Siddhartha and the illusion of experience

"Slowly the thinker went on his way and asked himself: What is it that you wanted to learn from the teachings and teachers, and although they taught you much, what was it they could not teach you?" thinks Siddhartha the main character from Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha. Throughout the book, the man, the thinker, Siddhartha seeks enlightenment through experience, yet readers find that teachers help him most on his journey through life. Siddhartha denies that …

…when his son tries to teach him of fatherly love, he rebels against it, and in the end, Siddhartha is left off from all society and humanly contact, if that is enlightenment, then every hermit, every person who is spiteful and hates the company of others, even Machiavelli could have been enlightened. And if that is what Buddhism is all about, I'll be evil, I'll love my son, and that is what Siddhartha taught me.