unfamiliar new world. The crossing of the threshold symbolises leaving their old self behind and becoming a new person. Sometimes this can include learning a new skill or changing their physical appearance. It can also include a time of wandering, which is an essential part of the hero’s journey.

Example: Cinderella hops into the carriage and heads off to the ball. She has transformed from a servant into an elegant young lady. 

As the hero goes on this journey, they will meet both allies (people who help the hero) and enemies (people who try to stop the hero). There will also be tests, where the hero is tempted to quit, turn back, or become discouraged. The hero must be persistent and resilient to overcome challenges.

Example: At the ball, Cinderella meets the prince, and even see’s her stepmother and stepsister. She dances with Prince all night long making her step-sisters extremely jealous.

The hero now reaches the destination of their journey, in some cases, this is a literal location, such as a cave or castle. It could also be metaphorical, such as the hero having an internal conflict or having to make a difficult decision. In either case, the hero has to confront their deepest fears in this stage with bravery. In some ways, this stage can mark the end of the hero’s journey because the hero must now face their darkest fears and bring them under control. If they do not do this, the hero could be defeated in the final battle and will fail the story.

Example: Cinderella is having a great time at the ball and nearly forgets about the midnight rule. As she runs away in a hurry, her glass slipper falls off outside the palace.

The hero has made it to the final challenge of their journey and now must face all odds and defeat their greatest adversary. Consider this the climax of the story. This could be in the form of a physical battle, a moral dilemma or even an emotional challenge. The hero will look to their allies or mentor for further support and guidance in this ordeal. Whatever happens in this stage could change the rest of the story, either for good or bad. 

Example: Prince Charming looks all over the kingdom for the mysterious girl he met at the ball. He finally visits Cinderella’s house and tries the slippers on the step-sisters. The prince is about to leave and then he sees Cinderella in the corner cleaning.

When the hero has defeated the most powerful and dangerous of adversaries, they will receive their reward. This reward could be an object, a new relationship or even a new piece of knowledge. The reward, which typically comes as a result of the hero’s perseverance and hard work, signifies the end of their journey. Given that the hero has accomplished their goal and served their purpose, it is a time of great success and accomplishment.

Example: The prince tries the glass slipper on Cinderella. The glass slipper fits Cinderella perfectly, and they fall in love.

The journey is now complete, and the hero is now heading back home. As the hero considers their journey and reflects on the lessons they learned along the way, the road back is sometimes marked by a sense of nostalgia or even regret. As they must find their way back to the normal world and reintegrate into their former life, the hero may encounter additional difficulties or tests along the way. It is common for the hero to run into previous adversaries or challenges they believed they had overcome.

Example: Cinderella and Prince Charming head back to the Prince’s castle to get married.

The hero has one final battle to face. At this stage, the hero might have to fight to the death against a much more powerful foe. The hero might even be confronted with their own mortality or their greatest fear. This is usually when the hero’s true personality emerges. This stage is normally symbolised by the hero rising from the dark place and fighting back. This dark place could again be a physical location, such as the underground or a dark cave. It might even be a dark, mental state, such as depression. As the hero rises again, they might change physically or even experience an emotional transformation. 

Example: Cinderella is reborn as a princess. She once again feels the love and happiness that she felt when she was a little girl living with her father.

At the end of the story, the hero returns to the ordinary world and shares the knowledge gained in their journey with their fellow man. This can be done by imparting some form of wisdom, an object of great value or by bringing about a social revolution. In all cases, the hero returns changed and often wiser.

Example: Cinderella and Prince Charming live happily ever after. She uses her new role to punish her stepmother and stepsisters and to revitalise the kingdom.

We have used the example of Cinderella in Vogler’s hero’s journey model below:

Below we have briefly explained the other variations of the hero’s journey arc.

The very first hero’s journey arc was created by Joseph Campbell in 1949. It contained the following 17 steps:

