 Chapter 1 of Siddhartha This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Peter Coon. Siddhartha by Herman Hasse The first part to Roman Rowland, my dear friend. Chapter 1 The Son of a Brahmin In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the riverbank near the boats, in the shade of the solwood forest, in the shade of the fig trees where Siddhartha grew up, the handsome son of the Brahmin, the young falcon, together with his friend Govinda, son of a Brahmin. The son 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, practicing debate with Govinda, practicing with Govinda the art of reflection, the service of meditation. He already knew how to speak the omen 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 omen in the depths of his being, indestructible, one with the universe. Joy leapt into 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 Brahmins. Bliss leapt into 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. Love touched the hearts of the Brahmins young daughters when Siddhartha walked through the lanes of the town, with the loom in his forehead, with the eye of a king, with his slim hips. But more than all the others he was loved by Govinda, his friend, the son of a Brahmin. 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 column. Govinda knew he would not become a common Brahmin. 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 Brahmins. 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 blueish 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 in a restlessness of the soul, fuming from the sacrifices, breathing forth from the verses of the Rig Vada, being infused into him, drop by drop, from the teachings of the old Brahmins. Siddhartha had started to nurse discontent in himself. He had started to feel that the love of his father and the love of his mother, and also the love of his friend, Govinda, would not bring him joy for ever and ever, would not nurse him, feed him, satisfy him. He had started to suspect that his venerable father and his other teachers, that the wise Brahmins had already revealed to him the most and best of their wisdom, that they had already filled his expecting vessel with their richness, and the vessel was not full, the spirit was not content, the soul was not calm, the heart was not satisfied. The ablutions were good, but they were water, they did not wash off the sin, they did not heal the spirit's thirst, they did not relieve the fear in his heart. The sacrifices and the invocation of the gods were excellent, but was that all? Did the sacrifices give him a happy fortune? And what about the gods? Was it really Prajapata who had created the world? Was it not the Atman, he, the only one, the singular one? Were the gods not creations, created like me and you, subject to time, mortal? Was it therefore good? Was it right? Was it meaningful and the highest occupation to make offerings to the gods? For whom else were offerings to be made? Who else was to be worshiped but him, the only one, the Atman? And where was Atman to be found? Where did he reside? Where did his eternal heart beat? Where else but in one's own self, in its innermost part, in its indestructible part, which everyone had in himself? But where, where was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part? It was not flesh and bone, it was neither thought nor consciousness, thus the wisest one's thought. So where, where was it? To reach this place, the self, myself, the Atman, there was another way, which was worthwhile looking for. Alas, and nobody showed this way. Nobody knew it, not the father and not the teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial songs. They knew everything, the Brahmins and their holy books. They knew everything. They had taken care of everything and of more than everything. The creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangements of the senses, the acts of the gods. They knew infinitely much. But was it valuable to know all this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing? Surely, many verses of the holy books, particularly in the Apanishads of Samaveda, spoke of this innermost and ultimate thing, wonderful verses. Your soul as the whole world was written there, and it was written that man in his sleep, in his deep sleep, would meet with his innermost part and would reside in the Atman. Marvelous wisdom was in these verses, all knowledge of the wisest ones had been collected here in magic words, pure as honey collected by bees. No, not to be looked down upon was the tremendous amount of enlightenment which lay here collected and preserved by innumerable generations of wise Brahmins. But where were the Brahmins? Where are the priests? Where are the wise men of penitents who had succeeded in not just knowing the steepest of all knowledge, but also to live it? Where was the knowledgeable one who wove his spell to bring his familiarity with the Atman out of the sleep and into the state of being awake, into life, into every step of the way, into word and deed? Siddhartha knew many venerable Brahmins, chiefly his father, the pure one, the scholar, the most venerable one. His father was to be admired, quiet and noble were his manners, pure his life, wise his words, delicate and noble thoughts lived behind its brow. But even he who knew so much, did he live in blissfulness? Did he have peace? Was he not also just a searching man, a thirsty man? Did he not again and again have to drink from holy sources as a thirsty man, from the offerings, from the books, from the disputes of the Brahmins? Why did he, the irreproachable one, have to wash off sins every day, strive for a cleansing every day, over and over every day? Was not Atman in him? Did not the pristine source spring from his heart? It had to be found, the pristine source in one's own self. It had to be possessed. Everything else was searching, was a detour, was getting lost. Thus were Siddhartha's thoughts. This was his thirst. This was his suffering. Often he spoke to himself from a Shandhojya Panashad. The words, Truly the name of the Brahmin is Satyam. Fairly, he who knows such a thing, will enter the heavenly world every day. Often it seemed near the heavenly world, but never he had reached it completely, never he had quenched the ultimate thirst. And among all the wise and wisest men he knew and whose instructions he had received, among all of them there was no one who had reached it completely, the heavenly world, who had quenched it completely, the eternal thirst. Govinda, Siddhartha spoke to his friend, Govinda, my dear friend, come with me under the banyan tree, let's practice meditation. 