Siddhartha
Siddhartha
Siddhartha
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Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse
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SIDDHARTHA
An Indian Tale
by Hermann Hesse
FIRST PART
In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the riverbank near the
boats, in the shade of the Sal-wood forest, in the shade of the fig tree is
where Siddhartha grew up, the handsome son of the Brahman, the young
falcon, together with his friend Govinda, son of a Brahman. The sun
tanned his light shoulders by the banks of the river when bathing,
performing the sacred ablutions, the sacred offerings. In the mango
grove, shade poured into his black eyes, when playing as a boy, when
his mother sang, when the sacred offerings were made, when his father,
the scholar, taught him, when the wise men talked. For a long time,
Siddhartha had been partaking in the discussions of the wise men,
practising debate with Govinda, practising with Govinda the art of
reflection, the service of meditation. He already knew how to speak the
Om silently, the word of words, to speak it silently into himself while
inhaling, to speak it silently out of himself while exhaling, with all
the concentration of his soul, the forehead surrounded by the glow of
the clear-thinking spirit. He already knew to feel Atman in the depths
of his being, indestructible, one with the universe.
Joy leapt in his father's heart for his son who was quick to learn,
thirsty for knowledge; he saw him growing up to become great wise man
and priest, a prince among the Brahmans.
Bliss leapt in his mother's breast when she saw him, when she saw him
walking, when she saw him sit down and get up, Siddhartha, strong,
handsome, he who was walking on slender legs, greeting her with perfect
respect.
But more than all the others he was loved by Govinda, his friend, the
son of a Brahman. He loved Siddhartha's eye and sweet voice, he loved
his walk and the perfect decency of his movements, he loved everything
Siddhartha did and said and what he loved most was his spirit, his
transcendent, fiery thoughts, his ardent will, his high calling.
Govinda knew: he would not become a common Brahman, not a lazy official
in charge of offerings; not a greedy merchant with magic spells; not a
vain, vacuous speaker; not a mean, deceitful priest; and also not a
decent, stupid sheep in the herd of the many. No, and he, Govinda, as
well did not want to become one of those, not one of those tens of
thousands of Brahmans. He wanted to follow Siddhartha, the beloved,
the splendid. And in days to come, when Siddhartha would become a god,
when he would join the glorious, then Govinda wanted to follow him as
his friend, his companion, his servant, his spear-carrier, his shadow.
Siddhartha was thus loved by everyone. He was a source of joy for
everybody, he was a delight for them all.
But he, Siddhartha, was not a source of joy for himself, he found no
delight in himself. Walking the rosy paths of the fig tree garden,
sitting in the bluish shade of the grove of contemplation, washing his
limbs daily in the bath of repentance, sacrificing in the dim shade of
the mango forest, his gestures of perfect decency, everyone's love and
joy, he still lacked all joy in his heart. Dreams and restless thoughts
came into his mind, flowing from the water of the river, sparkling from
the stars of the night, melting from the beams of the sun, dreams came
to him and a restlessness of the soul, fuming from the sacrifices,
breathing forth from the verses of the Rig-Veda, being infused into him,
drop by drop, from the teachings of the old Brahmans.
Thus were Siddhartha's thoughts, this was his thirst, this was his
suffering.
They went to the Banyan tree, they sat down, Siddhartha right here,
Govinda twenty paces away. While putting himself down, ready to speak
the Om, Siddhartha repeated murmuring the verse:
After the usual time of the exercise in meditation had passed, Govinda
rose. The evening had come, it was time to perform the evening's ablution.
He called Siddhartha's name. Siddhartha did not answer. Siddhartha sat
there lost in thought, his eyes were rigidly focused towards a very
distant target, the tip of his tongue was protruding a little between
the teeth, he seemed not to breathe. Thus sat he, wrapped up in
contemplation, thinking Om, his soul sent after the Brahman as an arrow.
Govinda turned pale, when he heard these words and read the decision in
the motionless face of his friend, unstoppable like the arrow shot from
the bow. Soon and with the first glance, Govinda realized: Now it is
beginning, now Siddhartha is taking his own way, now his fate is
beginning to sprout, and with his, my own. And he turned pale like a
dry banana-skin.
Siddhartha entered the chamber, where his father was sitting on a mat of
bast, and stepped behind his father and remained standing there, until
his father felt that someone was standing behind him. Quoth the
Brahman: "Is that you, Siddhartha? Then say what you came to say."
The Brahman fell silent, and remained silent for so long that the stars
in the small window wandered and changed their relative positions, 'ere
the silence was broken. Silent and motionless stood the son with his
arms folded, silent and motionless sat the father on the mat, and the
stars traced their paths in the sky. Then spoke the father: "Not
proper it is for a Brahman to speak harsh and angry words. But
indignation is in my heart. I wish not to hear this request for a
second time from your mouth."
Slowly, the Brahman rose; Siddhartha stood silently, his arms folded.
Indignant, the father left the chamber; indignant, he went to his bed
and lay down.
After an hour, since no sleep had come over his eyes, the Brahman stood
up, paced to and fro, and left the house. Through the small window of
the chamber he looked back inside, and there he saw Siddhartha standing,
his arms folded, not moving from his spot. Pale shimmered his bright
robe. With anxiety in his heart, the father returned to his bed.
After another hour, since no sleep had come over his eyes, the Brahman
stood up again, paced to and fro, walked out of the house and saw that
the moon had risen. Through the window of the chamber he looked back
inside; there stood Siddhartha, not moving from his spot, his arms
folded, moonlight reflecting from his bare shins. With worry in his
heart, the father went back to bed.
And he came back after an hour, he came back after two hours, looked
through the small window, saw Siddhartha standing, in the moon light,
by the light of the stars, in the darkness. And he came back hour after
hour, silently, he looked into the chamber, saw him standing in the same
place, filled his heart with anger, filled his heart with unrest, filled
his heart with anguish, filled it with sadness.
And in the night's last hour, before the day began, he returned, stepped
into the room, saw the young man standing there, who seemed tall and
like a stranger to him.
"Will you always stand that way and wait, until it'll becomes morning,
noon, and evening?"
The first light of day shone into the room. The Brahman saw that
Siddhartha was trembling softly in his knees. In Siddhartha's face he
saw no trembling, his eyes were fixed on a distant spot. Then his
father realized that even now Siddhartha no longer dwelt with him in his
home, that he had already left him.
"You will," he spoke, "go into the forest and be a Samana. When
you'll have found blissfulness in the forest, then come back and teach
me to be blissful. If you'll find disappointment, then return and let
us once again make offerings to the gods together. Go now and kiss your
mother, tell her where you are going to. But for me it is time to go to
the river and to perform the first ablution."
He took his hand from the shoulder of his son and went outside.
Siddhartha wavered to the side, as he tried to walk. He put his limbs
back under control, bowed to his father, and went to his mother to do as
his father had said.
As he slowly left on stiff legs in the first light of day the still
quiet town, a shadow rose near the last hut, who had crouched there,
and joined the pilgrim--Govinda.
In the evening of this day they caught up with the ascetics, the skinny
Samanas, and offered them their companionship and--obedience. They
were accepted.
Siddhartha learned a lot when he was with the Samanas, many ways leading
away from the self he learned to go. He went the way of self-denial
by means of pain, through voluntarily suffering and overcoming pain,
hunger, thirst, tiredness. He went the way of self-denial by means of
meditation, through imagining the mind to be void of all conceptions.
These and other ways he learned to go, a thousand times he left his
self, for hours and days he remained in the non-self. But though the
ways led away from the self, their end nevertheless always led back to
the self. Though Siddhartha fled from the self a thousand times, stayed
in nothingness, stayed in the animal, in the stone, the return was
inevitable, inescapable was the hour, when he found himself back in the
sunshine or in the moonlight, in the shade or in the rain, and was once
again his self and Siddhartha, and again felt the agony of the cycle which
had been forced upon him.
By his side lived Govinda, his shadow, walked the same paths, undertook
the same efforts. They rarely spoke to one another, than the service
and the exercises required. Occasionally the two of them went through
the villages, to beg for food for themselves and their teachers.
"How do you think, Govinda," Siddhartha spoke one day while begging
this way, "how do you think did we progress? Did we reach any goals?"
Quoth Siddhartha: "I can't help but feel that it is not like this, my
friend. What I've learned, being among the Samanas, up to this day,
this, oh Govinda, I could have learned more quickly and by simpler
means. In every tavern of that part of a town where the whorehouses
are, my friend, among carters and gamblers I could have learned it."
Quoth Govinda: "You say so, oh friend, and yet you know that Siddhartha
is no driver of an ox-cart and a Samana is no drunkard. It's true that
a drinker numbs his senses, it's true that he briefly escapes and rests,
but he'll return from the delusion, finds everything to be unchanged, has
not become wiser, has gathered no enlightenment,--has not risen several
steps."
And Siddhartha spoke with a smile: "I do not know, I've never been a
drunkard. But that I, Siddhartha, find only a short numbing of the
senses in my exercises and meditations and that I am just as far removed
from wisdom, from salvation, as a child in the mother's womb, this I
know, oh Govinda, this I know."
And once again, another time, when Siddhartha left the forest together
with Govinda, to beg for some food in the village for their brothers and
teachers, Siddhartha began to speak and said: "What now, oh Govinda,
might we be on the right path? Might we get closer to enlightenment?
Might we get closer to salvation? Or do we perhaps live in a circle--
we, who have thought we were escaping the cycle?"
Siddhartha answered: "How old, would you think, is our oldest Samana,
our venerable teacher?"
Quoth Govinda: "Our oldest one might be about sixty years of age."
And Siddhartha: "He has lived for sixty years and has not reached the
nirvana. He'll turn seventy and eighty, and you and me, we will grow
just as old and will do our exercises, and will fast, and will meditate.
But we will not reach the nirvana, he won't and we won't. Oh Govinda,
I believe out of all the Samanas out there, perhaps not a single one,
not a single one, will reach the nirvana. We find comfort, we find
numbness, we learn feats, to deceive others. But the most important
thing, the path of paths, we will not find."
"If you only," spoke Govinda, "wouldn't speak such terrible words,
Siddhartha! How could it be that among so many learned men, among so
many Brahmans, among so many austere and venerable Samanas, among so
many who are searching, so many who are eagerly trying, so many holy
men, no one will find the path of paths?"
But Siddhartha said in a voice which contained just as much sadness as
mockery, with a quiet, a slightly sad, a slightly mocking voice: "Soon,
Govinda, your friend will leave the path of the Samanas, he has walked
along your side for so long. I'm suffering of thirst, oh Govinda, and
on this long path of a Samana, my thirst has remained as strong as ever.
I always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions.
I have asked the Brahmans, year after year, and I have asked the holy
Vedas, year after year, and I have asked the devote Samanas, year after
year. Perhaps, oh Govinda, it had been just as well, had been just as
smart and just as profitable, if I had asked the hornbill-bird or the
chimpanzee. It took me a long time and am not finished learning this
yet, oh Govinda: that there is nothing to be learned! There is indeed
no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as `learning'. There
is, oh my friend, just one knowledge, this is everywhere, this is Atman,
this is within me and within you and within every creature. And so I'm
starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the
desire to know it, than learning."
At this, Govinda stopped on the path, rose his hands, and spoke: "If
you, Siddhartha, only would not bother your friend with this kind of
talk! Truly, you words stir up fear in my heart. And just consider:
what would become of the sanctity of prayer, what of the venerability of
the Brahmans' caste, what of the holiness of the Samanas, if it was as
you say, if there was no learning?! What, oh Siddhartha, what would
then become of all of this what is holy, what is precious, what is
venerable on earth?!"
Yes, he thought, standing there with his head low, what would remain of
all that which seemed to us to be holy? What remains? What can stand
the test? And he shook his head.
At one time, when the two young men had lived among the Samanas for
about three years and had shared their exercises, some news, a rumour, a
myth reached them after being retold many times: A man had appeared,
Gotama by name, the exalted one, the Buddha, he had overcome the
suffering of the world in himself and had halted the cycle of rebirths.
He was said to wander through the land, teaching, surrounded by
disciples, without possession, without home, without a wife, in the
yellow cloak of an ascetic, but with a cheerful brow, a man of bliss,
and Brahmans and princes would bow down before him and would become his
students.
This myth, this rumour, this legend resounded, its fragrants rose up,
here and there; in the towns, the Brahmans spoke of it and in the
forest, the Samanas; again and again, the name of Gotama, the Buddha
reached the ears of the young men, with good and with bad talk, with
praise and with defamation.
It was as if the plague had broken out in a country and news had been
spreading around that in one or another place there was a man, a wise
man, a knowledgeable one, whose word and breath was enough to heal
everyone who had been infected with the pestilence, and as such news
would go through the land and everyone would talk about it, many would
believe, many would doubt, but many would get on their way as soon as
possible, to seek the wise man, the helper, just like this this myth
ran through the land, that fragrant myth of Gotama, the Buddha, the
wise man of the family of Sakya. He possessed, so the believers said,
the highest enlightenment, he remembered his previous lives, he had
reached the nirvana and never returned into the cycle, was never again
submerged in the murky river of physical forms. Many wonderful and
unbelievable things were reported of him, he had performed miracles,
had overcome the devil, had spoken to the gods. But his enemies and
disbelievers said, this Gotama was a vain seducer, he would spent his
days in luxury, scorned the offerings, was without learning, and knew
neither exercises nor self-castigation.