• The Call to Adventure: The hero receives a call or a reason to go on a journey.
• Refusal of the Call: The hero does not accept the quest. They worry about their own abilities or fear the journey itself.
• Supernatural Aid: Someone (the mentor) comes to help the hero and they have supernatural powers, which are usually magical.
• The Crossing of the First Threshold: A symbolic boundary is crossed by the hero, often after a test. 
• Belly of the Whale: The point where the hero has the most difficulty making it through.
• The Road of Trials: In this step, the hero will be tempted and tested by the outside world, with a number of negative experiences.
• The Meeting with the Goddess: The hero meets someone who can give them the knowledge, power or even items for the journey ahead.
• Woman as the Temptress: The hero is tempted to go back home or return to their old ways.
• Atonement with the Father: The hero has to make amends for any wrongdoings they may have done in the past. They need to confront whatever holds them back.
• Apotheosis: The hero gains some powerful knowledge or grows to a higher level. 
• The Ultimate Boon: The ultimate boon is the reward for completing all the trials of the quest. The hero achieves their ultimate goal and feels powerful.
• Refusal of the Return: After collecting their reward, the hero refuses to return to normal life. They want to continue living like gods. 
• The Magic Flight: The hero escapes with the reward in hand.
• Rescue from Without: The hero has been hurt and needs help from their allies or guides.
• The Crossing of the Return Threshold: The hero must come back and learn to integrate with the ordinary world once again.
• Master of the Two Worlds: The hero shares their wisdom or gifts with the ordinary world. Learning to live in both worlds.
• Freedom to Live: The hero accepts the new version of themselves and lives happily without fear.

David Adams Leeming later adapted the hero’s journey based on his research of legendary heroes found in mythology. He noted the following steps as a pattern that all heroes in stories follow:

• Miraculous conception and birth: This is the first trauma that the hero has to deal with. The Hero is often an orphan or abandoned child and therefore faces many hardships early on in life. 
• Initiation of the hero-child: The child faces their first major challenge. At this point, the challenge is normally won with assistance from someone else.
• Withdrawal from family or community: The hero runs away and is tempted by negative forces.
• Trial and quest: A quest finds the hero giving them an opportunity to prove themselves.
• Death: The hero fails and is left near death or actually does die.
• Descent into the underworld: The hero rises again from death or their near-death experience.
• Resurrection and rebirth: The hero learns from the errors of their way and is reborn into a better, wiser being.
• Ascension, apotheosis, and atonement: The hero gains some powerful knowledge or grows to a higher level (sometimes a god-like level). 

In 1990, Phil Cousineau further adapted the hero’s journey by simplifying the steps from Campbell’s model and rearranging them slightly to suit his own findings of heroes in literature. Again Cousineau’s hero’s journey included 8 steps:

• The call to adventure: The hero must have a reason to go on an adventure.
• The road of trials: The hero undergoes a number of tests that help them to transform.
• The vision quest: Through the quest, the hero learns the errors of their ways and has a realisation of something.
• The meeting with the goddess: To help the hero someone helps them by giving them some knowledge, power or even items for the journey ahead.
• The boon: This is the reward for completing the journey.
• The magic flight: The hero must escape, as the reward is attached to something terrible.
• The return threshold: The hero must learn to live back in the ordinary world.
• The master of two worlds: The hero shares their knowledge with the ordinary world and learns to live in both worlds.

As you can see, every version of the hero’s journey is about the main character showing great levels of transformation. Their journey may start and end at the same location, but they have personally evolved as a character in your story. Once a weakling, they now possess the knowledge and skill set to protect their world if needed.

Free Hero’s Journey Templates

Use the free Hero’s journey templates below to practice the skills you learned in this guide! You can either draw or write notes in each of the scene boxes. Once the template is complete, you will have a better idea of how your main character or the hero of your story develops over time:

The storyboard template below is a great way to develop your main character and organise your story:

Did you find this guide on the hero’s journey stages useful? Let us know in the comments below.

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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The 9 Stages of the Hero’s Journey and How to Use Them

by Lewis / July 14, 2018 / Story Structure

What is the true purpose of storytelling?

You might say it’s to uplift us, or to comfort us in times of trouble. Others will argue storytelling serves to teach us morality, the meaning of good versus evil, or the value of inner strength. Yet, Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey goes deeper than all of those things.

The Hero’s Journey is about exploring human nature and charting our common path from childhood to adulthood, regardless of who we are or what we struggle with. Not only that, but it embodies universal themes of growth and change, making it the perfect foundation to build your own unique story from!

What Is the Hero’s Journey?

• 1 What Is the Hero’s Journey?
• 2 Using the Hero’s Journey in Your Own Novel
• 3.1 The Ordinary World:
• 3.2 The Call to Adventure and Refusing the Call:
• 3.3 Overcoming Resistance and Meeting the Mentor:
• 3.4 Crossing the First Threshold:
• 3.5 Tests and Trials:
• 3.6 The Major Ordeal:
• 3.7 The Road Back:
• 3.8 Mastering the Journey:
• 3.9 Returning with the Elixir:
• 4 Understanding the Monomyth

Popularized by Joseph Campbell, the Hero’s Journey was part of his idea of the “Monomyth,” a term describing the universal progression of all human storytelling. He developed this while studying mythology from cultures across the world and throughout history, writing about them in The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

As a follow up, Christopher Vogler wrote The Writer’s Journey , further distilling the ideas of Campbell into a usable storytelling guide.