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, Om is the bow, the arrow is soul. The Brahmin is the arrow's target, that one should incessantly hit. After the usual time of the exercise and 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 toward a very distant target. The tip of his tongue was protruding a little between his teeth. He seemed not to breathe. Thus he sat, wrapped up in contemplation, thinking Om, his soul sent after the Brahmin as an arrow. Once Samanas had traveled through Siddhartha's town, ascetics on a pilgrimage, three skinny withered men, neither old nor young, with dusty and bloody shoulders, almost naked, scorched by the sun, surrounded by loneliness, strangers and enemies to the world, strangers and lank jackals in the realm of humans. Having them blew a hot scent of quiet passion, of destructive service, of merciless self-denial. In the evening, after the hour of contemplation, Siddhartha spoke to Govinda. Early tomorrow morning, my friend, Siddhartha will go to the Samanas. He will be calm as Samana. 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. Oh, Siddhartha, he exclaimed, will your father permit you to do that? Siddhartha looked over as if he was just waking up. So fast he read in Govinda's soul, read the fear, read the submission. Oh, Govinda, he spoke quietly. Let's not waste words. Tomorrow at daybreak I will begin the life of the Samanas. Speak no more of it. Siddhartha entered the chamber where his father was sitting on a mat of past, and stepped behind his father and remained standing there until his father felt that someone was standing behind him. With the Brahman, is that you, Siddhartha? Then say what you came to say. Close Siddhartha, with your permission, my father, I came to tell you that it is my longing to leave your house tomorrow and go to the ascetics. My desire is to become a Samana. May my father not oppose this. 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 sun 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 is it 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. What are you waiting for, asked the father. Quote Siddhartha, you know what. 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 the 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, and saw Siddhartha standing in the moonlight, by the light of the stars in the darkness. And he came back hour after hour, silently, he looked into the chamber, and 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 like a stranger to him. Siddhartha, he spoke, what are you waiting for? You know what? Will you always stand that way and wait until it's become morning, noon, and evening? I will stand and wait. You will become tired, Siddhartha. I will become tired. You will fall asleep, Siddhartha. I will not fall asleep. You will die, Siddhartha. I will die. And would you rather die than obey your father? Siddhartha has always obeyed his father. So will you abandon your plan? Siddhartha will do what his father will tell him to do. The first light of day shone into the room. The Brahmin 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, and that he had already left him. The father touched Siddhartha's shoulder. 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 his 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 the day, the still quiet town, a shadow rose near the last hut, who had crouched there and joined the pilgrim, Govinda. You have come, said Siddhartha, and smiled. I have come, said Govinda. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Siddhartha by Hermann Hess. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. With the Samanas 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 gave his garments to a poor Brahmin in the street. He wore nothing more than the loincloth and the earth-colored, unsone cloak. He ate only once a day and never something cooked. He fasted for fifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight days. The flesh waning from his thighs and cheeks. Feverish dreams flickered from his enlarged eyes. Long nails grew slowly on his parched fingers, and a dry, shaggy beard grew on his chin. His glance turned to ice when he encountered women. His mouth twitched with contempt when he walked through a city of nicely dressed people. He saw merchants trading, princes hunting, mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians trying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day for seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children, and all of this was not worthy of one look from his eyes. It all lied, it all stank, it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful and beautiful, and it all was just concealed putrification. The world tasted bitter, life was tortured. A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal, to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow, dead to himself not to be a self anymore, to find tranquility with an emptied heart, to be open to miracles and unselfish thoughts. That was his goal. Once all of myself was overcome and had died, once every part of desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being which is no longer myself, the great secret. Silently Siddhartha exposed himself to burning rays of the sun directly above, glowing with his pain, glowing with thirst and stood there until he neither felt any pain nor thirst anymore. Silently he stood there in the rainy season, from his hair the water was dripping over freezing shoulders, over freezing hips and legs, and a penitent stood there until he could not feel the cold in his shoulders and legs anymore, until they were silent, until they were quiet. Silently he cowered in the thorny bushes, blood dripped from the burning skin, from festering wounds dripped pus, and Siddhartha stayed rigidly, stayed motionless, until no blood flowed anymore, until nothing stung anymore, until nothing burned anymore. Siddhartha sat upright and learned to breathe sparingly, learned to get along with only few breaths, learned to stop breathing. He learned, beginning with the breath, to calm the beat of his heart, learned to reduce the beats of his heart until they were only a few and almost none. Instructed by the oldest of the Samanas, Siddhartha practiced self-denial, practiced meditation according to a new Samana rules. The heron flew over the bamboo forest and Siddhartha accepted the heron into his soul, flew over forest and mountains, was a heron, ate fish, felt