The start to any journey is by saying: NO. No is where Siddhartha learned to renounce all he had. He renounced family, comfort, and pleasure. With the Hero's journey, we see that same circle that is followed ideally for someone who is seeking enlightenment, a type of revelation.
“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else … Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
After all, wisdom - as Siddhartha percieved it- was shown to be something that an individual must battle for. It cannot be shared.
As the rules and rituals of the Brahmin priests did not provide knowledge through experience, likewise the Samana rules and ascetic observances do not either. Instead, they are merely a kind of escapism. He found the Samanas and their structure to finding enlightenment empty.
Siddhartha wanders through the grove and meets Gotama. They engage in a deep conversation in which Siddhartha extols Gotama's doctrine of understanding the world as a complete, unbroken, eternal chain, linked together by cause and effect. Enlightenment defies structured doctrine and transcends the teaching process. He goes solo officially.
We cannot refuse the fact that Govinda was Siddhartha's comfort. After letting Govinda concede to the Buddha, Siddhartha's true trail - including the ups and downs- begins. He gains innocence and a higher level of self. This image is a perfect perspective from a hero, who eventually come to be alone in the end, but are under the protection of their knowledge and learnings.
“So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.”
Siddhartha meets Kamala and a life that he had once renounced. He learns about the give and takes between a relationship of love. Even though this was a slip for Siddhartha, he learns more about a life that he wants to renounce.
Vasudev (Krishna) is the final enhancement to the Buddha's journey. Alike the Samanas, Gotama, Govinda, Kamala, and the childlike people, Vasudev with the river is a mirror for Siddhartha. He feels not lessons directly being taught but learned. Untitled from the book, Vasudev is the first name for Krishna in Hinduism. Since the beliefs of Hinduism and Buddhism are aligned, the Bhagavad Geeta considers the Buddha to be another form for Vishnu.