The myth of Buddha sounded sweet. The scent of magic flowed from these
reports. After all, the world was sick, life was hard to bear--and
behold, here a source seemed to spring forth, here a messenger seemed
to call out, comforting, mild, full of noble promises. Everywhere
where the rumour of Buddha was heard, everywhere in the lands of India,
the young men listened up, felt a longing, felt hope, and among the
Brahmans' sons of the towns and villages every pilgrim and stranger was
welcome, when he brought news of him, the exalted one, the Sakyamuni.
The myth had also reached the Samanas in the forest, and also
Siddhartha, and also Govinda, slowly, drop by drop, every drop laden
with hope, every drop laden with doubt. They rarely talked about it,
because the oldest one of the Samanas did not like this myth. He had
heard that this alleged Buddha used to be an ascetic before and had
lived in the forest, but had then turned back to luxury and worldly
pleasures, and he had no high opinion of this Gotama.
"Oh Siddhartha," Govinda spoke one day to his friend. "Today, I was
in the village, and a Brahman invited me into his house, and in his
house, there was the son of a Brahman from Magadha, who has seen the
Buddha with his own eyes and has heard him teach. Verily, this made
my chest ache when I breathed, and thought to myself: If only I would
too, if only we both would too, Siddhartha and me, live to see the
hour when we will hear the teachings from the mouth of this perfected
man! Speak, friend, wouldn't we want to go there too and listen to the
teachings from the Buddha's mouth?"
At this, Siddhartha laughed in his very own manner, in which his voice
assumed a touch of sadness and a touch of mockery, and said: "Well,
Govinda, you've spoken well, you've remembered correctly. If you
only remembered the other thing as well, you've heard from me, which is
that I have grown distrustful and tired against teachings and learning,
and that my faith in words, which are brought to us by teachers, is
small. But let's do it, my dear, I am willing to listen to these
teachings--though in my heart I believe that we've already tasted the
best fruit of these teachings."
Quoth Govinda: "Your willingness delights my heart. But tell me, how
should this be possible? How should the Gotama's teachings, even before
we have heard them, have already revealed their best fruit to us?"
Quoth Siddhartha: "Let us eat this fruit and wait for the rest, oh
Govinda! But this fruit, which we already now received thanks to the
Gotama, consisted in him calling us away from the Samanas! Whether he
has also other and better things to give us, oh friend, let us await
with calm hearts."
On this very same day, Siddhartha informed the oldest one of the Samanas
of his decision, that he wanted to leave him. He informed the oldest
one with all the courtesy and modesty becoming to a younger one and a
student. But the Samana became angry, because the two young men wanted
to leave him, and talked loudly and used crude swearwords.
Govinda was startled and became embarrassed. But Siddhartha put his
mouth close to Govinda's ear and whispered to him: "Now, I want to show
the old man that I've learned something from him."
On the way, Govinda said: "Oh Siddhartha, you have learned more from
the Samanas than I knew. It is hard, it is very hard to cast a spell
on an old Samana. Truly, if you had stayed there, you would soon have
learned to walk on water."
"I do not seek to walk on water," said Siddhartha. "Let old Samanas be
content with such feats!"
GOTAMA
In the town of Savathi, every child knew the name of the exalted Buddha,
and every house was prepared to fill the alms-dish of Gotama's
disciples, the silently begging ones. Near the town was Gotama's
favourite place to stay, the grove of Jetavana, which the rich merchant
Anathapindika, an obedient worshipper of the exalted one, had given him
and his people for a gift.
All tales and answers, which the two young ascetics had received in
their search for Gotama's abode, had pointed them towards this area.
And arriving at Savathi, in the very first house, before the door of
which they stopped to beg, food has been offered to them, and they
accepted the food, and Siddhartha asked the woman, who handed them the
food:
"We would like to know, oh charitable one, where the Buddha dwells, the
most venerable one, for we are two Samanas from the forest and have
come, to see him, the perfected one, and to hear the teachings from his
mouth."
Quoth the woman: "Here, you have truly come to the right place, you
Samanas from the forest. You should know, in Jetavana, in the garden
of Anathapindika is where the exalted one dwells. There you pilgrims
shall spent the night, for there is enough space for the innumerable,
who flock here, to hear the teachings from his mouth."
This made Govinda happy, and full of joy he exclaimed: "Well so, thus
we have reached our destination, and our path has come to an end! But
tell us, oh mother of the pilgrims, do you know him, the Buddha, have
you seen him with your own eyes?"
Quoth the woman: "Many times I have seen him, the exalted one. On many
days, I have seen him, walking through the alleys in silence, wearing
his yellow cloak, presenting his alms-dish in silence at the doors of
the houses, leaving with a filled dish."
Delightedly, Govinda listened and wanted to ask and hear much more.
But Siddhartha urged him to walk on. They thanked and left and hardly
had to ask for directions, for rather many pilgrims and monks as well
from Gotama's community were on their way to the Jetavana. And since
they reached it at night, there were constant arrivals, shouts, and
talk of those who sought shelter and got it. The two Samanas,
accustomed to life in the forest, found quickly and without making any
noise an place to stay and rested there until the morning.
Attentively, Govinda looked at the monk in the yellow robe, who seemed
to be in no way different from the hundreds of other monks. And soon,
Govinda also realized: This is the one. And they followed him and
observed him.
The Buddha went on his way, modestly and deep in his thoughts, his
calm face was neither happy nor sad, it seemed to smile quietly and
inwardly. With a hidden smile, quiet, calm, somewhat resembling a
healthy child, the Buddha walked, wore the robe and placed his feet
just as all of his monks did, according to a precise rule. But his
face and his walk, his quietly lowered glance, his quietly dangling hand
and even every finger of his quietly dangling hand expressed peace,
expressed perfection, did not search, did not imitate, breathed softly
in an unwhithering calm, in an unwhithering light, an untouchable peace.
Thus Gotama walked towards the town, to collect alms, and the two
Samanas recognised him solely by the perfection of his calm, by the
quietness of his appearance, in which there was no searching, no desire,
no imitation, no effort to be seen, only light and peace.
"Today, we'll hear the teachings from his mouth." said Govinda.
Siddhartha did not answer. He felt little curiosity for the teachings,
he did not believe that they would teach him anything new, but he had,
just as Govinda had, heard the contents of this Buddha's teachings
again and again, though these reports only represented second- or
third-hand information. But attentively he looked at Gotama's head,
his shoulders, his feet, his quietly dangling hand, and it seemed to
him as if every joint of every finger of this hand was of these
teachings, spoke of, breathed of, exhaled the fragrant of, glistened of
truth. This man, this Buddha was truthful down to the gesture of his
last finger. This man was holy. Never before, Siddhartha had venerated
a person so much, never before he had loved a person as much as this
one.
They both followed the Buddha until they reached the town and then
returned in silence, for they themselves intended to abstain from from
on this day. They saw Gotama returning--what he ate could not even have
satisfied a bird's appetite, and they saw him retiring into the shade
of the mango-trees.
But in the evening, when the heat cooled down and everyone in the camp
started to bustle about and gathered around, they heard the Buddha
teaching. They heard his voice, and it was also perfected, was of
perfect calmness, was full of peace. Gotama taught the teachings of
suffering, of the origin of suffering, of the way to relieve suffering.
Calmly and clearly his quiet speech flowed on. Suffering was life,
full of suffering was the world, but salvation from suffering had been
found: salvation was obtained by him who would walk the path of the
Buddha. Wit a soft, yet firm voice the exalted one spoke, taught the
four main doctrines, taught the eightfold path, patiently he went the
usual path of the teachings, of the examples, of the repetitions,
brightly and quietly his voice hovered over the listeners, like a light,
like a starry sky.
Behold, then Govinda, the shy one, also stepped forward and spoke: "I
also take my refuge in the exalted one and his teachings," and he asked
to accepted into the community of his disciples and was accepted.
Right afterwards, when the Buddha had retired for the night, Govinda
turned to Siddhartha and spoke eagerly: "Siddhartha, it is not my place
to scold you. We have both heard the exalted one, be have both
perceived the teachings. Govinda has heard the teachings, he has taken
refuge in it. But you, my honoured friend, don't you also want to walk
the path of salvation? Would you want to hesitate, do you want to wait
any longer?"
In this moment, Govinda realized that his friend had left him, and he
started to weep.
Siddhartha kindly spoke to him: "Don't forget, Govinda, that you are
now one of the Samanas of the Buddha! You have renounced your home
and your parents, renounced your birth and possessions, renounced your
free will, renounced all friendship. This is what the teachings
require, this is what the exalted one wants. This is what you wanted
for yourself. Tomorrow, oh Govinda, I'll leave you."
For a long time, the friends continued walking in the grove; for a long
time, they lay there and found no sleep. And over and over again,
Govinda urged his friend, he should tell him why he would not want to
seek refuge in Gotama's teachings, what fault he would find in these
teachings. But Siddhartha turned him away every time and said: "Be
content, Govinda! Very good are the teachings of the exalted one, how
could I find a fault in them?"
"I wish that you, oh exalted one, would not be angry with me," said the
young man. "I have not spoken to you like this to argue with you, to
argue about words. You are truly right, there is little to opinions.
But let me say this one more thing: I have not doubted in you for a
single moment. I have not doubted for a single moment that you are
Buddha, that you have reached the goal, the highest goal towards which
so many thousands of Brahmans and sons of Brahmans are on their way.
You have found salvation from death. It has come to you in the course
of your own search, on your own path, through thoughts, through
meditation, through realizations, through enlightenment. It has not
come to you by means of teachings! And--thus is my thought, oh exalted
one,--nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! You will not
be able to convey and say to anybody, oh venerable one, in words and
through teachings what has happened to you in the hour of enlightenment!
The teachings of the enlightened Buddha contain much, it teaches many to
live righteously, to avoid evil. But there is one thing which these so
clear, these so venerable teachings do not contain: they do not contain
the mystery of what the exalted one has experienced for himself, he
alone among hundreds of thousands. This is what I have thought and
realized, when I have heard the teachings. This is why I am continuing
my travels--not to seek other, better teachings, for I know there are
none, but to depart from all teachings and all teachers and to reach my
goal by myself or to die. But often, I'll think of this day, oh exalted
one, and of this hour, when my eyes beheld a holy man."
"I wish," the venerable one spoke slowly, "that your thoughts shall not
be in error, that you shall reach the goal! But tell me: Have you seen
the multitude of my Samanas, my many brothers, who have taken refuge in
the teachings? And do you believe, oh stranger, oh Samana, do you
believe that it would be better for them all the abandon the teachings
and to return into the life the world and of desires?"
"You know how to talk wisely, my friend. Be aware of too much wisdom!"
The Buddha turned away, and his glance and half of a smile remained
forever etched in Siddhartha's memory.
I have never before seen a person glance and smile, sit and walk this
way, he thought; truly, I wish to be able to glance and smile, sit and
walk this way, too, thus free, thus venerable, thus concealed, thus
open, thus child-like and mysterious. Truly, only a person who has
succeeded in reaching the innermost part of his self would glance and
walk this way. Well so, I also will seek to reach the innermost part
of my self.
I saw a man, Siddhartha thought, a single man, before whom I would have
to lower my glance. I do not want to lower my glance before any other,
not before any other. No teachings will entice me any more, since this
man's teachings have not enticed me.
AWAKENING
When Siddhartha left the grove, where the Buddha, the perfected one,
stayed behind, where Govinda stayed behind, then he felt that in this
grove his past life also stayed behind and parted from him. He pondered
about this sensation, which filled him completely, as he was slowly
walking along. He pondered deeply, like diving into a deep water he
let himself sink down to the ground of the sensation, down to the place
where the causes lie, because to identify the causes, so it seemed to
him, is the very essence of thinking, and by this alone sensations turn
into realizations and are not lost, but become entities and start to
emit like rays of light what is inside of them.
Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself: "But what
is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers,
and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach
you?" And he found: "It was the self, the purpose and essence of which
I sought to learn. It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which
I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it, could only
deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it. Truly, no
thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own
self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being
separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha! And
there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about
Siddhartha!"
Siddhartha opened his eyes and looked around, a smile filled his face
and a feeling of awakening from long dreams flowed through him from his
head down to his toes. And it was not long before he walked again,
walked quickly like a man who knows what he has got to do.
"Oh," he thought, taking a deep breath, "now I would not let Siddhartha
escape from me again! No longer, I want to begin my thoughts and my
life with Atman and with the suffering of the world. I do not want to
kill and dissect myself any longer, to find a secret behind the ruins.
Neither Yoga-Veda shall teach me any more, nor Atharva-Veda, nor the
ascetics, nor any kind of teachings. I want to learn from myself, want
to be my student, want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha."
He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time.
Beautiful was the world, colourful was the world, strange and mysterious
was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky
and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it
was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was
he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself. All of this,
all this yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha for the
first time through the eyes, was no longer a spell of Mara, was no
longer the veil of Maya, was no longer a pointless and coincidental
diversity of mere appearances, despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman,
who scorns diversity, who seeks unity. Blue was blue, river was river,
and if also in the blue and the river, in Siddhartha, the singular and
divine lived hidden, so it was still that very divinity's way and
purpose, to be here yellow, here blue, there sky, there forest, and here
Siddhartha. The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere
behind the things, they were in them, in everything.
"How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along.
"When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not
scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence,
and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them,
letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and
the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had
anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the
visible world a deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental
and worthless forms without substance. No, this is over, I have
awakened, I have indeed awakened and have not been born before this
very day."
Because suddenly, he had also become aware of this: He, who was indeed
like someone who had just woken up or like a new-born baby, he had to
start his life anew and start again at the very beginning. When he had
left in this very morning from the grove Jetavana, the grove of that
exalted one, already awakening, already on the path towards himself, he
he had every intention, regarded as natural and took for granted, that
he, after years as an ascetic, would return to his home and his father.