the pangs of a heron's hunger, spoke the heron's croak, died a heron's death. The dead jackal was lying on the sandy bank, and Siddhartha's soul slipped inside the body, was the dead jackal. Lay on the banks, got bloated, stank, decayed, was dismembered by hyenas, was skinned by vultures, turned into a skeleton, turned to dust, was blown across the fields. And Siddhartha's soul returned, had died, had decayed, and was scattered as dust, had tasted the gloomy intoxication of the cycle, awaited a new thirst like a hunter in the gap, where he could escape from the cycle, where the end of the causes, where an eternity without suffering began. He killed his senses, he killed his memory, he slipped out of his self into thousands of other forms, was an animal, was carrion, was stone, was wood, was water, and awoke every time to find his old self again, sun shone or moon, was his self again, turned round in the cycle, felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt new thirst. 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, and 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, the thousand times he left his self, for hours and days he remained in this 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, he 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 once 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? Govinda answered, We have learned, and will continue learning. You'll be a great Samana, Siddhartha. Quickly you've learned every exercise. Often the old Samanas have admired you. One day you'll be a holy man, O Siddhartha. Quote 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, O Govinda, I could have learned more quickly and by simpler means. In every tavern of that part of town where the whorehouses are, my friend, among carters and gamblers I could have learned it. Quote Govinda, Siddhartha is putting me on. How could you have learned meditation, holding your breath, insensitivity against hunger and pain there among these wretched people? And Siddhartha said quietly as if he was talking to himself. What is meditation? What is leaving one's body? What is fasting? What is holding one's breath? It is fleeing from the self. It is a short escape of the agony of being a self. It is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short numbing, is what the driver of an ox cart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of rice wine or fermented coconut milk. Then he won't feel his self any more. Then he won't feel the pains of life any more. Then he finds a short numbing of the senses. When he falls asleep over his bowl of rice wine, he'll find the same what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape their bodies through long exercises, staying in the non-self. This is how it is, O Govinda. With Govinda, you say so, O friend, and yet you know that Siddhartha is no driver of an ox cart, and as 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. When 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, O 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, O 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. Quote Govinda, We have learned a lot, Siddhartha. There is still much to learn. We are not going around in circles. We are moving up. The circle is a spiral. We have already ascended many a level. Siddhartha answered, How old would you think? Is our oldest Samana our venerable teacher? Close Govinda, our oldest one might be about sixty years of age. And Siddhartha, he has lived for sixty years and has not reached a Nirvana. He'll turn seventy and eighty. And you and me, we will grow just as old and we'll do our exercises and we'll fast and we'll meditate, but we will not reach the Nirvana. He won't and we won't. O Govinda, I believe out of all of 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 Brahmins, 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, and 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, O 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 Brahmins year after year. And I have asked the Holy Vedas year after year. And I have asked the devout Samanas year after year. Perhaps, O 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 I'm not finished learning this yet, O 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, O 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 worse or enemy than the desire to know it, than learning. At this, Govinda stopped on the path. Rose's hands and spoke. If you, Siddhartha, only would not bother your friend with this kind of talk, truly your words stir up fear in my heart. And just consider what would become of the sanctity of prayer. What of the venerability of the Brahmins cast? What of the holiness of the Samanas? If it was, as you say, if there was no learning. What, O Siddhartha, what would then become of all this what is holy? What is precious? What is venerable on earth? And Govinda mumbled a verse to himself, a verse from the Apatashod. He who ponderingly of purified spirit loses himself in the meditation of Atman. Unexpressible by words is his blissfulness of his heart. But Siddhartha remained silent. He thought about the words which Govinda had said to him, and thought the words through to their end. 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 a 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 rumor, a myth reached them after being retold many times. A man had appeared, Gautama by name, the exalted one, the Buddha. He had overcome the suffering of the world in himself, and 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 brahmanas and princes would bow down before him, and would become his students. This myth, this rumor, this legend resounded, its fragrance rose up here and there in the towns. The brahmanas spoke of it, and in the forest, the Samanas, again and again, the name of Gautama, the Buddha, reached the ears of the young men, with good and bad talk, with praise and 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 myth ran through the land, that fragrant myth of Gautama, the Buddha, the wise man of the family of Sakya. He possessed, so the believer 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 Gautama was a vain seducer. He would spend 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 rumor of Buddha was heard, everywhere in the lands of India, the young men listened up, felt along and felt hope. And among the Brahmins' sons of the towns and villages, every pilgrim and stranger was welcome when he brought news of him, the exalted one, the Sakya Muni. 