How does self-realization propel Siddhartha to follow the path of experience rather than the path of an established teacher on his journey to spiritual enlightenment?

Siddhartha descovers that "meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them" (40).

This realization set Siddhartha apart from all of his previous associations. He was no longer a Brahmin or a Samansa, and he had resisted following his friend Govinda into the Buddha's discipleship. While this consciousness of solitude was frightening, it was also exhilarating; untethered from these communities and languages of thought, Siddhartha was more himself than ever. Enlivened by this new feeling of authenticity, Siddhartha "bean to walk quickly and impatiently, no longer homewards, no longer to his father, no longer looking backwards" (42).