After hearing about Gautama, the enlightened one, Siddhartha visits him to learn the secret of enlightenment. After visiting Gautama, Siddhartha realizes that enlightenment is achieved through experience, which is found by following one's ego. Siddhartha abandons religious teaching, determined to find enlightenment by following his ego, he declares that “no one obtains deliverance through teaching” (Hesse 32). Siddhartha informs Gautama of his decision by saying: "...there is one thing which the teaching so clear and so venerable does not contain: it does not contain the secret of that which the sublime itself has experienced" (Hesse 33). Siddhartha's teachings will not allow him to achieve enlightenment because they cannot make him experience what Gautama experienced. This encounter shows Siddhartha following his individual decisions. While Giovanna eagerly follows Gautama and urges Siddhartha to do so, Siddhartha questions his teaching and abandons them, choosing his ego over society.