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 godom. O Siddhartha Govinda spoke one day to his friend. Today I was in the village, and a Brahmin invited me into his house. And in his house there was the son of a Brahmin from Magadha, who had seen the Buddha with his own eyes and 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? Quote Siddhartha. Always, O Govinda, I had thought Govinda would stay with the Samanas. Always I had believed his goal was to live to be sixty and seventy years of age, and to keep on practicing those feats and exercises which are becoming the Samana. But behold, I had not known Govinda well enough. I knew little of his heart. So now you, my faithful friend, want to take a new path and go there where the Buddha spreads his teachings. Quote Govinda, you're mocking me. Mock me if you like, Siddhartha, but have you not also developed a desire and eagerness to hear these teachings? And have you not at one time said to me, you would not walk the path of the Samanas for much longer? 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 learnings, 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 those teachings, though in my heart I believe that we've already tasted the best fruit of these teachings. Quote Govinda, your willingness delights my heart. But tell me, how should this be possible? How should the Godama's teaching, even before we have heard them, have already revealed their best fruit to us? Quote Siddhartha, let us eat this fruit and wait for the rest, O Govinda. But this fruit, which we already now received thanks to the Godama, consisted in him calling us away from the Samanas. Whether he has also other and better things to give us, O friend, let us wait 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 swear words. 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. Positioning himself close in front of the Samana with a concentrated soul, he captured the old man's glance with his glances, deprived him of his power, made him mute, took away his free will, subdued him under his own will, commanded him to do silently whatever he demanded him to do. The old man became mute, his eyes became motionless, his will was paralyzed, his arms were hanging down without power. He had fallen victim to Siddhartha's spell. But Siddhartha's thoughts brought the Samana under their control. He had to carry out what they commanded. And thus the old man made several bowels, performed gestures of blessing, spoke stammeringly a godly wish for a good journey. And the young man returned to bowels with thanks, returned to wish, went on their way with salutations. 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 feasts. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of Siddhartha by Herman Hess This Librivak's recording is in the public domain. Godama In the town of Savatha every child knew the name of the exalted Buddha, and every house was prepared to fill the alms-dish of Godama's disciples, the silently begging ones. Near the town was Godama's favorite place to stay, the grove of Jetavana, which the rich merchant, Anatha Pandinka, 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 Godama's abode had pointed them towards this area, and arriving at Savatha, 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, O 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. Quote 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 Anatha Pandinka, is where the exalted one dwells. There you pilgrims shall spend 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, O mother of the pilgrims, do you know him, the Buddha? Have you seen him with your own eyes? Quote 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 Godama'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 a place to stay, and rested there until the morning. At sunrise they saw with astonishment what a large crowd of believers and curious people had spent the night here. On all paths of the marvelous grove monks walked in yellow robes, under the trees they sat here and there in deep contemplation, or in a conversation about spiritual matters. The shady gardens looked like a city full of people bustling like bees. The majority of the monks went out with their alms-dish to collect food in town for their lunch, the only meal of the day. The Buddha himself, the enlightened one, was also in the habit of taking this walk to beg in the morning. Siddhartha saw him, and he instantly recognized him, as if a god had pointed him out to him. He saw him, a simple man in a yellow robe, bearing the alms-dish in his hand, walking silently. Look here, Siddhartha said quietly to Govinda, this one is the Buddha. Potentively 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 with 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 role. 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 Godama walked towards the town to collect alms, and the two samanas recognized 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 Buddhist teaching again and again, though these reports only represented second or third hand information. But attentively he looked at Godama'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, greased 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 on this day. They saw Godama 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 cold 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. Godama 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. With 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. When the Buddha, night had already fallen, ended his speech, many a pilgrim stepped forward and asked to be accepted into the community, sought refuge in the teachings, and Godama accepted them by speaking. You have heard the teachings well, it has come to you well. Thus join us and walk in holiness to put an end to all suffering. 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 be 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. We 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? Siddhartha awakened as if he had been asleep when he heard Govinda's words. For a long time he looked into Govinda's face. Then he spoke quietly in a voice without mockery. Govinda, my friend, now you have taken this step, now you have chosen this path. Always, oh Govinda, you've been my friend. You've always walked one step behind me. Often I have thought, won't Govinda for once also take a step by himself, without me, out of his own soul? Behold, now you've turned into a man and are choosing your path for yourself. I wish that you would go it up to its end, oh my friend, that you shall find salvation. Govinda, not completely understanding it yet, repeated his question in an impatient tone. Speak up, I beg you, my dear. Tell me, since it could not be any other way that you also, my learned friend, will take your refuge with the exalted Buddha. Siddhartha placed his hand on Govinda's shoulder. You failed to hear my good wish for you, oh Govinda. I'm repeating it. I wish that you would go this path up to its end, that you shall find salvation. In this moment Govinda realized that his friend had left him, and he started to weep. Siddhartha, he exclaimed lamentingly. 