The first reference in Siddhartha to the similes likening people to either leaves or stars occurs in the chapter "Amongst the People," as Siddhartha is telling Kamala why he believes he and she are similar, in contrast to the majority of people:

"Most people, Kamala, are like a falling leaf that

drifts and turns in the air, flutters and falls to the

ground. But a few others are like stars which travel

one defined path: no wind reaches them, they have

within themselves their guide and path." [trans. Hilda Rosner, p. 58]

During his period of living a worldly life, Siddhartha lives largely among people of the first type—except for Kamala. In the same chapter, even before he has defined this separation within humanity to Kamala, Siddhartha makes an observation which describes those he likens to falling leaves:

He saw people living in a childish or animal-like way,

which he both loved and despised. He saw them toiling,

saw them suffer and grow gray about things that to him

did not seem worth the price—for money, small pleasures

and trivial honors. [p. 57]

These are the normal pursuits of everyday life for the overwhelming majority of people. Though Siddhartha has (as it turns out, temporarily) relinquished the lifestyle of a samana and become part of the "real" world, he has not adopted the material values of that world, which all seem part of a childish game to him. And in contrasting himself with the other people, he makes the following observation, which describes those who can be likened to stars that follow their own course:

Like a player who plays with his ball, he played with his

business, with the people around him, watched them,

derived amusement from them; but with his heart, with

his real nature, he was not there. His real self wandered

elsewhere, far away, wandered on and on invisibly and had

nothing to do with his life. [p. 58]

It is not until after he has left Kamala that Siddhartha finally accomplishes a joining of these two mindsets. Kamala has sold her estate and gone away with the son she has had by Siddhartha. After Kamala dies of snakebite, Siddhartha, now working as a ferryman with his friend Vasudeva, takes care of his son, but the boy is spoiled and resentful, disdainful of the simple life his father leads. He runs away, and Siddhartha never sees him again. But Siddhartha, for the first time apparently, has felt love for another person: his son now lost to him. Siddhartha realizes that as a Brahmin and an ascetic, he had only understood things partially, and that it is necessary for him to go into the world and essentially (though he does not express it this way) experience a kind of fusion between the personality of the leaf and that of the star in order to achieve happiness.