The result is one of the best storytelling tools around.

At its core, the Hero’s Journey is a form of story structure just like the Three Act Structure. However, in comparison the Hero’s Journey is much more broad, and is something you can see at play in almost every story—regardless of how anti-traditional it may be.

This is because the Monomyth builds on ever-present patterns of growth and change, something humans have been obsessed with forever.

• What is my purpose in life?
• What does it mean to grow up?
• Is there something greater out there?
• What will happen when I die?

These questions have always echoed in the human mind, and been reflected in our storytelling as a result. Thus, the Hero’s Journey is so powerful and omnipresent because it resonates with a core part of our human experience.

“A blunder—apparently the merest chance—reveals an unsuspected world, and the individual is drawn into a relationship with forces that are not rightly understood… They are the result of suppressed desires and conflicts. They are ripples on the surface of life, produced by unsuspected springs. And these may be very deep—as deep as the soul itself.” – Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Using the Hero’s Journey in Your Own Novel

Of course, this is all well and good, but how can you use this Monomyth in your own writing?

Well, one of the best qualities of this structure is that it ties together both your characters and plot. Rather than just being a story structure, the Hero’s Journey can also act as something of a character arc. That’s the most helpful thing about these principles—they apply not only to your plot, but your protagonist’s arc as well, helping you build a more cohesive story.

When combined, you have a powerful recipe for engaging your readers!

Overall, the Hero’s Journey is split into two halves: The Ordinary World, and the Unknown World. The Ordinary World is exactly what it sounds like—your protagonist’s everyday life, complete with all of their flaws and insecurities.

However, a problem is brewing beneath the surface, and this is what will force them to leave home and enter the Unknown World. This Unknown World is where they’ll be tested and forced to grow as a person. Along the way they’ll gain new allies and skills, until they finally return to their Ordinary World to heal it’s suffering and take their place among the heroes.

Throughout this structure, your protagonist’s inner development will mirror the conflict of the story, giving your novel a cohesive and resonant feel. With that said, let’s look at the nine stages of the Hero’s Journey and how to incorporate them in your own storytelling!

The 9 Stages of Campbell’s Monomyth

The ordinary world:.

The start of the Hero’s Journey finds us in the Ordinary World, where readers are introduced to your setting, meet the starting cast, and get to know your protagonist. Essentially, the Ordinary World provides a baseline that will make the Unknown World your protagonist later encounters stand out.

Because of this, you don’t want to neglect this important setup.

Without seeing where your hero is starting from, a world full of magical purple unicorn dragons could be entirely normal to them. Instead, you need to you start your story by showing their normal everyday life in suburban Wisconsin. It’s the contrast between these two worlds that makes them feel impactful.

Alongside this, the Ordinary World also sets up the inner struggle your protagonist will need to overcome during their character arc. It shows how they’ve been living before their journey begins and foreshadows the cracks under the surface. Without this critical knowledge of the Ordinary World, the reader has no metric by which to measure your character’s growth or the growth of their world.

The Call to Adventure and Refusing the Call:

If you’re already a fan of the Three Act Structure, then the Call to Adventure will likely feel at least somewhat familiar.

This is because the Call to the Adventure mimics the Inciting Event and Key Event from the Three Act Structure. Here, your protagonist will learn of the coming conflict and get their first taste of the journey to come—though sometimes they are whisked away with little choice. Most often they’ll also refuse this call, helping your reader better understand the stakes of your story.

If your protagonist has reason to be afraid, then your audience does as well.

This stage allows you to build suspense, foreshadow the power of your antagonist and the dangers ahead, and show off your protagonist’s flaws in action. Are they too timid, headstrong, selfish, or careless? Incorporate this into their Refusal of the Call and show how it will hinder them on the journey ahead.

Overcoming Resistance and Meeting the Mentor:

Now that a Call has been issued, your protagonist will be feeling afraid, hesitant, or even outright resistant to beginning their journey.

Overcoming this resistance requires a period of counsel, where they’ll get advice and encouragement from mentors and allies. Here you’ll prepare your protagonist and audience for what’s coming, while also fitting in some last minute worldbuilding and plot development before your story picks up steam.

Your protagonist will begin collecting the tools and wisdom needed for the road ahead, though they won’t be completely prepared for a while yet. Their inner struggles will continue pushing against them here, and they may neglect important information they’ll regret later on. Still, they’ll also show promise, usually in the form of some redeeming quality that lets your readers know there is hope for them to grow.

Crossing the First Threshold:

This is the true beginning of your story.