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, friends continued wopping 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 and got him as teaching. What fault would he 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? Very early in the morning a follower of Buddha, one of his oldest monks, went through the garden and called all those to him who had as novices taken their refuge in the teachings, to dress them up in the yellow robe and to instruct them in the first teachings and duties of their position. Then Govinda broke loose, embraced once again his childhood friend, and left with the novices. But Siddhartha walked through the grove, lost in thought. Then he happened to meet Gautama, the exalted one, and when he greeted him with respect in the Buddha's glance was so full of kindness and calm. The young man summoned his courage and asked the venerable one for the permission to talk to him. Silently the exalted one nodded his approval. Close Siddhartha, Yesterday, O exalted one, I had been privileged to hear your wondrous teachings. Together with my friend I had come from afar to hear your teachings. And now my friend is going to stay with your people. He has taken his refuge with you. But I will again start on my pilgrimage. As you please, the venerable one spoke politely. Too bold is my speech, Siddhartha continued. But I do not want to leave the exalted one without having honestly told him my thoughts. Does it please the venerable one to listen to me for one moment longer? Silently the Buddha nodded his approval. Close Siddhartha, One thing, O venerable one, I have admired in your teaching most of all. Everything in your teachings is perfectly clear, is proven. You are presenting the world as a perfect chain. A chain which is never and nowhere broken. An eternal chain, the links of which are causes and effects. Never before this has been so clearly, never before this has been presented so irrefutably. Truly the heart of every brahmin has to be stronger with love once he has seen the world through your teachings perfectly connected. Without gaps, clear is crystal. Not depending on chance, not depending on gods. Whether it may be good or bad, whether living according to it would be suffering or joy, I do not wish to discuss. Possibly this is not essential. But the uniformity of the world. That everything which happens is connected. And that the great and the small things are all encompassed by the same forces of time, by the same law of causes, of coming into being and of dying. This is what shines brightly out of your exalted teaching, O perfected one. But according to your very own teachings, this unity and necessary sequence of all things is nevertheless broken in one place. Through a small gap, this world of unity is invaded by something alien, something new, something which had not been there before, and which cannot be demonstrated and cannot be proven. These are your teachings of overcoming the world of salvation. But with this small gap, with this small breach, the entire eternal and uniform law of the world is breaking apart again and becoming void. Please forgive me for expressing this objection. Quietly Godama had listened to him, unmoved. Now he spoke, the perfected one, with his kind, with his polite and clear voice. You've heard the teachings, O son of a Brahmin, and good for you that you've thought about it thus deeply. You've found a gap in it, an error. You should think about this further. But be warned, O seeker of knowledge, of the thicket of opinions and of arguing about words. There is nothing to opinions. They may be beautiful or ugly, smart or foolish. Everyone can support them or discard them. But the teachings you've heard from me are no opinion, and their goal is not to explain the world to those who seek knowledge. They have a different goal. Their goal is salvation from suffering. This is what Godama teaches, nothing else. I wish that you, O 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 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 toward which so many thousands of Brahmins and sons of Brahmins are on their way. You have found salvation from death that 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, O exalted one, nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings. You will not be able to convey and say to anybody, O 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 or 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 die. But often I'll think of this day, O exalted one, and of this hour when my eyes beheld a holy man. The Buddha's eyes quietly look to the ground. Quietly, in perfect equanimity, his inscrutable face was smiling. I wish, the venerable one spoke slowly, that your thoughts shall not be an 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, O stranger, O samana, do you believe that it would be better for them all to abandon the teachings and to return into the life and the world of desires? Far is such a thought from my mind, exclaimed Siddhartha. I wish that they shall all stay with the teachings, that they shall reach their goal. But it is not my place to judge another man's life. Only for myself, for myself alone, I must decide. I must choose. I must refuse. Salvation from the self is what we samanas search for, O exalted one. If I merely were one of your disciples, O venerable one, I'd fear that it might happen to me that only seemingly, only deceptively, myself would be calm and be redeemed. That in truth it would live on and grow, for then I had replaced myself with the teachings, my duty to follow you, my love for you, and the community of the most. With half a smile, with an unwavering openness and kindness, Godama looked into the stranger's eyes and bid him to leave with a hardly noticeable gesture. You are wise, O Samana, the venerable one spoke. You know how to talk wisely, my friend. Be aware of too much wisdom. The Buddha turned away, and his glance and a half of 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 childlike 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 myself. 