But now, only in this moment, when he stopped as if a snake was lying on
his path, he also awoke to this realization: "But I am no longer the
one I was, I am no ascetic any more, I am not a priest any more, I am no
Brahman any more. Whatever should I do at home and at my father's
place? Study? Make offerings? Practise meditation? Bat all this is
over, all of this is no longer alongside my path."
Out of this moment, when the world melted away all around him, when he
stood alone like a star in the sky, out of this moment of a cold and
despair, Siddhartha emerged, more a self than before, more firmly
concentrated. He felt: This had been the last tremor of the awakening,
the last struggle of this birth. And it was not long until he walked
again in long strides, started to proceed swiftly and impatiently,
heading no longer for home, no longer to his father, no longer back.
SECOND PART
KAMALA
Note: Most errors in the German text I could easily ignore (e.g.
"Seelel" obviously ought to be "Seele!", "Lebeill" ought to be
"Leben!", "sanf Len" ought to be "sanften", "Sifin" ought to be
"Sinn" etc.).
When I came across possible errors, I was not so sure of, I put
down {???} and added a comment in curly brackets.
Siddhartha learned something new on every step of his path, for the
world was transformed, and his heart was enchanted. He saw the sun
rising over the mountains with their forests and setting over the
distant beach with its palm-trees. At night, he saw the stars in the
sky in their fixed positions and the crescent of the moon floating like
a boat in the blue. He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds, rainbows,
rocks, herbs, flowers, stream and river, the glistening dew in the
bushes in the morning, distant hight mountains which were blue and
pale, birds sang and bees, wind silverishly blew through the rice-field.
All of this, a thousand-fold and colorful, had always been there,
always the sun and the moon had shone, always rivers had roared and
bees had buzzed, but in former times all of this had been nothing more
to Siddhartha than a fleeting, deceptive veil before his eyes,
looked upon in distrust, destined to be penetrated and destroyed by
thought, since it was not the essential existence, since this essence
lay beyond, on the other side of, the visible. But now, his liberated
eyes stayed on this side, he saw and became aware of the visible, sought
to be at home in this world, did not search for the true essence, did
not aim at a world beyond. Beautiful was this world, looking at it thus,
without searching, thus simply, thus childlike. Beautiful were the moon
and the stars, beautiful was the stream and the banks, the forest and
the rocks, the goat and the gold-beetle, the flower and the butterfly.
Beautiful and lovely it was, thus to walk through the world, thus
childlike, thus awoken, thus open to what is near, thus without
distrust. Differently the sun burnt the head, differently the shade
of the forest cooled him down, differently the stream and the cistern,
the pumpkin and the banana tasted. Short were the days, short the
nights, every hour sped swiftly away like a sail on the sea, and under
the sail was a ship full of treasures, full of joy. Siddhartha saw a
group of apes moving through the high canopy of the forest, high in the
branches, and heard their savage, greedy song. Siddhartha saw a male
sheep following a female one and mating with her. In a lake of reeds,
he saw the pike hungrily hunting for its dinner; propelling themselves
away from it, in fear, wiggling and sparkling, the young fish jumped in
droves out of the water; the scent of strength and passion came
forcefully out of the hasty eddies of the water, which the pike stirred
up, impetuously hunting.
All of this had always existed, and he had not seen it; he had not been
with it. Now he was with it, he was part of it. Light and shadow
ran through his eyes, stars and moon ran through his heart.
In the night when he slept in the straw hut of a ferryman by the river,
Siddhartha had a dream: Govinda was standing in front of him, dressed
in the yellow robe of an ascetic. Sad was how Govinda looked like,
sadly he asked: Why have you forsaken me? At this, he embraced
Govinda, wrapped his arms around him, and as he was pulling him close
to his chest and kissed him, it was not Govinda any more, but a woman,
and an full breast popped out of the woman's dress, at which Siddhartha
lay and drank, sweetly and strongly tasted the milk from this breast.
It tasted of woman and man, of sun and forest, of animal and flower,
of every fruit, of every joyful desire. It intoxicated him and rendered
him unconscious.--When Siddhartha woke up, the pale river shimmered
through the door of the hut, and in the forest, a dark call of an owl
resounded deeply and and pleasantly.
When the day began, Siddhartha asked his host, the ferryman, to get him
across the river. The ferryman got him across the river on his
bamboo-raft, the wide water shimmered reddishly in the light of the
morning.
"Yes," said the ferryman, "a very beautiful river, I love it more than
anything. Often I have listened to it, often I have looked into its
eyes, and always I have learned from it. Much can be learned from a
river."
"I did see it," spoke the ferryman, "and I haven't expected any payment
from you and no gift which would be the custom for guests to bear. You
will give me the gift another time."
"Surely. This too, I have learned from the river: everything is coming
back! You too, Samana, will come back. Now farewell! Let your
friendship be my reward. Commemorate me, when you'll make offerings to
the gods."
Smiling, they parted. Smiling, Siddhartha was happy about the
friendship and the kindness of the ferryman. "He is like Govinda," he
thought with a smile, "all I meet on my path are like Govinda. All are
thankful, though they are the ones who would have a right to receive
thanks. All are submissive, all would like to be friends, like to
obey, think little. Like children are all people."
Siddhartha also felt desire and felt the source of his sexuality moving;
but since he had never touched a woman before, he hesitated for a
moment, while his hands were already prepared to reach out for her. And
in this moment he heard, shuddering with awe, the voice if his innermost
self, and this voice said No. Then, all charms disappeared from the
young woman's smiling face, he no longer saw anything else but the damp
glance of a female animal in heat. Politely, he petted her cheek,
turned away from her and disappeared away from the disappointed woman
with light steps into the bamboo-wood.
On this day, he reached the large city before the evening, and was
happy, for he felt the need to be among people. For a long time, he
had lived in the forests, and the straw hut of the ferryman, in which
he had slept that night, had been the first roof for a long time he has
had over his head.
The next person who came along this path he asked about the grove and
for the name of the woman, and was told that this was the grove of
Kamala, the famous courtesan, and that, aside from the grove, she owned
a house in the city.
Pursuing his goal, he allowed the city to suck him in, drifted through
the flow of the streets, stood still on the squares, rested on the
stairs of stone by the river. When the evening came, he made friends
with barber's assistant, whom he had seen working in the shade of an
arch in a building, whom he found again praying in a temple of Vishnu,
whom he told about stories of Vishnu and the Lakshmi. Among the boats
by the river, he slept this night, and early in the morning, before the
first customers came into his shop, he had the barber's assistant shave
his beard and cut his hair, comb his hair and anoint it with fine oil.
Then he went to take his bath in the river.
When late in the afternoon, beautiful Kamala approached her grove in her
sedan-chair, Siddhartha was standing at the entrance, made a bow and
received the courtesan's greeting. But that servant who walked at the
very end of her train he motioned to him and asked him to inform his
mistress that a young Brahman would wish to talk to her. After a while,
the servant returned, asked the him, who had been waiting, to follow him
conducted him, who was following him, without a word into a pavilion,
where Kamala was lying on a couch, and left him alone with her.
"Weren't you already standing out there yesterday, greeting me?" asked
Kamala.
"It's true that I've already seen and greeted you yesterday."
"But didn't you yesterday wear a beard, and long hair, and dust in your
hair?"
"You have observed well, you have seen everything. You have seen
Siddhartha, the son of a Brahman, how has left his home to become a
Samana, and who has been a Samana for three years. But now, I have
left that path and came into this city, and the first one I met, even
before I had entered the city, was you. To say this, I have come to
you, oh Kamala! You are the first woman whom Siddhartha is not
addressing with his eyes turned to the ground. Never again I want to
turn my eyes to the ground, when I'm coming across a beautiful woman."
Kamala smiled and played with her fan of peacocks' feathers. And asked:
"And only to tell me this, Siddhartha has come to me?"
"To tell you this and to thank you for being so beautiful. And if it
doesn't displease you, Kamala, I would like to ask you to be my friend
and teacher, for I know nothing yet of that art which you have mastered
in the highest degree."
"Never before this has happened to me, my friend, that a Samana from the
forest came to me and wanted to learn from me! Never before this has
happened to me, that a Samana came to me with long hair and an old, torn
loin-cloth! Many young men come to me, and there are also sons of
Brahmans among them, but they come in beautiful clothes, they come in
fine shoes, they have perfume in their hair and money in their pouches.
This is, oh Samana, how the young men are like who come to me."
"Oh, he's strong, the Samana, and he isn't afraid of anything. He could
force you, beautiful girl. He could kidnap you. He could hurt you."
"No, Samana, I am not afraid of this. Did any Samana or Brahman ever
fear, someone might come and grab him and steal his learning, and his
religious devotion, and his depth of thought? No, for they are his very
own, and he would only give away from those whatever he is willing to
give and to whomever he is willing to give. Like this it is, precisely
like this it is also with Kamala and with the pleasures of love.
Beautiful and red is Kamala's mouth, but just try to kiss it against
Kamala's will, and you will not obtain a single drop of sweetness from
it, which knows how to give so many sweet things! You are learning
easily, Siddhartha, thus you should also learn this: love can be
obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the
street, but it cannot be stolen. In this, you have come up with the
wrong path. No, it would be a pity, if a pretty young man like you
would want to tackle it in such a wrong manner."
Siddhartha bowed with a smile. "It would be a pity, Kamala, you are so
right! It would be such a great pity. No, I shall not lose a single
drop of sweetness from your mouth, nor you from mine! So it is settled:
Siddhartha will return, once he'll have have what he still lacks:
clothes, shoes, money. But speak, lovely Kamala, couldn't you still
give me one small advice?"
"An advice?" Why not? Who wouldn't like to give an advice to a poor,
ignorant Samana, who is coming from the jackals of the forest?"
"Dear Kamala, thus advise me where I should go to, that I'll find these
three things most quickly?"
"Friend, many would like to know this. You must do what you've learned
and ask for money, clothes, and shoes in return. There is no other way
for a poor man to obtain money. What might you be able to do?"
"Nothing else?"
"Nothing. But yes, I can also write poetry. Would you like to give me
a kiss for a poem?"
"I would like to, if I'll like your poem. What would be its title?"
Kamala loudly clapped her hands, so that the golden bracelets clanged.
"Beautiful are your verses, oh brown Samana, and truly, I'm losing
nothing when I'm giving you a kiss for them."
She beckoned him with her eyes, he tilted his head so that his face
touched hers and placed his mouth on that mouth which was like a
freshly cracked fig. For a long time, Kamala kissed him, and with a
deep astonishment Siddhartha felt how she taught him, how wise she was,
how she controlled him, rejected him, lured him, and how after this first
one there was to be a long, a well ordered, well tested sequence of
kisses, everyone different from the others, he was still to receive.
Breathing deeply, he remained standing where he was, and was in this
moment astonished like a child about the cornucopia of knowledge and
things worth learning, which revealed itself before his eyes.
"Very beautiful are your verses," exclaimed Kamala, "if I was rich, I
would give you pieces of gold for them. But it will be difficult for
you to earn thus much money with verses as you need. For you need a lot
of money, if you want to be Kamala's friend."
"I also know the sacrificial songs," said Siddhartha, "but I do not want
to sing them any more. I also know magic spells, but I do not want to
speak them any more. I have read the scriptures--"
"Most people can't. I also can't do it. It is very good that you're
able to read and write, very good. You will also still find use for
the magic spells."
"There's a visitor for me," exclaimed Kamala. "Hurry and get yourself
away, Siddhartha, nobody may see you in here, remember this! Tomorrow,
I'll see you again."
But to the maid she gave the order to give the pious Brahman white
upper garments. Without fully understanding what was happening to him,
Siddhartha found himself being dragged away by the maid, brought into
a garden-house avoiding the direct path, being given upper garments as a
gift, led into the bushes, and urgently admonished to get himself out of
the grove as soon as possible without being seen.
"Simple is the life which people lead in this world here," thought
Siddhartha. "It presents no difficulties. Everything was difficult,
toilsome, and ultimately hopeless, when I was still a Samana. Now,
everything is easy, easy like that lessons in kissing, which Kamala is
giving me. I need clothes and money, nothing else; this a small, near
goals, they won't make a person lose any sleep."
He had already discovered Kamala's house in the city long before, there
he turned up the following day.
"Things are working out well," she called out to him. "They are
expecting you at Kamaswami's, he is the richest merchant of the city.
If he'll like you, he'll accept you into his service. Be smart, brown
Samana. I had others tell him about you. Be polite towards him, he is
very powerful. But don't be too modest! I do not want you to become
his servant, you shall become his equal, or else I won't be satisfied
with you. Kamaswami is starting to get old and lazy. If he'll like
you, he'll entrust you with a lot."
Siddhartha thanked her and laughed, and when she found out that he had
not eaten anything yesterday and today, she sent for bread and fruits
and treated him to it.
"You've been lucky," she said when they parted, "I'm opening one door
after another for you. How come? Do you have a spell?"
"Well yes," she admitted. "But where would you be without me? What
would you be, if Kamala wasn't helping you?"
"You were willing. Look, Kamala: Wen you throw a rock into the water,
it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water. This
is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution. Siddhartha does
nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things
of the world like a rock through water, without doing anything, without
stirring; he is drawn, he lets himself fall. His goal attracts him,
because he doesn't let anything enter his soul which might oppose the
goal. This is what Siddhartha has learned among the Samanas. This is
what fools call magic and of which they think it would be effected by
means of the daemons. Nothing is effected by daemons, there are no
daemons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if
he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast."
Kamala listened to him. She loved his voice, she loved the look from
his eyes.