Here your protagonist will Cross the First Threshold into the new, Unknown World, officially committing themselves to the journey ahead. There is no turning back from this point, and no returning to the Ordinary World until they’ve completed their quest and grown past their flaws.

Your protagonist will have to prove themselves to make it this far of course, even though they haven’t overcome their inner struggle just yet.

Just as they showed a redeeming quality while Overcoming Resistance and Meeting the Mentor, they’ll need to prove this redeeming quality again to cross into the Unknown World. As an example, Bilbo Baggins temporarily overcomes his fearfulness and leaves the Shire, while Mulan overcomes her self-doubt and joins the Chinese army. However, some characters will be forced into this Unknown World, like when Simba is driven from the Pride Lands by Scar.

Tests and Trials:

Your story has officially entered the Unknown World, and this is when a period of Tests and Trials begin for your protagonist.

Here they’ll gain new allies, new enemies, and new skills. They’ll be beaten down repeatedly, only to get back up again that much stronger and wiser. Essentially, this period is all about preparing them for the bigger battles that lie ahead.

This means that the Tests and Trials period is important for a variety of reasons.

It provides a stark contrast from the more stable Ordinary World and thrusts your protagonist into their new life. However, it also gives them the opportunity—through their new experiences—to prove their strengths, befriend others in your cast, and begin to threaten your antagonist. Overall, these tests will form nearly a quarter of your story’s overall runtime as you approach the Major Ordeal.

The Major Ordeal:

Perhaps confusingly named, the Major Ordeal is not the Climax.

Instead it corresponds with the Midpoint of the Three Act Structure, and shifts your protagonist from a period of reaction to action. After this point, they’ll finally be able to actively drive your plot forward, rather than just being pushed along against their will. They’ll also be rewarded for their success, either through a new tool, new allies, or new knowledge.

The Major Ordeal itself will feature a moment of growth that cements your protagonist’s progress. They’ll have to face their biggest conflict yet, giving them a chance to show how far they’ve come from their Ordinary World. However, don’t let them get ahead of themselves.

They haven’t overcome their inner struggle yet, though they may think they have.

To pick on Mulan again, her Major Ordeal occurs when she retrieves the arrow from the top of the pole in the middle of camp, proving her cleverness and intelligence. She has gained the acceptance of her comrades, but she is still living in disguise. This will come back to punish her later, just as your protagonist’s flaw will come back to punish them.

The Road Back:

With the Major Ordeal behind them, the Road Back prepares your protagonist to face the finale of your story.

They’re now driving the plot, seeking out your antagonist or otherwise planning their defeat, and likely beginning the trek to wherever their final showdown will take place. Here your pacing will speed up as well. You’re preparing for a climactic showdown, and both your cast and your readers are ready to see this journey come to its conclusion.

This creates the perfect opportunity to remind your protagonist of the stakes.

In the afterglow of the Major Ordeal, you need to show them why their journey isn’t over yet. Reveal the cracks still left by their flaw, and remind them that no matter how much they try to cover them up, they must deal with them soon. The conflict is far from over, and there’s still danger ahead.

Mastering the Journey:

With your story coming to its close, its time for your protagonist to prove they’ve mastered their journey—and as you can probably guess, this overlaps with the Climax and the Climactic moment from the Three Act Structure. Here they’ll do battle against your antagonist and face their final test, hopefully overcoming their inner struggle in the process.

As a result, everything in your story needs to come together here.

All of your themes, subplots, characters, symbols, motifs—it’s called the Climax for a reason! Of course, this is also the culmination of your protagonist’s arc. Here they’ll face the most difficult test of their flaws, and will have to use all of the knowledge, skills, and alliances they’ve gained to survive.

Ultimately, without the journey they just went on, they would never be able to succeed.

Returning with the Elixir:

With your story’s conflict resolved, it’s now time for your protagonist to recover. To Return with the Elixir references the end of many myths where the hero brings the rewards of their journey back to their home village, healing the lives of everyone around them—not just their own. In terms of the traditional Three Act Structure, this mirrors your Resolution.

Essentially, your goal in these final scenes is to complete the circle of your story.

At the end of many adventures the protagonist returns home to their Ordinary World, experiencing echoes from the start of their journey. Yet everything feels different, and they quickly realize how their quest has changed them. Others don’t make a physical return, but instead see similar situations to those they struggled with or felt uncomfortable in at the start, this time unfazed by what seemed so intimidating before.

Either way, these final moments will be bittersweet, joyful, and maybe even a bit sad.

Most importantly, they’ll provide an important sense of catharsis for your readers, a release of the emotional tension your story created. So—to use this ending to its full effect—make sure you give your readers a moment to relax with your cast before they close the back cover.