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. I am deprived by the Buddha, thought Siddhartha. I am deprived, and even more he has given to me. He has deprived me of my friend, the one who had believed in me and now believes in him, who had been my shadow and now has got him a shadow. But he has given me Siddhartha myself. 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. Slowly walking along Siddhartha pondered. He realized that he was no youth anymore, but had turned into a man. He realized that one thing had left him as a snake is left by its old skin, that one thing no longer existed in him, which had accompanied him most of his youth and used to be part of him. The wish to have teachers and to listen to teachings. He had also left the last teacher who had appeared on his path, even him, the highest and wisest teacher, the most holy one, Buddha. He had left him, had to part with him, was not able to accept his teaching. Slower he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself, but what is this what you have sought to learn from teaching 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 me about Siddhartha. Having been pondering while slowly walking along, he now stopped as these thoughts caught hold of him, and right away another thought sprang forth from these, a new thought which was that I know nothing about myself, that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown to me, stems from one cause, a single cause. I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself, I searched Atman, I searched Brahmin, I was willing to dissect myself and peel off all its layers to find the core of all peals in its unknown interior, the Atman, life, the divine part, the ultimate part, but I have lost myself in the process. Siddhartha opened his eyes and looked around, a smile filled his face in 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 aesthetics, 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. Colorful 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. It was no longer a spell of Mara. It was no longer the veil of Maya. It was no longer a pointless and coincidental diversity of mere appearances. Despicable to the deeply thinking Brahmin, 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, their sky, their 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 I have been, he thought, walking swiftly along. How someone reads a text wants to discover its meaning. He will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hope. 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. In thinking these thoughts, Siddhartha stopped once again, suddenly, as if there was a snake lying in front of him on the path. Because suddenly, he had also become aware of this. He, who was indeed like someone who had just woken up or like a newborn 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 of Jatavana, the grove of that exalted one, already awakening, already on the path towards himself, 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 no priest any more. I am no Brahmin any more. Whatever should I do at home and at my father's place? Study? Make offerings? Practice meditation? But all this is over. All of this is no longer alongside my path. Motionless, Siddhartha remained standing there. And for the time of one moment in breath, his heart felt cold. He felt a cold in his chest as a small animal, a bird or a rabbit would when seeing how alone he was. For many years he had been without home and had felt nothing. Now he felt it. Still, even in the deepest meditation he had been his father's son, had been a Brahmin of high caste, the cleric. Now he was nothing but Siddhartha, the awoken one. Nothing else was left. Deeply he inhaled, and for a moment he felt cold and shivered. Nobody was thus alone as he was. There was no nobleman who did not belong to the nobleman, no worker that did not belong to the workers and found refuge with them, shared their life, spoke their language, no Brahmin who would not be regarded as Brahmins and lived with them, no ascetic who would not find his refuge in the caste of the Samanas, and even the most forlorn hermit in the forest was not just one and alone. He was also surrounded by a place he belonged to, and he also belonged to a caste in which he was at home. Govinda had become a monk, and a thousand monks were his brothers, wore the same robe as he, believed in his faith, spoke his language. But he, Siddhartha, where did he belong to? With whom would he share his life? Whose language would he speak? 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, headed no longer for home, no longer to his father, no longer back. He saw the sun rising over the mountains with their forests and setting over the distant beach with his palm trees. At night he saw the stars in the sky in their fixed position 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 high mountains which were blue and pale, birds sang and bees, winds silveryishly blew through the rice field. All of this, a thousandfold and colorful, had always been there, always the sun and the moon had shown, 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 calmed 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 and petuously 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. On the way Siddhartha also remembered everything he had experienced in the garden, the teachings he had heard there, the divine Buddha, the farewell from Govinda, the conversation with the exalted one. Again he remembered his own words he had spoken to the exalted one, every word, and with astonishment he became aware of the fact that there he had said things which he had not really known yet at this time. What he had said to Godama, his, the Buddha's, treasure and secret was not the teachings, but the inexpressible and not teachable which he had experienced in the hour of his enlightenment. It was nothing but this very thing which he had now gone to experience, which he now began to experience. Now he had to experience his self. It is true that he had already known for a long time that his self was Atman, in its essence bearing the same eternal characteristics as Brahman. But never had he really found this self, because he had wanted to capture it in the net of thought, with the body definitely not being the self and not the spectacle of the senses. So it also was not the thought, not the rational mind, not the learned wisdom, not the