 Chapter 9. The Ferryman By this river I want to stay, thought Siddhartha. It is the same which I have crossed a long time ago on my way to the childlike people. A friendly ferryman had guided me then. He is the one I want to go to. Starting out from his hut, my path had led me at that time into a new life which had now grown old and is dead. My present path, my present new life, shall also take its start there. 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 water talking, which was newly awakening, and it told him, over 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 to-day 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 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. Siddhartha rose. The workings of hunger in his body became unbearable. In a days he walked on, up the path by the river, up river, listen to the current, listen to the rumbling hunger in his body. 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 recognized him. He had also aged very much. "'Would you like to ferry me over?' he asked. 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 is 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?' This may be true, but I envy you yours. "'Ah, you would soon stop enjoying it. This is nothing for people wearing fine clothes.' Siddhartha laughed. "'Once before I have been looked upon to-day 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, for you must know I have no money to pay your fare?' "'You are joking, sir,' the ferryman laughed. "'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 to-day as well, and accept my clothes for it.' "'And you, sir, intend to continue travelling without clothes?' "'Ah, most of all I wouldn't want to continue travelling at all. Most of all I would like you, ferryman, to give me an old loincloth, and keep me as your assistant, or rather as your trainee, for I'll have to learn first how to handle the boat.' For a long time the ferryman looked at the stranger, searching. "'Now I recognise you,' he finally said. "'At one time you 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 been a samana? I can't think of your name any more. My name is Siddhartha, and I was a samana when you last saw me. So be welcome, Siddhartha. My name is Vasudeva. You will, so I hope, be my guest to-day as well and sleep in my hut, and tell me where you're coming from and why these beautiful clothes are such a nuisance to you.' 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 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. Finally 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 had come 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. Vasudeva listened with great attention, listened carefully. He let everything enter his mind, birthplace and childhood, all that learning, all that searching, all joy, all distress. This was among the ferryman's virtues, one of the greatest. Like only a few he knew how to listen. Without him having spoken a word, the speaker sensed how Vasudeva let his words enter his mind, quiet, open, waiting. How he did not lose a single word, awaited not a single one with impatience, did not add his phrase or rebuke, was just listening. Siddhartha felt what a happy fortune it is to confess to such a listener, to bury in his heart his own life, his own search, his own suffering. 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 ome, 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. And when Siddhartha felt 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 have already learned this from the river too, that it is good to strive downwards to sink, to seek depth. The rich and elegant Siddhartha is becoming an ausman servant. The learned Brahmin Siddhartha becomes a fairy man. This has also been told to you by the river. You'll learn that other thing from it as well. Quote Siddhartha, after a long pause. What other thing, Vasudeva? Vasudeva rose. It is late, he said. Let's go to sleep. I can't tell you that other thing, old friend. You'll learn it, or perhaps you already know it. See, I'm no learned man. I have no special skill in speaking. I also have no special skill in thinking. All I'm able to do is to listen and to be godly. I have learned nothing else. If I was able to say and to teach it, I might be a wise man, but like this I am only a fairy man, and it is my task to ferry people across the river. I have transported many, thousands, and to all of them my river has been nothing but an obstacle on their travels. They travel to seek money and business, and for weddings and on pilgrimages, and the river was obstructing their path, and the ferryman's job was to get them quickly across that obstacle, but for some among the thousands, a few, four or five, the river has stopped being an obstacle. They have heard its voice. They have listened to it, and the river has become sacred to them as it has become sacred to me. Let's rest now, Siddhartha. 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 judgment, without an opinion. In a friendly manner he lived side by side with Vasudeva, and occasionally they exchanged some words, few, and at length thought about words. Vasudeva was no friend to words, rarely Siddhartha succeeded in persuading him to speak. Did you, so he asked him what one time, did you, too, learn that secret from the river, that there is no time? Vasudeva's face was filled with a bright smile. 