"Perhaps it is so," she said quietly, "as you say, friend. But perhaps
it is also like this: that Siddhartha is a handsome man, that his glance
pleases the women, that therefore good fortune is coming towards him."
Wit one kiss, Siddhartha bid his farewell. "I wish that it should be
this way, my teacher; that my glance shall please you, that always
good fortune shall come to me out of your direction!"
Kamaswami entered, a swiftly, smoothly moving man with very gray hair,
with very intelligent, cautious eyes, with a greedy mouth. Politely,
the host and the guest greeted one another.
"I have been told," the merchant began, "that you were a Brahman, a
learned man, but that you seek to be in the service of a merchant.
Might you have become destitute, Brahman, so that you seek to serve?"
"No," said Siddhartha, "I have not become destitute and have never been
destitute. You should know that I'm coming from the Samanas, with
whom I have lived for a long time."
"If you're coming from the Samanas, how could you be anything but
destitute? Aren't the Samanas entirely without possessions?"
"I am without possessions," said Siddhartha, "if this is what you mean.
Surely, I am without possessions. But I am so voluntarily, and
therefore I am not destitute."
"But what are you planning to live of, being without possessions?"
"I haven't thought of this yet, sir. For more than three years, I have
been without possessions, and have never thought about of what I should
live."
"Well said. But he wouldn't take anything from another person for
nothing; he would give his merchandise in return."
"But if you don't mind me asking: being without possessions, what would
you like to give?"
"Everyone gives what he has. The warrior gives strength, the merchant
gives merchandise, the teacher teachings, the farmer rice, the fisher
fish."
"Yes indeed. And what is it now what you've got to give? What is it
that you've learned, what you're able to do?"
"And what's the use of that? For example, the fasting-- what is it
good for?"
"It is very good, sir. When a person has nothing to eat, fasting is the
smartest thing he could do. When, for example, Siddhartha hadn't
learned to fast, he would have to accept any kind of service before this
day is up, whether it may be with you or wherever, because hunger would
force him to do so. But like this, Siddhartha can wait calmly, he knows
no impatience, he knows no emergency, for a long time he can allow
hunger to besiege him and can laugh about it. This, sir, is what
fasting is good for."
Kamaswami left the room and returned with a scroll, which he handed to
his guest while asking: "Can you read this?"
He handed him a piece of paper and a pen, and Siddhartha wrote and
returned the paper.
"It is excellent how you're able to write," the merchant praised him.
"Many a thing we will still have to discuss with one another. For
today, I'm asking you to be my guest and to live in this house."
Siddhartha thanked and accepted, and lived in the dealers house from now
on. Clothes were brought to him, and shoes, and every day, a servant
prepared a bath for him. Twice a day, a plentiful meal was served, but
Siddhartha only ate once a day, and ate neither meat nor did he drink
wine. Kamaswami told him about his trade, showed him the merchandise
and storage-rooms, showed him calculations. Siddhartha got to know
many new things, he heard a lot and spoke little. And thinking of
Kamala's words, he was never subservient to the merchant, forced him
to treat him as an equal, yes even more than an equal. Kamaswami
conducted his business with care and often with passion, but Siddhartha
looked upon all of this as if it was a game, the rules of which he
tried hard to learn precisely, but the contents of which did not touch
his heart.
He was not in Kamaswami's house for long, when he already took part in
his landlords business. But daily, at the hour appointed by her, he
visited beautiful Kamala, wearing pretty clothes, fine shoes, and soon
he brought her gifts as well. Much he learned from her red, smart
mouth. Much he learned from her tender, supple hand. Him, who was,
regarding love, still a boy and had a tendency to plunge blindly and
insatiably into lust like into a bottomless pit, him she taught,
thoroughly starting with the basics, about that school of thought which
teaches that pleasure cannot be be taken without giving pleasure, and
that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every look, every spot
of the body, however small it was, had its secret, which would bring
happiness to those who know about it and unleash it. She taught him,
that lovers must not part from one another after celebrating love,
without one admiring the other, without being just as defeated as they
have been victorious, so that with none of them should start feeling
fed up or bored and get that evil feeling of having abused or having
been abused. Wonderful hours he spent with the beautiful and smart
artist, became her student, her lover, her friend. Here with Kamala
was the worth and purpose of his present life, nit with the business
of Kamaswami.
The friend advised the merchant: "Give him from the business he
conducts for you a third of the profits, but let him also be liable for
the same amount of the losses, when there is a loss. Then, he'll become
more zealous."
Kamaswami followed the advice. But Siddhartha cared little about this.
When he made a profit, he accepted it with equanimity; when he made
losses, he laughed and said: "Well, look at this, so this one turned
out badly!"
Indeed his soul was not with the trade. The business was good enough
to provide him with the money for Kamala, and it earned him much more
than he needed. Besides from this, Siddhartha's interest and curiosity
was only concerned with the people, whose businesses, crafts, worries,
pleasures, and acts of foolishness used to be as alien and distant to
him as the moon. However easily he succeeded in talking to all of them,
in living with all of them, in learning from all of them, he was still
aware that there was something which separated him from them and this
separating factor was him being a Samana. He saw mankind going trough
life in a childlike or animallike manner, which he loved and also
despised at the same time. He saw them toiling, saw them suffering,
and becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him to entirely
unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being
slightly honoured, he saw them scolding and insulting each other, he
saw them complaining about pain at which a Samana would only smile, and
suffering because of deprivations which a Samana would not feel.
He was open to everything, these people brought his way. Welcome was
the merchant who offered him linen for sale, welcome was the debtor who
sought another loan, welcome was the beggar who told him for one hour
the story of his poverty and who was not half as poor as any given
Samana. He did not treat the rich foreign merchant any different than
the servant who shaved him and the street-vendor whom he let cheat him
out of some small change when buying bananas. When Kamaswami came to
him, to complain about his worries or to reproach him concerning his
business, he listened curiously and happily, was puzzled by him, tried
to understand him, consented that he was a little bit right, only as
much as he considered indispensable, and turned away from him, towards
the next person who would ask for him. And there were many who came to
him, many to do business with him, many to cheat him, many to draw some
secret out of him, many to appeal to his sympathy, many to get his
advice. He gave advice, he pitied, he made gifts, he let them cheat him
a bit, and this entire game and the passion with which all people played
this game occupied his thoughts just as much as the gods and Brahmans
used to occupy them.
Once, he said to her: "You are like me, you are different from most
people. You are Kamala, nothing else, and inside of you, there is a
peace and refuge, to which you can go at every hour of the day and be
at home at yourself, as I can also do. Few people have this, and yet
all could have it."
"No," said Siddhartha, "that's not the reason why. Kamaswami is just as
smart as I, and still has no refuge in himself. Others have it, who are
small children with respect to their mind. Most people, Kamala, are
like a falling leaf, which is blown and is turning around through the
air, and wavers, and tumbles to the ground. But others, a few, are
like stars, they go on a fixed course, no wind reaches them, in
themselves they have their law and their course. Among all the learned
men and Samanas, of which I knew many, there was one of this kind, a
perfected one, I'll never be able to forget him. It is that Gotama,
the exalted one, who is spreading that teachings. Thousands of
followers are listening to his teachings every day, follow his
instructions every hour, but they are all falling leaves, not in
themselves they have teachings and a law."
Kamala looked at him with a smile. "Again, you're talking about him,"
she said, "again, you're having a Samana's thoughts."
Siddhartha said nothing, and they played the game of love, one of the
thirty or forty different games Kamala knew. Her body was flexible
like that of a jaguar and like the bow of a hunter; he who had learned
from her how to make love, was knowledgeable of many forms of lust, many
secrets. For a long time, she played with Siddhartha, enticed him,
rejected him, forced him, embraced him: enjoyed his masterful skills,
until he was defeated and rested exhausted by her side.
The courtesan bent over him, took a long look at his face, at his eyes,
which had grown tired.
"You are the best lover," she said thoughtfully, "I ever saw. You're
stronger than others, more supple, more willing. You've learned my art
well, Siddhartha. At some time, when I'll be older, I'd want to bear
your child. And yet, my dear, you've remained a Samana, and yet you
do not love me, you love nobody. Isn't it so?"
"It might very well be so," Siddhartha said tiredly. "I am like you.
You also do not love--how else could you practise love as a craft?
Perhaps, people of our kind can't love. The childlike people can;
that's their secret."
SANSARA
For a long time, Siddhartha had lived the life of the world and of lust,
though without being a part of it. His senses, which he had killed off
in hot years as a Samana, had awoken again, he had tasted riches, had
tasted lust, had tasted power; nevertheless he had still remained in his
heart for a long time a Samana; Kamala, being smart, had realized this
quite right. It was still the art of thinking, of waiting, of fasting,
which guided his life; still the people of the world, the childlike
people, had remained alien to him as he was alien to them.
Years passed by; surrounded by the good life, Siddhartha hardly felt
them fading away. He had become rich, for quite a while he possessed a
house of his own and his own servants, and a garden before the city by
the river. The people liked him, they came to him, whenever they needed
money or advice, but there was nobody close to him, except Kamala.
That high, bright state of being awake, which he had experienced that
one time at the height of his youth, in those days after Gotama's
sermon, after the separation from Govinda, that tense expectation, that
proud state of standing alone without teachings and without teachers,
that supple willingness to listen to the divine voice in his own heart,
hat slowly become a memory, had been fleeting; distant and quiet, the
holy source murmured, which used to be near, which used to murmur within
himself. Nevertheless, many things he had learned from the Samanas, he
had learned from Gotama, he had learned from his father the Brahman,
had remained within him for a long time afterwards: moderate living,
joy of thinking, hours of meditation, secret knowledge of the self,
of his eternal entity, which is neither body nor consciousness. Many
a part of this he still had, but one part after another had been
submerged and had gathered dust. Just as a potter's wheel, once it has
been set in motion, will keep on turning for a long time and only slowly
lose its vigour and come to a stop, thus Siddhartha's soul had kept on
turning the wheel of asceticism, the wheel of thinking, the wheel of
differentiation for a long time, still turning, but it turned slowly and
hesitantly and was close to coming to a standstill. Slowly, like
humidity entering the dying stem of a tree, filling it slowly and
making it rot, the world and sloth had entered Siddhartha's soul,
slowly it filled his soul, made it heavy, made it tired, put it to
sleep. On the other hand, his senses had become alive, there was much
they had learned, much they had experienced.
Siddhartha had learned to trade, to use his power over people, to enjoy
himself with a woman, he had learned to wear beautiful clothes, to give
orders to servants, to bathe in perfumed waters. He had learned to eat
tenderly and carefully prepared food, even fish, even meat and poultry,
spices and sweets, and to drink wine, which causes sloth and
forgetfulness. He had learned to play with dice and on a chess-board,
to watch dancing girls, to have himself carried about in a sedan-chair,
to sleep on a soft bed. But still he had felt different from and
superior to the others; always he had watched them with some mockery,
some mocking disdain, with the same disdain which a Samana constantly
feels for the people of the world. When Kamaswami was ailing, when he
was annoyed, when he felt insulted, when he was vexed by his worries as
a merchant, Siddhartha had always watched it with mockery. Just slowly
and imperceptibly, as the harvest seasons and rainy seasons passed by,
his mockery had become more tired, his superiority had become more
quiet. Just slowly, among his growing riches, Siddhartha had assumed
something of the childlike people's ways for himself, something of their
childlikeness and of their fearfulness. And yet, he envied them, envied
them just the more, the more similar he became to them. He envied them
for the one thing that was missing from him and that they had, the
importance they were able to attach to their lives, the amount of
passion in their joys and fears, the fearful but sweet happiness of
being constantly in love. These people were all of the time in love
with themselves, with women, with their children, with honours or money,
with plans or hopes. But he did not learn this from them, this out of
all things, this joy of a child and this foolishness of a child; he
learned from them out of all things the unpleasant ones, which he
himself despised. It happened more and more often that, in the morning
after having had company the night before, he stayed in bed for a long
time, felt unable to think and tired. It happened that he became angry
and impatient, when Kamaswami bored him with his worries. It happened
that he laughed just too loud, when he lost a game of dice. His face
was still smarter and more spiritual than others, but it rarely laughed,
and assumed, one after another, those features which are so often
found in the faces of rich people, those features of discontent, of
sickliness, of ill-humour, of sloth, of a lack of love. Slowly the
disease of the soul, which rich people have, grabbed hold of him.
Like a veil, like a thin mist, tiredness came over Siddhartha, slowly,
getting a bit denser every day, a bit murkier every month, a bit heavier
every year. As a new dress becomes old in time, loses its beautiful
colour in time, gets stains, gets wrinkles, gets worn off at the seams,
and starts to show threadbare spots here and there, thus Siddhartha's
new life, which he had started after his separation from Govinda, had
grown old, lost colour and splendour as the years passed by, was
gathering wrinkles and stains, and hidden at bottom, already showing its
ugliness here and there, disappointment and disgust were waiting.
Siddhartha did not notice it. He only noticed that this bright and
reliable voice inside of him, which had awoken in him at that time and
had ever guided him in his best times, had become silent.
And after each big loss, his mind was set on new riches, pursued the
trade more zealously, forced his debtors more strictly to pay, because
he wanted to continue gambling, he wanted to continue squandering,
continue demonstrating his disdain of wealth. Siddhartha lost his
calmness when losses occurred, lost his patience when he was not payed
on time, lost his kindness towards beggars, lost his disposition for
giving away and loaning money to those who petitioned him. He, who
gambled away tens of thousands at one roll of the dice and laughed at
it, became more strict and more petty in his business, occasionally
dreaming at night about money! And whenever he woke up from this ugly
spell, whenever he found his face in the mirror at the bedroom's wall to
have aged and become more ugly, whenever embarrassment and disgust came
over him, he continued fleeing, fleeing into a new game, fleeing into a
numbing of his mind brought on by sex, by wine, and from there he fled
back into the urge to pile up and obtain possessions. In this pointless
cycle he ran, growing tired, growing old, growing ill.
