reading on siddhartha

Wondrous indeed was my life, so he thought, wondrous detours it has taken. As I boy, I had only to do with gods and offerings. As a youth, I had only to do with asceticism, with thinking and meditation, was searching for Brahman, worshipped the eternal in the Atman. But as a young man, I followed the penitents, lived in the forest, suffered of heat and frost, learned to hunger, taught my body to become dead. Wonderfully, soon afterwards, insight came towards me in the form of the great Buddha's teachings, I felt the knowledge of the oneness of the world circling in me like my own blood. But I also had to leave Buddha and the great knowledge. I went and learned the art of love with Kamala, learned trading with Kamaswami, piled up money, wasted money, learned to love my stomach, learned to please my senses. I had to spend many years losing my spirit, to unlearn thinking again, to forget the oneness. Isn't it just as if I had turned slowly and on a long detour from a man into a child, from a thinker into a childlike person? And yet, this path has been very good; and yet, the bird in my chest has not died. But what a path has this been! I had to pass through so much stupidity, through so much vices, through so many errors, through so much disgust and disappointments and woe, just to become a child again and to be able to start over. But it was right so, my heart says "Yes" to it, my eyes smile to it. I've had to experience despair, I've had to sink down to the most foolish one of all thoughts, to the thought of suicide, in order to be able to experience divine grace, to hear Om again, to be able to sleep properly and awake properly again. I had to become a fool, to find Atman in me again. I had to sin, to be able to live again. Where else might my path lead me to? It is foolish, this path, it moves in loops, perhaps it is going around in a circle. Let it go as it likes, I want to to take it.

            i choose this passage from the reading because this passage sums up the  siddhartha's experience. for me this passage spells out everything he went through, and the purpose of everything he went through. i choose this passage because i felt it showed his point of realization. in this passage he realizes what he has been looking for all this while has been in him, he just had to find it.

 1. Why does Siddhartha leave his father?
Siddhartha leaves his father because he was in search of the meaning of life. he felt being with his father would reflect weakness so therefore he had to be a man and go search for the meaning of his existence on him own. ironically Siddhartha compares himself to a child after his journey he realizes after going through all his experience he is now like a child because he is starting life over, because he has found the reason for his being he can now restart his life with the new meaning of life he has learned form his experiences.
3. If Siddhartha never lived with Kamala and the people in the city would he have reached Enlightenment faster?
i don't think he would have reached his point of realization quicker if he hadn't in fact encounter all the people he did because everything he went through was part of his experience, he had to go through those experience to realize at the end the purpose of each.
4. What is the significance of the river?
the significance of the river was to set as a reflection to him, he still hadn't realize the purpose of his existence or the purpose of what he had gone through until he saw his reflection, and was able to read what he had gone through be looking at his reflection, the river was the mirror of life for him.