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 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 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. Siddhartha spoke with ecstasy, deeply this enlightenment had delighted him. Oh, was not all suffering time, were not all forms of tormenting oneself, and being afraid time, was not everything hard, everything hostile in the world gone, and overcome as soon as one had overcome time, as soon as time would have been put out of existence by one's thoughts. In ecstatic delight he had spoken, but Vasudeva smiled at him brightly and nodded in confirmation. Silently he nodded, brushed his hand over Siddhartha's shoulder, turned back to his work, 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, many, 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 a woman giving birth, and of a sighing man, and a thousand other voices more? So it is, Vasudeva nodded, all voices of the creature 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? Happily Vasudeva's face was smiling. He bent over to Siddhartha, and spoke the holy ome in his ear, and this had been the very thing which Siddhartha had also been hearing. And time after time his smile became more similar to the ferryman's, became almost just as bright, almost just as thoughtfully 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 water, 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 to 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 Gautama the Buddha, who were asking to be ferried across the river, and by then the ferrymen were told that they 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 Gautama 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. Then 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 Gautama 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. On one of these days when so many went on a pilgrimage to the dying Buddha, Kamala also went to him, who used to be one of the most beautiful of the courtesans. A long time ago she had retired from her previous life, had given her garden to the monks of Gautama as a gift, had taken her refuge in the teachings, was among the friends and benefactors of the pilgrims. Together with Siddhartha the boy, her son, she had gone on her way due to the news of the near death of Gautama in simple clothes, on foot. With her little son she was travelling by the river, but the boy had soon grown tired, desired to go back home, desired to rest, desired to eat, became disobedient, and started whining. Kamala often had 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 go on this exhausting and sad pilgrimage with his mother to an unknown place, to a stranger who was wholly and about to die. So what if he died? How did this concern the boy? The pilgrims were getting close to Vasudeva's ferry when little Siddhartha once again forced his mother to rest. She, Kamala herself, had also become tired, and while the boy was chewing a banana, she crouched down on the ground, closed her eyes a bit, and rested. But suddenly she uttered a wailing scream. The boy looked at her in fear, and saw her face having grown pale from horror, and from under her dress a small black snake fled, by which Kamala had been bitten. Hurriedly they now both ran along the path in order to reach people, and got near the ferry, but 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, where 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 recognized, 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. "'He's with you, don't worry,' said Siddhartha. Kamala looked into his eyes. She spoke with a heavy tongue, paralyzed by the poison. "'You've become old, my dear,' she said. "'You've become grey. 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 the 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 recognize me?' Siddhartha smiled. "'Instantly I recognized you, Kamala, my dear.' Kamala pointed to her boy and said, "'Did you recognize 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 brahmin 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 sing-song 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. "'She'll die,' Siddhartha said quietly. Vasudeva nodded. Over his friendly face ran the light of the stove's fire. Once again Kamala returned to consciousness. Pain distorted her face. Siddhartha's eyes read the suffering on her mouth, on her pale cheeks. Quietly he read it, attentively waiting, his mind becoming one with her suffering. Siddhartha felt it. Her gaze soared his eyes. Looking at him she said, "'Now I see that your eyes have changed as well. They've become completely different. But what do I still recognize that you're Siddhartha? It's you, and it's not you.' Siddhartha said nothing. Quietly his eyes looked at hers. "'You have achieved it?' she asked. "'You have found peace?' He smiled and placed his hand on hers. "'I'm seeing it,' she said. "'I'm seeing it. I too will find peace.' "'You have found it,' Siddhartha spoke, in a whisper. Kamala never stopped looking into his eyes. She thought about her pilgrimage to Gautama, 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, red 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 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 goats stood, the two old men prepared beds of straw for themselves, and Vasudeva lay himself down to sleep. Vasudeva 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. "'You haven't slept?' he said. "'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. You've experienced suffering, Siddhartha, but I see no sadness has entered your heart. "'No, my dear, how should I be sad? I, who have been rich and happy, have become even richer and happier now. My son has been given to me. Your son shall be welcome to me as well. But now, Siddhartha, let's get to work. There is much to be done.' Kamala has died on the same bed on which my wife had died a long time ago. Let us also build Kamala's funeral-pile on the same hill on which I had then built my wife's funeral-pile. While the boy was still asleep, they built the funeral-pile. End of chapter 9. Chapter 10 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. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Translated by Gunta Olsch, Anke Dreher, Amy Coulter, Stefan Langer, and Simeon Chachanetz. And read by Adrian Pretzellis. Chapter 10 The Son. Timid and weeping, the boy had attended his mother's funeral. Glu me and shy, he had listened to Siddhartha, who greeted him as his son, and welcomed him at his place in Vasadeva'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. Siddhartha spared him and let him do as he pleased. He honoured his morning. Siddhartha understood that his son did not know him, that he could not love him like a father. Slowly he also saw and understood that the eleven-year-old was a pampered boy, a mother's boy, and that he had grown up in the habits of rich people, accustomed to finer food, to a soft bed, accustomed to giving orders to servants. Siddhartha understood that the morning pampered child could not suddenly and willingly be content with a life among strangers and in poverty. He did not force him. He did many a chore for him, always picked the best piece of the meal for him. Slowly he hoped to win him over by friendly patience. Rich and happy he had called himself when the boy had come to him. Since time had passed on in the meanwhile, 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 man 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 in 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 am talking to you. I am seeing that you are tormenting yourself. I am seeing that you are in grief. Your 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, run away from riches and the city, being disgusted and fed up with it. Against his will he had to leave all this behind. I ask the river, 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 our 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.' Siddhartha looked into his friendly face, in the many wrinkles of which there was an incessant cheerfulness. "'How could I part with him?' he said quietly, ashamed. "'Give me some more time, my dear. See, I am fighting for him. I am seeking to win his heart, with love and with friendly patience. I intend to capture it.' One day the river shall also talk to him. He also is called upon.' Vasudeva's smile flourished more warmly. "'Oh, yes, he too is called upon. He too is of the eternal life. But do we, you and me, know what he is called upon to do? What path to take? What actions to perform? What pain to endure?' Not a small one, his pain will be. After all, his heart is proud and hard. People like this have to suffer a lot, err a lot, do much injustice, burden themselves with much sin. Tell me, my dear, you are not taking control of your son's upbringing? You don't force him? You don't beat him? You don't punish him?' No, Vasudeva, I don't do anything of this.' 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? Troubled, Siddhartha looked to the ground. Quietly he asked, What do you think I should do? Quote 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 teaching's 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? You're seeing into my heart." Siddhartha spoke sadly. Often I have thought of this. But look, how shall I put him, who had no tender heart anyhow, into this world? Won't he become exuberant? Won't he lose himself to pleasure and power? Won't he repeat all of his father's mistakes? Won't he perhaps get entirely lost in sansara? Brightly the ferryman smiled lit up. Softly he touched Siddhartha's arm and said, Ask the river about it, my friend. Hear it, laugh about it. Could you actually believe that you had committed your foolish acts in order to spare your son from committing them too? And could you, in any way, protect your son from sansara? How could you? By means of teachings, prayer, admonition? My dear, have you entirely forgotten that story, that story containing so many lessons, that story about Siddhartha, a Brahman son, which you once told me here on this very spot? Who has kept a Samana-Siddhartha safe from sansara, from sin, from greed, from foolishness? Were his father's religious devotion, his teacher's warnings, his own knowledge, his own search able to keep him safe? Which father, which teacher, had been able to protect him from living his life for himself, from soiling himself with life, from burdening himself with guilt, from drinking the bitter drink for himself, from finding his path for himself? Would you think, my dear, anybody might perhaps be spared from taking this path, that perhaps your little son would be spared because you love him, because you would like to keep him safe, because you would like to keep him from suffering and pain and disappointment? But even if you would die ten times for him, you would not be able to take the slightest part of his destiny upon yourself. Never before, Vasudeva had spoken so many words. Kindly, Siddhartha thanked him, went troubled into the hut, could not sleep for a long time. Vasudeva had told him nothing he had not already thought and known for himself. But this was a knowledge he could not act upon. Stronger than the knowledge was his love for the boy. Stronger was his tenderness, his fear to lose him. Had he ever lost his heart so much to something, had he ever loved any person thus, thus blindly, thus sufferingly, thus unsuccessfully, and yet thus happily? 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 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 to 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. However he had been able to do this, and this was, as it 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 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 the one thing. He did sense very well that his 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 could 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 were no attributes which could win the boy over. He was bored by his father, who kept him prisoner here in his miserable heart 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. When 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 a murderer, and to go to hell than to become like you. I hate you. You're not my father, and if you've been ten times 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 sought it lying by the opposite bank. The boy had run 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 tie the canes together with ropes of grass. Then they crossed over, drifted far off their course, pulled the raft upriver on the opposite bank. "'Why did you take the axe along?' asked Siddhartha. Vasudeva said, it might have been possible that the oar of our boat got lost.' 