Then the time came when a dream warned him. He had spend the hours of
the evening with Kamala, in her beautiful pleasure-garden. They had
been sitting under the trees, talking, and Kamala had said thoughtful
words, words behind which a sadness and tiredness lay hidden. She had
asked him to tell her about Gotama, and could not hear enough of him,
how clear his eyes, how still and beautiful his mouth, how kind his
smile, how peaceful his walk had been. For a long time, he had to tell
her about the exalted Buddha, and Kamala had sighed and had said: "One
day, perhaps soon, I'll also follow that Buddha. I'll give him my
pleasure-garden for a gift and take my refuge in his teachings." But
after this, she had aroused him, and had tied him to her in the act
of making love with painful fervour, biting and in tears, as if, once
more, she wanted to squeeze the last sweet drop out of this vain,
fleeting pleasure. Never before, it had become so strangely clear to
Siddhartha, how closely lust was akin to death. Then he had lain by
her side, and Kamala's face had been close to him, and under her eyes
and next to the corners of her mouth he had, as clearly as never before,
read a fearful inscription, an inscription of small lines, of slight
grooves, an inscription reminiscent of autumn and old age, just as
Siddhartha himself, who was only in his forties, had already noticed,
here and there, gray hairs among his black ones. Tiredness was written
on Kamala's beautiful face, tiredness from walking a long path, which
has no happy destination, tiredness and the beginning of withering,
and concealed, still unsaid, perhaps not even conscious anxiety: fear of
old age, fear of the autumn, fear of having to die. With a sigh, he had
bid his farewell to her, the soul full of reluctance, and full of
concealed anxiety.
Then, Siddhartha had spent the night in his house with dancing girls
and wine, had acted as if he was superior to them towards the
fellow-members of his caste, though this was no longer true, had drunk
much wine and gone to bed a long time after midnight, being tired and
yet excited, close to weeping and despair, and had for a long time
sought to sleep in vain, his heart full of misery which he thought he
could not bear any longer, full of a disgust which he felt penetrating
his entire body like the lukewarm, repulsive taste of the wine, the
just too sweet, dull music, the just too soft smile of the dancing
girls, the just too sweet scent of their hair and breasts. But more
than by anything else, he was disgusted by himself, by his perfumed
hair, by the smell of wine from his mouth, by the flabby tiredness and
listlessness of his skin. Like when someone, who has eaten and drunk
far too much, vomits it back up again with agonising pain and is
nevertheless glad about the relief, thus this sleepless man wished to
free himself of these pleasures, these habits and all of this pointless
life and himself, in an immense burst of disgust. Not until the light
of the morning and the beginning of the first activities in the street
before his city-house, he had slightly fallen asleep, had found for a
few moments a half unconsciousness, a hint of sleep. In those moments,
he had a dream:
Kamala owned a small, rare singing bird in a golden cage. Of this bird,
he dreamt. He dreamt: this bird had become mute, who at other times
always used to sing in the morning, and since this arose his attention,
he stepped in front of the cage and looked inside; there the small bird
was dead and lay stiff on the ground. He took it out, weighed it for a
moment in his hand, and then threw it away, out in the street, and in
the same moment, he felt terribly shocked, and his heart hurt, as if he
had thrown away from himself all value and everything good by throwing
out this dead bird.
Then, Siddhartha knew that the game was over, that he could not play it
any more. Shivers ran over his body, inside of him, so he felt,
something had died.
That entire day, he sat under the mango-tree, thinking of his father,
thinking of Govinda, thinking of Gotama. Did he have to leave them to
become a Kamaswami? He still sat there, when the night had fallen.
When, looking up, he caught sight of the stars, he thought: "Here I'm
sitting under my mango-tree, in my pleasure-garden." He smiled a little
--was it really necessary, was it right, was it not as foolish game,
that he owned a mango-tree, that he owned a garden?
He also put an end to this, this also died in him. He rose, bid his
farewell to the mango-tree, his farewell to the pleasure-garden. Since
he had been without food this day, he felt strong hunger, and thought
of his house in the city, of his chamber and bed, of the table with the
meals on it. He smiled tiredly, shook himself, and bid his farewell to
these things.
In the same hour of the night, Siddhartha left his garden, left the
city, and never came back. For a long time, Kamaswami had people look
for him, thinking that he had fallen into the hands of robbers. Kamala
had no one look for him. When she was told that Siddhartha had
disappeared, she was not astonished. Did she not always expect it? Was
he not a Samana, a man who was at home nowhere, a pilgrim? And most of
all, she had felt this the last time they had been together, and she was
happy, in spite of all the pain of the loss, that she had pulled him so
affectionately to her heart for this last time, that she had felt one
more time to be so completely possessed and penetrated by him.
When she received the first news of Siddhartha's disappearance, she went
to the window, where she held a rare singing bird captive in a golden
cage. She opened the door of the cage, took the bird out and let it
fly. For a long time, she gazed after it, the flying bird. From this
day on, she received no more visitors and kept her house locked. But
after some time, she became aware that she was pregnant from the last
time she was together with Siddhartha.
BY THE RIVER
Siddhartha walked through the forest, was already far from the city, and
knew nothing but that one thing, that there was no going back for him,
that this life, as he had lived it for many years until now, was over
and done away with, and that he had tasted all of it, sucked everything
out of it until he was disgusted with it. Dead was the singing bird, he
had dreamt of. Dead was the bird in his heart. Deeply, he had been
entangled in Sansara, he had sucked up disgust and death from all sides
into his body, like a sponge sucks up water until it is full. And full
he was, full of the feeling of been sick of it, full of misery, full of
death, there was nothing left in this world which could have attracted
him, given him joy, given him comfort.
Siddhartha reached the large river in the forest, the same river over
which a long time ago, when he had still been a young man and came from
the town of Gotama, a ferryman had conducted him. By this river he
stopped, hesitantly he stood at the bank. Tiredness and hunger had
weakened him, and whatever for should he walk on, wherever to, to which
goal? No, there were no more goals, there was nothing left but the
deep, painful yearning to shake off this whole desolate dream, to spit
out this stale wine, to put an end to this miserable and shameful life.
With a distorted face, he stared into the water, saw the reflection of
his face and spit at it. In deep tiredness, he took his arm away from
the trunk of the tree and turned a bit, in order to let himself fall
straight down, in order to finally drown. With his eyes closed, he
slipped towards death.
Then, out of remote areas of his soul, out of past times of his now
weary life, a sound stirred up. It was a word, a syllable, which he,
without thinking, with a slurred voice, spoke to himself, the old word
which is the beginning and the end of all prayers of the Brahmans, the
holy "Om", which roughly means "that what is perfect" or "the
completion". And in the moment when the sound of "Om" touched
Siddhartha's ear, his dormant spirit suddenly woke up and realized the
foolishness of his actions.
Siddhartha was deeply shocked. So this was how things were with him,
so doomed was he, so much he had lost his way and was forsaken by all
knowledge, that he had been able to seek death, that this wish, this
wish of a child, had been ale to grow in him: to find rest by
annihilating his body! What all agony of these recent times, all
sobering realizations, all desperation had not brought about, this was
brought on by this moment, when the Om entered his consciousness: he
became aware of himself in his misery and in his error.
Om! he spoke to himself: Om! and again he knew about Brahman, knew
about the indestructibility of life, knew about all that is divine,
which he had forgotten.
But this was only a moment, flash. By the foot of the coconut-tree,
Siddhartha collapsed, struck down by tiredness, mumbling Om, placed his
head on the root of the tree and fell into a deep sleep.
Deep was his sleep and without dreams, for a long time he had not known
such a sleep any more. When he woke up after many hours, he felt as if
ten years had passed, he heard the water quietly flowing, did not know
where he was and who had brought him here, opened his eyes, saw with
astonishment that there were trees and the sky above him, and he
remembered where he was and how he got here. But it took him a long
while for this, and the past seemed to him as if it had been covered by
a veil, infinitely distant, infinitely far away, infinitely meaningless.
He only knew that his previous life (in the first moment when he thought
about it, this past life seemed to him like a very old, previous
incarnation, like an early pre-birth of his present self)--that his
previous life had been abandoned by him, that, full of disgust and
wretchedness, he had even intended to throw his life away, but that by a
river, under a coconut-tree, he has come to his senses, the holy word
Om on his lips, that then he had fallen asleep and had now woken up and
was looking at the world as a new man. Quietly, he spoke the word Om to
himself, speaking which he had fallen asleep, and it seemed to him as if
his entire long sleep had been nothing but a long meditative recitation
of Om, a thinking of Om, a submergence and complete entering into Om,
into the nameless, the perfected.
What a wonderful sleep had this been! Never before by sleep, he had
been thus refreshed, thus renewed, thus rejuvenated! Perhaps, he had
really died, had drowned and was reborn in a new body? But no, he knew
himself, he knew his hand and his feet, knew the place where he lay,
knew this self in his chest, this Siddhartha, the eccentric, the weird
one, but this Siddhartha was nevertheless transformed, was renewed,
was strangely well rested, strangely awake, joyful and curious.
"I have been sleeping," said Siddhartha. "However did you get here?"
"I thank you, Samana, for watching out over my sleep," spoke Siddhartha.
"You're friendly, you followers of the exalted one. Now you may go
then."
"I know you, oh Govinda, from your father's hut, and from the school
of the Brahmans, and from the offerings, and from our walk to the
Samanas, and from that hour when you took your refuge with the exalted
one in the grove Jetavana."
"Right so, my dear, you have observed well, your keen eyes see
everything. But I haven't said to you that I was a Samana. I said:
I'm on a pilgrimage. And so it is: I'm on a pilgrimage."
"I believe you, my dear Govinda. But now, today, you've met a pilgrim
just like this, wearing such shoes, such a garment. Remember, my dear:
Not eternal is the world of appearances, not eternal, anything but
eternal are our garments and the style of our hair, and our hair and
bodies themselves. I'm wearing a rich man's clothes, you've seen this
quite right. I'm wearing them, because I have been a rich man, and I'm
wearing my hair like the worldly and lustful people, for I have been
one of them."
"I don't know it, I don't know it just like you. I'm travelling. I was
a rich man and am no rich man any more, and what I'll be tomorrow, I
don't know."
"I've lost them or they me. They somehow happened to slip away from me.
The wheel of physical manifestations is turning quickly, Govinda. Where
is Siddhartha the Brahman? Where is Siddhartha the Samana? Where is
Siddhartha the rich man? Non-eternal things change quickly, Govinda,
you know it."
Govinda looked at the friend of his youth for a long time, with doubt in
his eyes. After that, he gave him the salutation which one would use
on a gentleman and went on his way.
With a smiling face, Siddhartha watched him leave, he loved him still,
this faithful man, this fearful man. And how could he not have loved
everybody and everything in this moment, in the glorious hour after his
wonderful sleep, filled with Om! The enchantment, which had happened
inside of him in his sleep and by means of the Om, was this very thing
that he loved everything, that he was full of joyful love for everything
he saw. And it was this very thing, so it seemed to him now, which had
been his sickness before, that he was not able to love anybody or
anything.
With a smiling face, Siddhartha watched the leaving monk. The sleep had
strengthened him much, but hunger gave him much pain, for by now he had
not eaten for two days, and the times were long past when he had been
tough against hunger. With sadness, and yet also with a smile, he
thought of that time. In those days, so he remembered, he had boasted
of three three things to Kamala, had been able to do three noble and
undefeatable feats: fasting--waiting--thinking. These had been his
possession, his power and strength, his solid staff; in the busy,
laborious years of his youth, he had learned these three feats, nothing
else. And now, they had abandoned him, none of them was his any more,
neither fasting, nor waiting, nor thinking. For the most wretched
things, he had given them up, for what fades most quickly, for sensual
lust, for the good life, for riches! His life had indeed been strange.
And now, so it seemed, now he had really become a childlike person.
Now, he thought, since all theses most easily perishing things have
slipped from me again, now I'm standing here under the sun again just as
I have been standing here a little child, nothing is mine, I have no
abilities, there is nothing I could bring about, I have learned nothing.
How wondrous is this! Now, that I'm no longer young, that my hair is
already half gray, that my strength is fading, now I'm starting again
at the beginning and as a child! Again, he had to smile. Yes, his fate
had been strange! Things were going downhill with him, and now he was
again facing the world void and naked and stupid. But he could not feed
sad about this, no, he even felt a great urge to laugh, to laugh about
himself, to laugh about this strange, foolish world.
"Things are going downhill with you!" he said to himself, and laughed
about it, and as he was saying it, he happened to glance at the river,
and he also saw the river going downhill, always moving on downhill,
and singing and being happy through it all. He liked this well, kindly
he smiled at the river. Was this not the river in which he had intended
to drown himself, in past times, a hundred years ago, or had he dreamed
this?