Understanding the Monomyth

At the end of the day, the Hero’s Journey embodies patterns seen in almost all human storytelling, and it’s also a great tool for writers wanting to more deeply understand their own stories. While it’s not without it’s flaws, it can still serve as a great starting point for telling your own epic adventures!

Of course, the Hero’s Journey isn’t the only form of story structure out there. If you’re interested in exploring everything else story structure has to offer, I hope you’ll take a moment to check out The Complete Story Structure Series , a collection of articles on The Novel Smithy dedicated to everything structure.

How does the Hero’s Journey impact your stories? Let me know in the comments!

Thoughts on the 9 stages of the hero’s journey and how to use them.

Hi, I have four books out and a new one almost ready. This may be the best explanation of the Journey I’ve read. And, I’ve read a lot, including Hero with a Thousand Faces and the Writer’s Journey. I especially like your take on Crossing the Threshold and the Major Ordeal. Those two entries helped clear a lot of fog on the subject for me.

Thanks. Charles Hampton

Glad to hear it Charles! 🙂

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Crossing the Threshold: The Hero’s Journey, Stage 4 (Explained)

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading.

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What is stage 4 of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey? What is “crossing the threshold”?

Crossing the threshold is the stage at which the hero comes to a point where he is further away from the world of comfort and familiarity than he has ever been before. Crossing the threshold is stage 4 of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, from The Hero with a Thousand Faces .

We’ll cover what crossing the threshold entails and look at an example of this stage of the hero’s journey.

Crossing the Threshold

With aid and guidance in hand, the hero sets off on their adventure until they come to a point where they are further away from the world of comfort and familiarity than they have ever been before. Ahead of them lies the danger of the unknown. This is the moment of crossing the threshold in the hero’s journey. On an individual level, this aspect of the heroic monomyth parallels the dangers and uncertainties of growing out of childhood and away from the protection of one’s parents . 

It is at this point that the hero meets the guardian of the threshold , who stands between the worlds of the known and the unknown. This guardian is often a fearsome and monstrous figure who represents our fears of leaving our comfort zone and stepping out into the world beyond. The hero must overcome this obstacle, just as we all must overcome our fears of the unknown if we are to thrive and grow as human beings in the great adventure of life . Only those with competence and courage can overcome the danger at the stage of crossing the threshold of the hero’s journey.

The Greek god Pan is perhaps the best-known of this type of border guard. He instilled a wild, irrational fear into those who dared to cross into his realm (this is where the word “panic” comes from). To some, Pan would frighten his victims to death. But to those who paid him proper respect and homage, Pan would bestow bounty and wisdom. 

Crossing the Threshold Example: Sticky-Hair

A myth from India illustrates the element of crossing the threshold. Returning from his military training to the city of his father, Prince Five-Weapons comes to the edge of a great forest, which he is warned not to enter. He is told by local villagers that an ogre named Sticky-Hair, who kills every man he sees, resides within.

The prince ignores these warnings and enters the forest where, sure enough, he encounters the ogre. He vows to slay the beast using his newly learned military skills and his five weapons. But the prince finds that each of the weapons merely sticks to the ogre’s hair (hence the name) when he hurls them. The prince then assaults the ogre with his bare hands and feet, only to find these, too, getting stuck in the ogre’s hair. The ogre is impressed by the prince’s bravery and asks him why he seems to lack any fear of death.

Prince Five-Weapons heartily replies that he has a thunderbolt within his belly as his final weapon—if the ogre eats him, both will perish. This thunderbolt is, in fact, the Weapon of Knowledge and the prince is none other than the Future Buddha in an earlier incarnation. The ogre is persuaded and decides to let him go. The monster has become self-denying—the first step on the path to enlightenment and a key moment of the crossing-the-threshold stage.

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Like what you just read read the rest of the world's best summary of "the hero with a thousand faces" at shortform . learn the book's critical concepts in 20 minutes or less ..

Here's what you'll find in our full The Hero with a Thousand Faces summary :

• How the Hero's Journey reappears hundreds of times in different cultures and ages
• How we attach our psychology to heroes, and how they help embolden us in our lives
• Why stories and mythology are so important, even in today's world
• ← Supernatural Aid: The Hero’s Journey, Stage 3 (Explained)
• Black Swan Fallacy: Why You See What You Want to See →

Amanda Penn

Amanda Penn is a writer and reading specialist. She’s published dozens of articles and book reviews spanning a wide range of topics, including health, relationships, psychology, science, and much more. Amanda was a Fulbright Scholar and has taught in schools in the US and South Africa. Amanda received her Master's Degree in Education from the University of Pennsylvania.

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