Heroes

Heroes

Even though Siddhartha is constantly changing during this part of the book I still think his life inclination is more to the side of the spiritual life. This helped me decide who was going to be the person I was going to compare him to.

Throughout the book we have seen a lot of important characteristics in the great Siddhartha. This has associated his personality with others by having big similarities and some differences.

I think that the most indicated person to compare to Siddhartha is the Dalai Lama. This two personalities share important factors.

Siddhartha and the Dalai Lama are really similar in many ways. The most important factor is that both of their philosophies are similar. Their primary thing is to live the simplest you can, and to live a life without complications. One example from a normal day situation could be if you have a car and it is constantly bringing problems and affecting you in a negative way, the best thing to do according to them is to get rid of it. They try to find happiness in the little things.

Another aspect they share is that they both where self oriented. In other words Siddhartha started that Quest because he wanted to and the Dalai Lama even though it is kind of his job he makes the decisions of that to do and when to do it. In the book we can see how Siddhartha is always trying to find peace or happiness for him and doesn’t go showing others the way.  In a funny way the Dalai Lama being a spiritual leader does something similar. He never tells people what to do; he just goes around spreading an idea and leaving an impact on humanity. He leaves the decisions for the weak.

(The ultimate way to solve human problem is with non-violence)

(Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water, the actions of individuals can have far-reaching effects.)

(Most of our problems are related to the mind, so we have to work to reduce our destructive emotions.)

There are also some differences between this to characters. The main one I think is that in this stage of the book Siddhartha has been changing a lot. This includes the short relationship Siddhartha had with a woman. The Dalai Lama has never changed in such a dramatic way he has just adapted and until now he has tried to continue traditions.