Wherever from, he asked his heart, where from did you get this
happiness? Might it come from that long, good sleep, which has done me
so good? Or from the word Om, which I said? Or from the fact that I
have escaped, that I have completely fled, that I am finally free again
and am standing like a child under the sky? Oh how good is it to have
fled, to have become free! How clean and beautiful is the air here, how
good to breathe! There, where I ran away from, there everything smelled
of ointments, of spices, of wine, of excess, of sloth. How did I hate
this world of the rich, of those who revel in fine food, of the
gamblers! How did I hate myself for staying in this terrible world for
so long! How did I hate myself, have deprive, poisoned, tortured
myself, have made myself old and evil! No, never again I will, as I
used to like doing so much, delude myself into thinking that Siddhartha
was wise! But this one thing I have done well, this I like, this I must
praise, that there is now an end to that hatred against myself, to that
foolish and dreary life! I praise you, Siddhartha, after so many years
of foolishness, you have once again had an idea, have done something,
have heard the bird in your chest singing and have followed it!
Now Siddhartha also got some idea of why he had fought this self in
vain as a Brahman, as a penitent. Too much knowledge had held him
back, too many holy verses, too many sacrificial rules, to much
self-castigation, so much doing and striving for that goal! Full of
arrogance, he had been, always the smartest, always working the most,
always one step ahead of all others, always the knowing and spiritual
one, always the priest or wise one. Into being a priest, into this
arrogance, into this spirituality, his self had retreated, there it sat
firmly and grew, while he thought he would kill it by fasting and
penance. Now he saw it and saw that the secret voice had been right,
that no teacher would ever have been able to bring about his salvation.
Therefore, he had to go out into the world, lose himself to lust and
power, to woman and money, had to become a merchant, a dice-gambler, a
drinker, and a greedy person, until the priest and Samana in him was
dead. Therefore, he had to continue bearing these ugly years, bearing
the disgust, the emptiness, the pointlessness of a dreary and
wasted life up to the end, up to bitter despair, until Siddhartha the
lustful, Siddhartha the greedy could also die. He had died, a new
Siddhartha had woken up from the sleep. He would also grow old, he
would also eventually have to die, mortal was Siddhartha, mortal was
every physical form. But today he was young, was a child, the new
Siddhartha, and was full of joy.
THE FERRYMAN
Tenderly, he looked into the rushing water, into the transparent green,
into the crystal lines of its drawing, so rich in secrets. Bright
pearls he saw rising from the deep, quiet bubbles of air floating on
the reflecting surface, the blue of the sky being depicted in it. With
a thousand eyes, the river looked at him, with green ones, with white
ones, with crystal ones, with sky-blue ones. How did he love this
water, how did it delight him, how grateful was he to it! In his heart
he heard the voice talking, which was newly awaking, and it told him:
Love this water! Stay near it! Learn from it! Oh yes, he wanted to
learn from it, he wanted to listen to it. He who would understand this
water and its secrets, so it seemed to him, would also understand many
other things, many secrets, all secrets.
But out of all secrets of the river, he today only saw one, this one
touched his soul. He saw: this water ran and ran, incessantly it ran,
and was nevertheless always there, was always an at all times the same
and yet new in every moment! Great be he who would grasp this,
understand this! He understood and grasped it not, only felt some idea
of it stirring, a distant memory, divine voices.
When he reached the ferry, the boat was just ready, and the same
ferryman who had once transported the young Samana across the river,
stood in the boat, Siddhartha recognised him, he had also aged very
much.
The ferryman, being astonished to see such an elegant man walking along
and on foot, took him into his boat and pushed it off the bank.
"It's a beautiful life you have chosen for yourself," the passenger
spoke. "It must be beautiful to live by this water every day and to
cruise on it."
With a smile, the man at the oar moved from side to side: "It is
beautiful, sir, it is as you say. But isn't every life, isn't every
work beautiful?"
"Ah, you would soon stop enjoying it. This is nothing for people
wearing fine clothes."
Siddhartha laughed. "Once before, I have been looked upon today because
of my clothes, I have been looked upon with distrust. Wouldn't you,
ferryman, like to accept these clothes, which are a nuisance to me,
from me? For you must know, I have no money to pay your fare."
"I'm not joking, friend. Behold, once before you have ferried me across
this water in your boat for the immaterial reward of a good deed. Thus,
do it today as well, and accept my clothes for it."
"Now I recognise you," he finally said. "At one time, you've slept in
my hut, this was a long time ago, possibly more than twenty years ago,
and you've been ferried across the river by me, and we parted like good
friends. Haven't you've been a Samana? I can't think of your name any
more."
"My name is Siddhartha, and I was a Samana, when you've last seen me."
They had reached the middle of the river, and Vasudeva pushed the oar
with more strength, in order to overcome the current. He worked calmly,
his eyes fixed in on the front of the boat, with brawny arms.
Siddhartha sat and watched him, and remembered, how once before, on that
last day of his time as a Samana, love for this man had stirred in his
heart. Gratefully, he accepted Vasudeva's invitation. When they had
reached the bank, he helped him to tie the boat to the stakes; after
this, the ferryman asked him to enter the hut, offered him bread and
water, and Siddhartha ate with eager pleasure, and also ate with eager
pleasure of the mango fruits, Vasudeva offered him.
Afterwards, it was almost the time of the sunset, they sat on a log by
the bank, and Siddhartha told the ferryman about where he originally
came from and about his life, as he had seen it before his eyes today,
in that hour of despair. Until late at night, lasted his tale.
But in the end of Siddhartha's tale, when he spoke of the tree by the
river, and of his deep fall, of the holy Om, and how he had felt such
a love for the river after his slumber, the ferryman listened with twice
the attention, entirely and completely absorbed by it, with his eyes
closed.
But when Siddhartha fell silent, and a long silence had occurred, then
Vasudeva said: "It is as I thought. The river has spoken to you. It
is your friend as well, it speaks to you as well. That is good, that is
very good. Stay with me, Siddhartha, my friend. I used to have a wife,
her bed was next to mine, but she has died a long time ago, for a long
time, I have lived alone. Now, you shall live with me, there is space
and food for both."
"I thank you," said Siddhartha, "I thank you and accept. And I also
thank you for this, Vasudeva, for listening to me so well! These people
are rare who know how to listen. And I did not meet a single one who
knew it as well as you did. I will also learn in this respect from
you."
"You will learn it," spoke Vasudeva, "but not from me. The river has
taught me to listen, from it you will learn it as well. It knows
everything, the river, everything can be learned from it. See, you've
already learned this from the water too, that it is good to strive
downwards, to sink, to seek depth. The rich and elegant Siddhartha is
becoming an oarsman's servant, the learned Brahman Siddhartha becomes a
ferryman: this has also been told to you by the river. You'll learn
that other thing from it as well."
Siddhartha stayed with the ferryman and learned to operate the boat, and
when there was nothing to do at the ferry, he worked with Vasudeva in
the rice-field, gathered wood, plucked the fruit off the banana-trees.
He learned to build an oar, and learned to mend the boat, and to weave
baskets, and was joyful because of everything he learned, and the days
and months passed quickly. But more than Vasudeva could teach him, he
was taught by the river. Incessantly, he learned from it. Most of all,
he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart,
with a waiting, opened soul, without passion, without a wish, without
judgement, without an opinion.
"Did you," so he asked him at one time, "did you too learn that secret
from the river: that there is no time?"
"Yes, Siddhartha," he spoke. "It is this what you mean, isn't it: that
the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the
waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains,
everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not
the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future?"
"This it is," said Siddhartha. "And when I had learned it, I looked at
my life, and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was only
separated from the man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by a
shadow, not by something real. Also, Siddhartha's previous births were
no past, and his death and his return to Brahma was no future. Nothing
was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is
present."
And once again, when the river had just increased its flow in the rainy
season and made a powerful noise, then said Siddhartha: "Isn't it so,
oh friend, the river has many voices, very many voices? Hasn't it the
voice of a king, and of a warrior, and of a bull, and of a bird of the
night, and of a woman giving birth, and of a sighing man, and a thousand
other voices more?"
"So it is," Vasudeva nodded, "all voices of the creatures are in its
voice."
"And do you know," Siddhartha continued, "what word it speaks, when you
succeed in hearing all of its ten thousand voices at once?"
And time after time, his smile became more similar to the ferryman's,
became almost just as bright, almost just as throughly glowing with
bliss, just as shining out of thousand small wrinkles, just as alike to
a child's, just as alike to an old man's. Many travellers, seeing the
two ferrymen, thought they were brothers. Often, they sat in the
evening together by the bank on the log, said nothing and both listened
to the water, which was no water to them, but the voice of life, the
voice of what exists, of what is eternally taking shape. And it
happened from time to time that both, when listening to the river,
thought of the same things, of a conversation from the day before
yesterday, of one of their travellers, the face and fate of whom had
occupied their thoughts, of death, of their childhood, and that they
both in the same moment, when the river had been saying something good
to them, looked at each other, both thinking precisely the same thing,
both delighted about the same answer to the same question.
There was something about this ferry and the two ferrymen which was
transmitted to others, which many of the travellers felt. It happened
occasionally that a traveller, after having looked at the face of one of
the ferrymen, started to tell the story of his life, told about pains,
confessed evil things, asked for comfort and advice. It happened
occasionally that someone asked for permission to stay for a night with
them to listen to the river. It also happened that curious people came,
who had been told that there were two wise men, or sorcerers, or holy
men living by that ferry. The curious people asked many questions, but
they got no answers, and they found neither sorcerers nor wise men, they
only found two friendly little old men, who seemed to be mute and to
have become a bit strange and gaga. And the curious people laughed and
were discussing how foolishly and gullibly the common people were
spreading such empty rumours.
The years passed by, and nobody counted them. Then, at one time, monks
came by on a pilgrimage, followers of Gotama, the Buddha, who were
asking to be ferried across the river, and by them the ferrymen were
told that they were were most hurriedly walking back to their great
teacher, for the news had spread the exalted one was deadly sick and
would soon die his last human death, in order to become one with the
salvation. It was not long, until a new flock of monks came along on
their pilgrimage, and another one, and the monks as well as most of the
other travellers and people walking through the land spoke of nothing
else than of Gotama and his impending death. And as people are flocking
from everywhere and from all sides, when they are going to war or to the
coronation of a king, and are gathering like ants in droves, thus they
flocked, like being drawn on by a magic spell, to where the great Buddha
was awaiting his death, where the huge event was to take place and the
great perfected one of an era was to become one with the glory.
Often, Siddhartha thought in those days of the dying wise man, the
great teacher, whose voice had admonished nations and had awoken
hundreds of thousands, whose voice he had also once heard, whose holy
face he had also once seen with respect. Kindly, he thought of him, saw
his path to perfection before his eyes, and remembered with a smile
those words which he had once, as a young man, said to him, the exalted
one. They had been, so it seemed to him, proud and precocious words;
with a smile, he remembered them. For a long time he knew that there
was nothing standing between Gotama and him any more, though he was
still unable to accept his teachings. No, there was no teaching a
truly searching person, someone who truly wanted to find, could accept.
But he who had found, he could approve of any teachings, every path,
every goal, there was nothing standing between him and all the other
thousand any more who lived in that what is eternal, who breathed what
is divine.
Kamala often hat to take a rest with him, he was accustomed to having
his way against her, she had to feed him, had to comfort him, had to
scold him. He did not comprehend why he had to to go on this exhausting
and sad pilgrimage with his mother, to an unknown place, to a stranger,
who was holy and about to die. So what if he died, how did this concern
the boy?
Hurriedly, they now both ran along the path, in order to reach people,
and got near to the ferry, there Kamala collapsed, and was not able to
go any further. But the boy started crying miserably, only interrupting
it to kiss and hug his mother, and she also joined his loud screams for
help, until the sound reached Vasudeva's ears, who stood at the ferry.
Quickly, he came walking, took the woman on his arms, carried her into
the boat, the boy ran along, and soon they all reached the hut, were
Siddhartha stood by the stove and was just lighting the fire. He looked
up and first saw the boy's face, which wondrously reminded him of
something, like a warning to remember something he had forgotten. Then
he saw Kamala, whom he instantly recognised, though she lay unconscious
in the ferryman's arms, and now he knew that it was his own son, whose
face had been such a warning reminder to him, and the heart stirred in
his chest.
Kamala's wound was washed, but had already turned black and her body was
swollen, she was made to drink a healing potion. Her consciousness
returned, she lay on Siddhartha's bed in the hut and bent over her stood
Siddhartha, who used to love her so much. It seemed like a dream to
her; with a smile, she looked at her friend's face; just slowly she,
realized her situation, remembered the bite, called timidly for the boy.
Kamala looked into his eyes. She spoke with a heavy tongue, paralysed
by the poison. "You've become old, my dear," she said, "you've become
gray. But you are like the young Samana, who at one time came without
clothes, with dusty feet, to me into the garden. You are much more like
him, than you were like him at that time when you had left me and
Kamaswami. In the eyes, you're like him, Siddhartha. Alas, I have also
grown old, old--could you still recognise me?"
Kamala pointed to her boy and said: "Did you recognise him as well?
He is your son."
Her eyes became confused and fell shut. The boy wept, Siddhartha took
him on his knees, let him weep, petted his hair, and at the sight of
the child's face, a Brahman prayer came to his mind, which he had
learned a long time ago, when he had been a little boy himself. Slowly,
with a singing voice, he started to speak; from his past and childhood,
the words came flowing to him. And with that singsong, the boy became
calm, was only now and then uttering a sob and fell asleep. Siddhartha
placed him on Vasudeva's bed. Vasudeva stood by the stove and cooked
rice. Siddhartha gave him a look, which he returned with a smile.
Vasudeva nodded; over his friendly face ran the light of the stove's
fire.
Looking at him, she said: "Now I see that your eyes have changed as
well. They've become completely different. By what do I still
recognise that you're Siddhartha? It's you, and it's not you."
"You have achieved it?" she asked. "You have found peace?"
"I'm seeing it," she said, "I'm seeing it. I too will find peace."
