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Siddhartha's process of discernment consisted of many stages that each teach him something new about his life and purpose, reflecting his own belief that wisdom cannot be taught, only experienced.

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Siddhartha's father is a Brahmin; therefore, Siddhartha is born and spends his early life as a Brahmin. (Brahmins are religious teachers and thinkers who comprise the highest caste in the Hindu caste system.) Being born a well-known Brahmin's son puts pressure on Siddhartha to also achieve greatness as a Brahmin. However, Siddhartha is unable to find satisfaction by adhering to religious practices that are supposed to bring him peace.  He feels that by staying with his father and the other Brahmins, he holds himself back from the truth. His first discernment is that in order to discover his own truth, he must first leave the expectations placed on him by his father and community. To attain this freedom, Siddhartha becomes a Samana.

↓ Below is a Prezi (not created by me) about the everyday life of a Brahmin that gives more insight into the strict life that Siddhartha lived for many years. ↓

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After deciding to leave his life as a Brahmin behind, Siddhartha and his best friend Govinda join a group of Samanas, a group of ascetics or wandering nomads who practice extreme self-deprivation in order to achieve enlightenment. Siddhartha believes that this drastically different way of life will help him fill the gaps that Brahmin life could not satisfy. The life of a Samana requires a neglect of the body's needs as a means of focusing more on the soul and spiritual matters., and Siddhartha fully embraces this life: "He killed his senses, he killed his memory, he slipped out of his Self in a thousand different forms" (12). Although he quickly masters the practices of the Samanas, Siddhartha still does feel satisfied. He questions why even the oldest and wisest Samanas still have not achieved enlightenment. After listening to the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhartha reaches a new discernment that "nobody finds salvation through teachings" (27). Not even the most illustrious Buddha can put into words the path to enlightenment. This realization leads Siddhartha to leave Govinda and the Samanas and move into his next stage: life as an ordinary man.

↓ Below is a video contianing pictures of modern Indian ascetics as well as a further description of the ascetic lifestyles. ↓

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For the first time in his life, Siddhartha focuses on his bodily desires over his soul's desires, the concrete over the abstract. Siddhartha "did not seek reality; his goal was not on any other side, The world was beautiful when looked at this way -- without any seeking, so simple, so childlike" (38). He enters a city and is immediately enchanted by a beautiful woman named Kamala. Siddhartha embarks on a quest to learn all about the desire of love from Kamala. On this journey that lasts several years, Siddhartha finds himself drowning in the desires to spend wastefully, live luxuriously, and love passionately: "Slowly ... did the world and inertia creep into Siddhartha's soul; it slowly filled his soul, made it heavy, made it tired, sent it to sleep" (61). Siddhartha grew weary of this material life although he did admit "his senses became more awakened, they learned a great deal, experienced a great deal" (61). During his life as a ordinary man, Siddhartha realizes that focusing entirely on the mind or the body is a tiring and unsatisfying effort to understand existence.

↓ Below is a picture of Siddhartha and Kamala. Kamala introduces a brand new lifestyle to Siddhartha that focuses wholly on materialistic and bodily pleasures. ↓

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Siddhartha leaves the city after finding no satisfaction in religious or materialistic pursuits. Just when he is about to drown himself in a river, Siddhartha hears the holy word "Om" -- a word meaning perfection -- radiating from the river. He immediately sees the error in his plan to die and is filled with a new energy to continue on his journey to enlightenment. A kindly ferryman whom Siddhartha met earlier on in his life allows Siddhartha to live with him and learn from the river. Siddhartha graciously accepts this offer and "listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, of perpetual Becoming" (88). The voice of the river reveals to Siddhartha the unity of all people and the falsehood of time. Siddhartha's next discernment comes from the river; he discerns that to reach enlightenment, one must realize his or her connection to every other thing and learn from every thing around them.

↓ Below is a drawing that depicts Siddhartha and the ferryman, Vasudeva, as they listen to the revelations of the river.↓

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Siddhartha's discernment does not come to him all at once; he goes through many stages in his life that each reveal to him a knew truth about life. Siddhartha's process of discernment occurs in increments to reflect his belief that every person attains enlightenment in his or her own way. He does not believe enlightenment can be taught. At the very end of the novel, Govinda asks Siddhartha for one shred of advice as Govinda continues on his own path to enlightenment. Siddhartha shares with Govinda that he must go through stages just as Siddhartha did; he must follow his own path to enlightenment.