learned ability to draw conclusions and to develop previous thoughts into new ones. No, this world of thought was also still on this side, and nothing could be achieved by killing the random self of the senses if the random self of thoughts and learned wisdom was fattened on the other hand. Both the thoughts as well as the senses were pretty things. The ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them. Both had to be listened to. Both had to be played with. Both neither had to be scorned nor overestimated. From both the secret voices of the innermost truth had to be attentively perceived. He wanted to strive for nothing, except for what the voice commanded him to strive for. Dwell on nothing, except where the voice would advise him to do so. Why had Godama, at that time, in the hour of all hours, sat down under the bow-tree, where the Enlightenment hit him? He had a voice, a voice in his own heart, which had commanded him to seek rest under this tree, and he had neither preferred self-castigation, offerings, ablutions, nor prayer, neither food nor drink, neither sleep nor dream. He had obeyed the voice. To obey like this, not to an external command, only to the voice. To be ready like this. This was good. This was necessary. Nothing else was necessary. 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 anymore, but a woman. In a 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 force, 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 pleasantly. When the day began, Siddhartha asked his host, the ferryman, to get him across the river. The ferryman guide him across the river on his bamboo raft, the wide water shimmering redishly in the light of the morning. This is a beautiful river, he said to his companion. 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 thank you, my benefactors, spoke Siddhartha, disembarking on the other side of the river. I have no gift I could give you for your hospitality, my dear, and also no payment for your work. I am a man without a home, a son of a Brahman and a Samana. I did see it, spoke the ferryman, and I haven't expected any payment from you, and no gift from which would be the custom for guests to bear. You will give me the gift another time. Do you think so, asked Siddhartha, amusedly? 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 Kavinda, he thought with a smile. All I need on my path are like Kavinda. 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. At about noon he came through a village. In front of the mud cottages children were rolling about in the street, were playing with pumpkin seeds and seashells, screamed and wrestled, but they all timidly fled from the unknown Samana. In the end of the village the path led through a stream, and by the side of the stream a young woman was kneeling and washing clothes. When Siddhartha greeted her she lifted her head and looked up to him with a smile, so that he saw the white in her eyes glistening. He called out a blessing to her as is the custom among travelers, and asked how far he still had to go to reach the large city. Then she got up and came to him. Beautifully her wet mouth was shimmering in her young face. She exchanged humorous banter with him, asked whether he had eaten already, and whether it was true that the Samanas slept alone in the forest at night, and were not allowed to have any women with them. While talking she put her left foot on his right one, and made a movement as a woman does who would want to initiate that kind of sexual pleasure with a man, which the textbooks call climbing a tree. Siddhartha felt his blood heating up, and since in this moment he had to think of his dream again, he bent slightly down to the woman, and kissed with his lips the brown nipple of her breast. Looking up he saw her face smiling full of lust, and her eyes with contracted pupils begging with desire. 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 of 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 had had over his head. Before the city, in a beautifully fenced grove, the traveller came across a small group of servants, both male and female, carrying baskets. In their midst, carried by four servants in an ornamental sedan chair, sat a woman, the mistress, on red pillows under a colorful canopy. Siddhartha stopped at the entrance to the plaiter garden, and watched the parade, saw the servants, the maids, the baskets, saw the sedan chair, and saw the lady in it. Under black hair, which made to tower high on her head, he saw a very fair, very delicate, very smart face, a brightly red mouth, like a freshly cracked fig, eyebrows which were well tended and painted in a high arc, smart and watchful dark eyes, a clear, tall neck rising from a green and golden garment, resting fair hands, long and thin, with wide golden bracelets over the wrists. Siddhartha saw how beautiful she was, and his heart rejoiced. He bowed deeply when the sedan chair came closer, and straightened up again, he looked at the fair, charming face, red for a moment in the smart eyes with the high arcs above, breathed in a slight fragrant he did not know, with a smile the beautiful woman dotted for a moment, and disappeared into the grove, and then the servant as well. Thus I am entering this city, Siddhartha thought, with a charming moment. He instantly felt drawn into the grove, but he thought about it, and only now he became aware of how the servants and maids had looked at him at the entrance, how despicable, how distrustful, how rejecting. I am still a Samana, he thought. I am still an ascetic and a beggar. I must not remain like this. I will not be able to enter the grove like this. And he laughed. 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. Then he entered the city. Now he had a goal. 