Kamala never stopped looking into his eyes. She thought about her
pilgrimage to Gotama, which wanted to take, in order to see the face of
the perfected one, to breathe his peace, and she thought that she had
now found him in his place, and that it was good, just as good, as if
she had seen the other one. She wanted to tell this to him, but the
tongue no longer obeyed her will. Without speaking, she looked at him,
and he saw the life fading from her eyes. When the final pain filled
her eyes and made them grow dim, when the final shiver ran through her
limbs, his finger closed her eyelids.
For a long time, he sat and looked at her peacefully dead face. For a
long time, he observed her mouth, her old, tired mouth, with those lips,
which had become thin, and he remembered, that he used to, in the spring
of his years, compare this mouth with a freshly cracked fig. For a long
time, he sat, read in the pale face, in the tired wrinkles, filled
himself with this sight, saw his own face lying in the same manner,
just as white, just as quenched out, and saw at the same time his face
and hers being young, with red lips, with fiery eyes, and the feeling of
this both being present and at the same time real, the feeling of
eternity, completely filled every aspect of his being. Deeply he felt,
more deeply than ever before, in this hour, the indestructibility of
every life, the eternity of every moment.
When he rose, Vasudeva had prepared rice for him. But Siddhartha did
not eat. In the stable, where their goat stood, the two old men
prepared beds of straw for themselves, and Vasudeva lay himself down
to sleep. But Siddhartha went outside and sat this night before the
hut, listening to the river, surrounded by the past, touched and
encircled by all times of his life at the same time. But occasionally,
he rose, stepped to the door of the hut and listened, whether the boy
was sleeping.
Early in the morning, even before the sun could be seen, Vasudeva came
out of the stable and walked over to his friend.
"No, Vasudeva. I sat here, I was listening to the river. A lot it has
told me, deeply it has filled me with the healing thought, with the
thought of oneness."
While the boy was still asleep, they built the funeral pile.
THE SON
Timid and weeping, the boy had attended his mother's funeral; gloomy
and shy, he had listened to Siddhartha, who greeted him as his son and
welcomed him at his place in Vasudeva's hut. Pale, he sat for many
days by the hill of the dead, did not want to eat, gave no open look,
did not open his heart, met his fate with resistance and denial.
Rich and happy, he had called himself, when the boy had come to him.
Since time had passed on in the meantime, and the boy remained a
stranger and in a gloomy disposition, since he displayed a proud and
stubbornly disobedient heart, did not want to do any work, did not pay
his respect to the old men, stole from Vasudeva's fruit-trees, then
Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him
happiness and peace, but suffering and worry. But he loved him, and he
preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and joy
without the boy. Since young Siddhartha was in the hut, the old men had
split the work. Vasudeva had again taken on the job of the ferryman all
by himself, and Siddhartha, in order to be with his son, did the work in
the hut and the field.
For a long time, for long months, Siddhartha waited for his son to
understand him, to accept his love, to perhaps reciprocate it. For
long months, Vasudeva waited, watching, waited and said nothing. One
day, when Siddhartha the younger had once again tormented his father
very much with spite and an unsteadiness in his wishes and had broken
both of his rice-bowls, Vasudeva took in the evening his friend aside
and talked to him.
"Pardon me." he said, "from a friendly heart, I'm talking to you. I'm
seeing that you're tormenting yourself, I'm seeing that you're in grief.
You're son, my dear, is worrying you, and he is also worrying me. That
young bird is accustomed to a different life, to a different nest. He
has not, like you, ran away from riches and the city, being disgusted
and fed up with it; against his will, he had to leave all this behind.
I asked the river, oh friend, many times I have asked it. But the river
laughs, it laughs at me, it laughs at you and me, and is shaking with
laughter at out foolishness. Water wants to join water, youth wants to
join youth, your son is not in the place where he can prosper. You too
should ask the river; you too should listen to it!"
Troubled, Siddhartha looked into his friendly face, in the many wrinkles
of which there was incessant cheerfulness.
"How could I part with him?" he said quietly, ashamed. "Give me some
more time, my dear! See, I'm fighting for him, I'm seeking to win his
heart, with love and with friendly patience I intent to capture it.
One day, the river shall also talk to him, he also is called upon."
"I knew it. You don't force him, don't beat him, don't give him orders,
because you know that "soft" is stronger than "hard", Water stronger
than rocks, love stronger than force. Very good, I praise you. But
aren't you mistaken in thinking that you wouldn't force him, wouldn't
punish him? Don't you shackle him with your love? Don't you make him
feel inferior every day, and don't you make it even harder on him with
your kindness and patience? Don't you force him, the arrogant and
pampered boy, to live in a hut with two old banana-eaters, to whom even
rice is a delicacy, whose thoughts can't be his, whose hearts are old
and quiet and beats in a different pace than his? Isn't forced, isn't
he punished by all this?"
Quoth Vasudeva: "Bring him into the city, bring him into his mother's
house, there'll still be servants around, give him to them. And when
there aren't any around any more, bring him to a teacher, not for the
teachings' sake, but so that he shall be among other boys, and among
girls, and in the world which is his own. Have you never thought of
this?"
Siddhartha could not heed his friend's advice, he could not give up the
boy. He let the boy give him orders, he let him disregard him. He
said nothing and waited; daily, he began the mute struggle of
friendliness, the silent war of patience. Vasudeva also said nothing
and waited, friendly, knowing, patient. They were both masters of
patience.
At one time, when the boy's face reminded him very much of Kamala,
Siddhartha suddenly had to think of a line which Kamala a long time
ago, in the days of their youth, had once said to him. "You cannot
love," she had said to him, and he had agreed with her and had compared
himself with a star, while comparing the childlike people with falling
leaves, and nevertheless he had also sensed an accusation in that line.
Indeed, he had never been able to lose or devote himself completely to
another person, to forget himself, to commit foolish acts for the love
of another person; never he had been able to do this, and this was, as
it had seemed to him at that time, the great distinction which set him
apart from the childlike people. But now, since his son was here, now
he, Siddhartha, had also become completely a childlike person, suffering
for the sake of another person, loving another person, lost to a love,
having become a fool on account of love. Now he too felt, late, once
in his lifetime, this strongest and strangest of all passions, suffered
from it, suffered miserably, and was nevertheless in bliss, was
nevertheless renewed in one respect, enriched by one thing.
He did sense very well that this love, this blind love for his son, was
a passion, something very human, that it was Sansara, a murky source,
dark waters. Nevertheless, he felt at the same time, it was not
worthless, it was necessary, came from the essence of his own being.
This pleasure also had to be atoned for, this pain also had to be
endured, these foolish acts also had to be committed.
Through all this, the son let him commit his foolish acts, let him
court for his affection, let him humiliate himself every day by giving
in to his moods. This father had nothing which would have delighted
him and nothing which he would have feared. He was a good man, this
father, a good, kind, soft man, perhaps a very devout man, perhaps a
saint, all these there no attributes which could win the boy over. He
was bored by this father, who kept him prisoner here in this miserable
hut of his, he was bored by him, and for him to answer every naughtiness
with a smile, every insult with friendliness, every viciousness with
kindness, this very thing was the hated trick of this old sneak. Much
more the boy would have liked it if he had been threatened by him, if he
had been abused by him.
A day came, when what young Siddhartha had on his mind came bursting
forth, and he openly turned against his father. The latter had given
him a task, he had told him to gather brushwood. But the boy did not
leave the hut, in stubborn disobedience and rage he stayed where he was,
thumped on the ground with his feet, clenched his fists, and screamed in
a powerful outburst his hatred and contempt into his father's face.
"Get the brushwood for yourself!" he shouted foaming at the mouth, "I'm
not your servant. I do know, that you won't hit me, you don't dare; I
do know, that you constantly want to punish me and put me down with
your religious devotion and your indulgence. You want me to become like
you, just as devout, just as soft, just as wise! But I, listen up, just
to make you suffer, I rather want to become a highway-robber and
murderer, and go to hell, than to become like you! I hate you, you're
not my father, and if you've ten times been my mother's fornicator!"
Rage and grief boiled over in him, foamed at the father in a hundred
savage and evil words. Then the boy ran away and only returned late at
night.
But the next morning, he had disappeared. What had also disappeared was
a small basket, woven out of bast of two colours, in which the ferrymen
kept those copper and silver coins which they received as a fare.
The boat had also disappeared, Siddhartha saw it lying by the opposite
bank. The boy had ran away.
"I must follow him," said Siddhartha, who had been shivering with grief
since those ranting speeches, the boy had made yesterday. "A child
can't go through the forest all alone. He'll perish. We must build a
raft, Vasudeva, to get over the water."
"We will build a raft," said Vasudeva, "to get our boat back, which the
boy has taken away. But him, you shall let run along, my friend, he is
no child any more, he knows how to get around. He's looking for the
path to the city, and he is right, don't forget that. He's doing what
you've failed to do yourself. He's taking care of himself, he's taking
his course. Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you're suffering
a pain at which one would like to laugh, at which you'll soon laugh for
yourself."
Siddhartha did not answer. He already held the axe in his hands and
began to make a raft of bamboo, and Vasudeva helped him to tied the
canes together with ropes of grass. Then they crossed over, drifted
far off their course, pulled the raft upriver on the opposite bank.
But Siddhartha knew what his friend was thinking. He thought, the boy
would have thrown away or broken the oar in order to get even and in
order to keep them from following him. And in fact, there was no oar
left in the boat. Vasudeva pointed to the bottom of the boat and looked
at his friend with a smile, as if he wanted to say: "Don't you see what
your son is trying to tell you? Don't you see that he doesn't want to
be followed?" But he did not say this in words. He started making a
new oar. But Siddhartha bid his farewell, to look for the run-away.
Vasudeva did not stop him.
When Siddhartha had already been walking through the forest for a long
time, the thought occurred to him that his search was useless. Either,
so he thought, the boy was far ahead and had already reached the city,
or, if he should still be on his way, he would conceal himself from him,
the pursuer. As he continued thinking, he also found that he, on his
part, was not worried for his son, that he knew deep inside that he had
neither perished nor was in any danger in the forest. Nevertheless, he
ran without stopping, no longer to save him, just to satisfy his desire,
just to perhaps see him one more time. And he ran up to just outside of
the city.
When, near the city, he reached a wide road, he stopped, by the entrance
of the beautiful pleasure-garden, which used to belong to Kamala, where
he had seen her for the first time in her sedan-chair. The past rose
up in his soul, again he saw himself standing there, young, a bearded,
naked Samana, the hair full of dust. For a long time, Siddhartha stood
there and looked through the open gate into the garden, seeing monks in
yellow robes walking among the beautiful trees.
After having been standing by the gate of the garden for a long time,
Siddhartha realised that his desire was foolish, which had made him go
up to this place, that he could not help his son, that he was not
allowed to cling him. Deeply, he felt the love for the run-away in his
heart, like a wound, and he felt at the same time that this wound had
not been given to him in order to turn the knife in it, that it had to
become a blossom and had to shine.
That this wound did not blossom yet, did not shine yet, at this hour,
made him sad. Instead of the desired goal, which had drawn him here
following the runaway son, there was now emptiness. Sadly, he sat down,
felt something dying in his heart, experienced emptiness, saw no joy any
more, no goal. He sat lost in thought and waited. This he had learned
by the river, this one thing: waiting, having patience, listening
attentively. And he sat and listened, in the dust of the road, listened
to his heart, beating tiredly and sadly, waited for a voice. Many an
hour he crouched, listening, saw no images any more, fell into
emptiness, let himself fall, without seeing a path. And when he felt
the wound burning, he silently spoke the Om, filled himself with Om.
The monks in the garden saw him, and since he crouched for many hours,
and dust was gathering on his gray hair, one of them came to him and
placed two bananas in front of him. The old man did not see him.
OM
Differently than before, he now looked upon people, less smart, less
proud, but instead warmer, more curious, more involved. When he ferried
travellers of the ordinary kind, childlike people, businessmen,
warriors, women, these people did not seem alien to him as they used to:
he understood them, he understood and shared their life, which was not
guided by thoughts and insight, but solely by urges and wishes, he felt
like them. Though he was near perfection and was bearing his final
wound, it still seemed to him as if those childlike people were his
brothers, their vanities, desires for possession, and ridiculous aspects
were no longer ridiculous to him, became understandable, became lovable,
even became worthy of veneration to him. The blind love of a mother
for her child, the stupid, blind pride of a conceited father for his
only son, the blind, wild desire of a young, vain woman for jewelry and
admiring glances from men, all of these urges, all of this childish
stuff, all of these simple, foolish, but immensely strong, strongly
living, strongly prevailing urges and desires were now no childish
notions for Siddhartha any more, he saw people living for their sake,
saw them achieving infinitely much for their sake, travelling,
conducting wars, suffering infinitely much, bearing infinitely much, and
he could love them for it, he saw life, that what is alive, the
indestructible, the Brahman in each of their passions, each of their
acts. Worthy of love and admiration were these people in their blind
loyalty, their blind strength and tenacity. They lacked nothing, there
was nothing the knowledgeable one, the thinker, had to put him above them
except for one little thing, a single, tiny, small thing: the
consciousness, the conscious thought of the oneness of all life. And
Siddhartha even doubted in many an hour, whether this knowledge, this
thought was to be valued thus highly, whether it might not also perhaps
be a childish idea of the thinking people, of the thinking and childlike
people. In all other respects, the worldly people were of equal rank
to the wise men, were often far superior to them, just as animals too
can, after all, in some moments, seem to be superior to humans in their
tough, unrelenting performance of what is necessary.
But the wound still burned, longingly and bitterly Siddhartha thought of
his son, nurtured his love and tenderness in his heart, allowed the
pain to gnaw at him, committed all foolish acts of love. Not by itself,
this flame would go out.
