Beautiful Sadness

At the end of Siddhartha, Siddhartha is an old, possibly dying man. Govinda goes down to the ferry because the ferryman was rumored to be a sage. He later finds out that it is Siddhartha that is the ferryman. they talk together and Siddhartha explains that he is enlightened. The way I interpreted it was that he said The world is imperfect and but it isn't constantly striving to achieve perfection. It is perfect in its imperfections. The fact that the world is a balanced place with flaws makes you know realize the better parts of it. Butters, from South Park gives us some insight on this after a breakup- "Well yeah, and I'm sad, but at the same time I'm really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It's like, it makes me feel alive, you know? It makes me feel human. And the only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt somethin' really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good, so I guess what I'm feelin' is like a, beautiful sadness."(Parker/Stone S7E14). This Beautiful sadness is necessary in life, Siddhartha feels the beautiful sadness after Young Siddhartha runs away. It makes him sad, but he later comes to realize that his son leading his own life and making his own mistakes is good. The bird must leave the nest in order to fly.

Siddhartha becomes enlightened, he realizes the ultimate question he set out to find. He achieves the ultimate enlightenment. The answer cannot be accurately put into words. Even siddhartha says that he distrusts words, he distrusts teachers. He knows that he can learn from the whole world. Holy or unholy, animate or inanimate, he understands that he can take the same lessons from the average joe as he can take from the buddha. The world is the teacher, and our soul is the student, taking bits from each and every teacher. Which makes the soul an individual of itself and yet, the whole world at the same time.