While Siddhartha ultimately realizes that all suffering is defeated by time, he gets to experience (and cause) plenty of it along the way.
- Just the way Siddhartha repeatedly realizes that his current path is not leading him to enlightenment, so he must abandon everything he's worked or lived for up to that point to seek anew. Family, friendships, teachers, wealth, almost even his own life — Siddhartha forsakes all of it again and again, almost echoing the Christian parable of the merchant who sells all that he owns to obtain the Pearl of Great Price, until he is finally stopped by the River (and Vasudeva). While the River ultimately helps Siddhartha to realize that all of his experiences were necessary, we get to see him bash his head against the All for Nothing trope for almost a whole life first.
- The way Gotama reacts to Siddhartha's opinions, especially the accurate note about Gotama's life experience being a vital part he cannot transmit, implies the Enlightened already knows his philosophy is not perfect and cannot enable absolutely everybody to reach enlightenment without living Gotama's own experiences, and therefore there will be many people he will not be able to save. Gotama keeps teaching for a reason Siddhartha himself profiles: because his doctrine, infallible or not, is still the best they have.
- While the narrative focuses on Siddhartha's suffering, it makes no secret of the suffering he causes so many others in his long quest. In order: he abandons his beloved father and never sees him again, the Elder Samana is infuriated that Siddhartha (and Govinda) abandon him for seemingly the latest con artist to come along (and the guy probably became even more upset once Siddhartha's hypnosis wore off), Govinda is heartbroken when Siddhartha abandons him, he abandons Kamaswami and Kamala without giving them any hint where he went (leaving the former to search fruitlessly for him and the latter to raise his son alone), and finally, he is unable to grasp that his humble poverty is no way to raise his (admittedly spoiled) child, and fails to make any connection to the boy at all before the latter inevitably runs away. About the only people Siddhartha doesn't hurt are Gotama and Vasudeva, who are both too spiritually advanced to be vulnerable in this way.