And one day, when the wound burned violently, Siddhartha ferried across
the river, driven by a yearning, got off the boat and was willing to go
to the city and to look for his son. The river flowed softly and
quietly, it was the dry season, but its voice sounded strange: it
laughed! It laughed clearly. The river laughed, it laughed brightly
and clearly at the old ferryman. Siddhartha stopped, he bent over the
water, in order to hear even better, and he saw his face reflected in
the quietly moving waters, and in this reflected face there was
something, which reminded him, something he had forgotten, and as he
thought about it, he found it: this face resembled another face, which
he used to know and love and also fear. It resembled his father's face,
the Brahman. And he remembered how he, a long time ago, as a young man,
had forced his father to let him go to the penitents, how he had bed his
farewell to him, how he had gone and had never come back. Had his
father not also suffered the same pain for him, which he now suffered
for his son? Had his father not long since died, alone, without having
seen his son again? Did he not have to expect the same fate for
himself? Was it not a comedy, a strange and stupid matter, this
repetition, this running around in a fateful circle?
The river laughed. Yes, so it was, everything came back, which had not
been suffered and solved up to its end, the same pain was suffered over
and over again. But Siddhartha want back into the boat and ferried back
to the hut, thinking of his father, thinking of his son, laughed at by
the river, at odds with himself, tending towards despair, and not less
tending towards laughing along at himself and the entire world.
Alas, the wound was not blossoming yet, his heart was still fighting his
fate, cheerfulness and victory were not yet shining from his suffering.
Nevertheless, he felt hope, and once he had returned to the hut, he felt
an undefeatable desire to open up to Vasudeva, to show him everything,
the master of listening, to say everything.
Vasudeva was sitting in the hut and weaving a basket. He no longer used
the ferry-boat, his eyes were starting to get weak, and not just his
eyes; his arms and hands as well. Unchanged and flourishing was only
the joy and the cheerful benevolence of his face.
Siddhartha sat down next to the old man, slowly he started talking.
What they had never talked about, he now told him of, of his walk to
the city, at that time, of the burning wound, of his envy at the sight
of happy fathers, of his knowledge of the foolishness of such wishes, of
his futile fight against them. He reported everything, he was able to
say everything, even the most embarrassing parts, everything could be
said, everything shown, everything he could tell. He presented his
wound, also told how he fled today, how he ferried across the water,
a childish run-away, willing to walk to the city, how the river had
laughed.
While he spoke, spoke for a long time, while Vasudeva was listening
with a quiet face, Vasudeva's listening gave Siddhartha a stronger
sensation than ever before, he sensed how his pain, his fears flowed
over to him, how his secret hope flowed over, came back at him from
his counterpart. To show his wound to this listener was the same as
bathing it in the river, until it had cooled and become one with the
river. While he was still speaking, still admitting and confessing,
Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no
longer a human being, who was listening to him, that this motionless
listener was absorbing his confession into himself like a tree the rain,
that this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God himself,
that he was the eternal itself. And while Siddhartha stopped thinking
of himself and his wound, this realisation of Vasudeva's changed
character took possession of him, and the more he felt it and entered
into it, the less wondrous it became, the more he realised that
everything was in order and natural, that Vasudeva had already been like
this for a long time, almost forever, that only he had not quite
recognised it, yes, that he himself had almost reached the same state.
He felt, that he was now seeing old Vasudeva as the people see the
gods, and that this could not last; in his heart, he started bidding his
farewell to Vasudeva. Thorough all this, he talked incessantly.
When he had finished talking, Vasudeva turned his friendly eyes, which
had grown slightly weak, at him, said nothing, let his silent love and
cheerfulness, understanding and knowledge, shine at him. He took
Siddhartha's hand, led him to the seat by the bank, sat down with him,
smiled at the river.
Brightly, Vasudeva's smile was shining, floating radiantly over all the
wrinkles of his old face, as the Om was floating in the air over all the
voices of the river. Brightly his smile was shining, when he looked at
his friend, and brightly the same smile was now starting to shine on
Siddhartha's face as well. His wound blossomed, his suffering was
shining, his self had flown into the oneness.
Siddhartha made a deep bow before him who bid his farewell.
"I'm going into the forests, I'm going into the oneness," spoke Vasudeva
with a bright smile.
With a bright smile, he left; Siddhartha watched him leaving. With deep
joy, with deep solemnity he watched him leave, saw his steps full of
peace, saw his head full of lustre, saw his body full of light.
GOVINDA
Together with other monks, Govinda used to spend the time of rest
between pilgrimages in the pleasure-grove, which the courtesan Kamala
had given to the followers of Gotama for a gift. He heard talk of an
old ferryman, who lived one day's journey away by the river, and
who was regarded as a wise man by many. When Govinda went back on his
way, he chose the path to the ferry, eager to see the ferryman.
Because, though he had lived his entire life by the rules, though he was
also looked upon with veneration by the younger monks on account of his
age and his modesty, the restlessness and the searching still had not
perished from his heart.
He came to the river and asked the old man to ferry him over, and when
they got off the boat on the other side, he said to the old man:
"You're very good to us monks and pilgrims, you have already ferried
many of us across the river. Aren't you too, ferryman, a searcher for
the right path?"
Quoth Siddhartha, smiling from his old eyes: "Do you call yourself a
searcher, oh venerable one, though you are already of an old in years
and are wearing the robe of Gotama's monks?"
"It's true, I'm old," spoke Govinda, "but I haven't stopped searching.
Never I'll stop searching, this seems to be my destiny. You too, so it
seems to me, have been searching. Would you like to tell me something,
oh honourable one?"
"I don't quite understand yet," asked Govinda, "what do you mean by
this?"
Quoth Siddhartha: "A long time ago, oh venerable one, many years ago,
you've once before been at this river and have found a sleeping man by
the river, and have sat down with him to guard his sleep. But, oh
Govinda, you did not recognise the sleeping man."
"Are you Siddhartha?" he asked with a timid voice. "I wouldn't have
recognised you this time as well! From my heart, I'm greeting you,
Siddhartha; from my heart, I'm happy to see you once again! You've
changed a lot, my friend.--And so you've now become a ferryman?"
Govinda stayed the night in the hut and slept on the bed which used to
be Vasudeva's bed. Many questions he posed to the friend of his youth,
many things Siddhartha had to tell him from his life.
When in the next morning the time had come to start the day's journey,
Govinda said, not without hesitation, these words: "Before I'll
continue on my path, Siddhartha, permit me to ask one more question.
Do you have a teaching? Do you have a faith, or a knowledge, you
follow, which helps you to live and to do right?"
"I'm not kidding. I'm telling you what I've found. Knowledge can be
conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is
possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it
cannot be expressed in words and taught. This was what I, even as a
young man, sometimes suspected, what has driven me away from the
teachers. I have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard as
a joke or foolishness, but which is my best thought. It says: The
opposite of every truth is just as true! That's like this: any truth
can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided.
Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with
words, it's all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness,
roundness, oneness. When the exalted Gotama spoke in his teachings of
the world, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into deception
and truth, into suffering and salvation. It cannot be done differently,
there is no other way for him who wants to teach. But the world itself,
what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided. A person or
an act is never entirely Sansara or entirely Nirvana, a person is never
entirely holy or entirely sinful. It does really seem like this,
because we are subject to deception, as if time was something real.
Time is not real, Govinda, I have experienced this often and often
again. And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between
the world and the eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between
evil and good, is also a deception."
"Listen well, my dear, listen well! The sinner, which I am and which
you are, is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he
will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha--and now see: these "times to
come" are a deception, are only a parable! The sinner is not on his
way to become a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though
our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these
things. No, within the sinner is now and today already the future
Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in
you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible,
the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or
on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment,
all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small
children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already
have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is nor possible for
any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his
path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the
Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the
possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was,
is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is
good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see
whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness,
wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only
requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be
good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever
harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin
very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed
the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all
resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop
comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection
I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy
being a part of it.--These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which
have come into my mind."
Siddhartha bent down, picked up a stone from the ground, and weighed it
in his hand.
"This," he said playing with it, "is a stone, and will, after a
certain time, perhaps turn into soil, and will turn from soil into a
plant or animal or human being. In the past, I would have said: This
stone is just a stone, it is worthless, it belongs to the world of the
Maja; but because it might be able to become also a human being and a
spirit in the cycle of transformations, therefore I also grant it
importance. Thus, I would perhaps have thought in the past. But today
I think: this stone is a stone, it is also animal, it is also god, it is
also Buddha, I do not venerate and love it because it could turn into
this or that, but rather because it is already and always everything--
and it is this very fact, that it is a stone, that it appears to me now
and today as a stone, this is why I love it and see worth and purpose in
each of its veins and cavities, in the yellow, in the gray, in the
hardness, in the sound it makes when I knock at it, in the dryness or
wetness of its surface. There are stones which feel like oil or soap,
and others like leaves, others like sand, and every one is special and
prays the Om in its own way, each one is Brahman, but simultaneously and
just as much it is a stone, is oily or juicy, and this is this very fact
which I like and regard as wonderful and worthy of worship.--But let me
speak no more of this. The words are not good for the secret meaning,
everything always becomes a bit different, as soon as it is put into
words, gets distorted a bit, a bit silly--yes, and this is also very
good, and I like it a lot, I also very much agree with this, that this
what is one man's treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to
another person."
"Why have you told me this about the stone?" he asked hesitantly after
a pause.
"I did it without any specific intention. Or perhaps what I meant was,
that love this very stone, and the river, and all these things we are
looking at and from which we can learn. I can love a stone, Govinda,
and also a tree or a piece of bark. This are things, and things can be
loved. But I cannot love words. Therefore, teachings are no good for
me, they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no edges, no smell,
no taste, they have nothing but words. Perhaps it are these which keep
you from finding peace, perhaps it are the many words. Because
salvation and virtue as well, Sansara and Nirvana as well, are mere
words, Govinda. There is no thing which would be Nirvana; there is just
the word Nirvana."
Govinda said: "But is that what you call `things', actually something
real, something which has existence? Isn't it just a deception of the
Maja, just an image and illusion? Your stone, your tree, your river--
are they actually a reality?"
"This too," spoke Siddhartha, "I do not care very much about. Let the
things be illusions or not, after all I would then also be an illusion,
and thus they are always like me. This is what makes them so dear and
worthy of veneration for me: they are like me. Therefore, I can love
them. And this is now a teaching you will laugh about: love, oh
Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all. To
thoroughly understand the world, to explain it, to despise it, may be
the thing great thinkers do. But I'm only interested in being able to
love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it and me, to be able to
look upon it and me and all beings with love and admiration and great
respect."
"This I understand," spoke Govinda. "But this very thing was discovered
by the exalted one to be a deception. He commands benevolence,
clemency, sympathy, tolerance, but not love; he forbade us to tie our
heart in love to earthly things."
"I know it," said Siddhartha; his smile shone golden. "I know it,
Govinda. And behold, with this we are right in the middle of the
thicket of opinions, in the dispute about words. For I cannot deny, my
words of love are in a contradiction, a seeming contradiction with
Gotama's words. For this very reason, I distrust in words so much, for
I know, this contradiction is a deception. I know that I am in
agreement with Gotama. How should he not know love, he, who has
discovered all elements of human existence in their transitoriness, in
their meaninglessness, and yet loved people thus much, to use a long,
laborious life only to help them, to teach them! Even with him, even
with your great teacher, I prefer the thing over the words, place more
importance on his acts and life than on his speeches, more on the
gestures of his hand than his opinions. Not in his speech, not in his
thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life."
For a long time, the two old men said nothing. Then spoke Govinda,
while bowing for a farewell: "I thank you, Siddhartha, for telling me
some of your thoughts. They are partially strange thoughts, not all
have been instantly understandable to me. This being as it may, I thank
you, and I wish you to have calm days."
As Govinda thought like this, and there was a conflict in his heart, he
once again bowed to Siddhartha, drawn by love. Deeply he bowed to him
who was calmly sitting.
Siddhartha said nothing and looked at him with the ever unchanged,
quiet smile. Govinda stared at his face, with fear, with yearning,
suffering, and the eternal search was visible in his look, eternal
not-finding.
But while Govinda with astonishment, and yet drawn by great love and
expectation, obeyed his words, bent down closely to him and touched his
forehead with his lips, something miraculous happened to him. While his
thoughts were still dwelling on Siddhartha's wondrous words, while he
was still struggling in vain and with reluctance to think away time, to
imagine Nirvana and Sansara as one, while even a certain contempt for
the words of his friend was fighting in him against an immense love and
veneration, this happened to him:
Not knowing any more whether time existed, whether the vision had lasted
a second or a hundred years, not knowing any more whether there existed
a Siddhartha, a Gotama, a me and a you, feeling in his innermost self
as if he had been wounded by a divine arrow, the injury of which tasted
sweet, being enchanted and dissolved in his innermost self, Govinda
still stood for a little while bent over Siddhartha's quiet face, which
he had just kissed, which had just been the scene of all manifestations,
all transformations, all existence. The face was unchanged, after under
its surface the depth of the thousandfoldness had closed up again, he
smiled silently, smiled quietly and softly, perhaps very benevolently,
perhaps very mockingly, precisely as he used to smile, the exalted one.
Deeply, Govinda bowed; tears, he knew nothing of, ran down his old face;
like a fire burnt the feeling of the most intimate love, the humblest
veneration in his heart. Deeply, he bowed, touching the ground, before
him who was sitting motionlessly, whose smile reminded him of everything
he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to
him in his life.
. . .