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 in 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 the servant who walked at the very end of her train, he motioned to him and asked him to inform his mistress that a young Brahmin would wish to talk to her. After a while the servant returned, asked 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 Brahmin, who has left his home to become a Samana, and who has become a Samana for three years. But now I have left that path and come 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, O Kamala. You are the first woman who Siddhartha is not addressing with his eyes turned to the ground. Never again I want to turn my eyes to the ground when I am coming across a beautiful woman. Kamala smiled and played with her fan of peacock 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 its highest degree. At this Kamala laughed aloud, 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 loincloth. Many young men come to me, and there are also sons of Brahmins 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, O Samana, how the young men are like who come to me. Close Siddhartha, already I am starting to learn from you. Even yesterday I was already learning. I have already taken off my beard, have combed the hair, have oil in my hair. There is little which is still missing in me, O excellent one. Fine clothes, fine shoes, money in my pouch. You shall know Siddhartha has set harder goals for himself than such trifles, and he has reached them. How shouldn't I reach that goal which I have set for myself yesterday, to be your friend and to learn the joys of love from you? You'll see that I'll learn quickly, Kamala. I have already learned harder things than what you are supposed to teach me. And now let's get to it. You aren't satisfied with Siddhartha as he is, with oil in his hair, but without clothes, without shoes, without money? Laughing, Kamala exclaimed, No, my dear, he doesn't satisfy me yet. Clothes are what he must have, pretty clothes, and shoes, pretty shoes, and lots of money in his pouch, and gifts for Kamala. Do you know now, Samana, from the forest? Do you mark my word? Yes, I have marked your words, Siddhartha exclaimed. How should I not mark words which are coming from such a mouth? Your mouth is like a freshly cracked fig, Kamala. My mouth is red and fresh as well. It will be a suitable match for yours. You'll see. But tell me, beautiful Kamala, aren't you at all afraid of the Samana from the forest who has come to learn how to make love? Whatever force should I be afraid of, Samana? A stupid Samana from the forest who is coming from the jackals and doesn't even know yet what women are? 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 Brahmin ever fear someone who 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 when 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 what he still lacks. Clothes, shoes, money. But speak, lovely Kamala. Wouldn'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 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? I can think. I can wait. I can fast. 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 like your poem, what would be its title? Siddhartha spoke, after he thought about it for a moment, these verses. Into her shady grove stepped the pretty Kamala. At the grove's entrance stood the brown Samana. Deeply, seeing the lotus's blossom, bowed that man and smiling Kamala thanked. More lovely thought the young man than offerings for gods. More lovely is offering to pretty Kamala. Kamala loudly clapped her hand so that the golden bracelets clanged. Beautiful are your verses, old brown Samana, and truly I'm losing nothing when I'm giving you a kiss for them. She beckoned him with her eyes. She tilted her head so that his face touched her 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. The way you're able to kiss Kamala stammered Siddhartha. Yes, this I am able to do, therefore I do not lack clothes, shoes, bracelets, and all beautiful things, but what will become of you? Aren't you able to do anything else but thinking, fasting, making poetry? I also know the sacrificial songs, said Siddhartha, but I do not want to sing them anymore. I also know magic spells, but I do not want to speak them anymore. I have read the scriptures. Stop, Kamala interrupted him. You're able to read and write? Certainly I can do this. Many people can do this. 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. In this moment a maid came running in and whispered a message into her mistress's ear. There's a visitor for me, exclaimed Kamala. Hurry and get yourself away, Siddhartha. Nobody may see you here. Remember this. Tomorrow I'll see you again. But to the maid she gave the order to give the pious Brahmin 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. Contently, he did as he had been told. Being accustomed to the forest, he managed to get out of the grove and over the hedge without making a sound. Contently he returned to the city, carrying the rolled up garments under his arm. At the end, where travelers stay, he positioned himself by the door. Without words, he asked for food. Without a word he accepted a piece of rice cake. Perhaps as soon as tomorrow, he thought, I will ask no one for food any more. Suddenly pride flared up in him. He was no Samana any more. It was no longer becoming to him to beg. He gave the rice cake to a dog and remained without food. Simple was the life with 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 is a small, nearer goal. 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 Kamaswamis. He is the richest merchant in 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. Kamaswamis 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? Siddhartha said yesterday I told you I knew how to think, to wait, and to fast. But you thought this was of no use. But it is useful for many things, Kamala. You'll see. You'll see that the stupid Samanas are learning and able to do many pretty things in the forest, which the likes of you aren't capable of. The day before yesterday I was still a shaggy beggar. As soon as yesterday I have kissed Kamala, and soon I'll be a merchant and have money and all those things you insist upon. Well, yes, she admitted. But where would you be without me? What would you be if Kamala wasn't helping you? Here Kamala said Siddhartha and straightened up to his full height. When I came to you, into your grove, I did the first step. It was my resolution to learn love from this most beautiful woman. From that moment on, when I made this resolution, I also knew that I would carry it out. I knew that you would help me, at your first glance, at the entrance of the grove, I already knew it. But what if I hadn't been willing? You were willing. Look Kamala, when 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 the 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 this goal. This is what Siddhartha has learned among the Samanas. This is what fools call magic, and of which they think it would be affected by means of the demons. Nothing is affected by demons. There are no demons. 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, he said quietly, as you say, friends. 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. With 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.