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 at 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 runaway. 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, for 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 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, his 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. For a long time he stood there, pondering, seeing images listening to the story of his life. For a long time he stood there, looked at the monks, saw young Siddhartha in their place, saw young Kamala walking among the high trees. Clearly he saw himself being served food and drink by Kamala, receiving his first kiss from her, looking proudly and disdainfully back on his Brahminism, beginning proudly and full of desire his worldly life. He saw Kamaswami, saw the servants, the orgies, the gamblers with the dice, the musicians, saw Kamala's songbird in the cage, lived through all this once again, breathed sansara, was once again old and tired, felt once again disgust, felt once again the wish to annihilate himself, was once again healed by the holy om. After having been standing at 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 runaway 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 ome, filled himself with ome. The monks in the garden saw him, and since he crouched there for many hours, and dust was gathering on his grey hair, one of them came to him and placed two bananas in front of him. The old man did not see him. From this petrified state he was awoken by a hand touching his shoulder. Instantly he recognized this touch, this tender, bashful touch, and regained his senses. He rose and greeted Vasudeva, who had followed him, and when he looked into Vasudeva's friendly face, into the small wrinkles which were as if they were filled with nothing but his smile, into the happy eyes, then he smiled too. Now he saw the bananas lying in front of him, picked them up, gave one to the ferryman, ate the other one himself. After this he silently went back into the forest with Vasudeva, returned home to the ferry. Neither one talked about what had happened today, neither one mentioned the boy's name, neither one spoke about him running away, neither one spoke about the wound. In the hut Siddhartha lay down on his bed, and when after a while Vasudeva came to him to offer him a bowl of coconut milk, he already found him asleep. CHAPTER XI SIDARTHA BY HERMAN HESSA TRANSLATED BY GUNTA OLSCH, ANKEDREA, AIME KULTAR, STEFAN LANGA, AND SEMION CHACHANETS AND READ BY ADRIAN PRETZELUS CHAPTER XI. OM For a long time the wound continued to burn. Many a traveller, Siddhartha, had to ferry across the river, who was accompanied by a son or a daughter, and he saw none of them without envying him, without thinking, so many, so many thousands possessed this sweetest of good fortunes. Why don't I? Even bad people, even thieves and robbers have children, and love them, and are being loved by them, all except for me. Thus simply, thus without reason he now thought, thus similar to the childlike people he had become. 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 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, and 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 jewellery 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 forced at Arthur 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 brahmin 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 put himself above them except for one 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 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 in some moments seem to be superior to humans in their tough, unrelenting performance of what is necessary. Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realization, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment while living his life the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness. Slowly this blossomed in him, was shining back at him from Vasudeva's old childlike face, harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling oneness. 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. His face resembled another face which he used to know and love and also fear. It resembled his father's face, the Brahmin, 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 bade his furwell 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 went 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 again, 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. Unchanging 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. Siddhartha also told how he fled to-day, how he ferried across the water a childlike runaway, 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 realization 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 realized 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 recognized 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. Through 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 of the bank, sat down with him, smiled at the river. You've heard it laugh, he said, but you haven't heard everything. Let's listen, you'll hear more. They listened. Softly sounded the river, singing in many voices. Siddhartha looked into the river, and images appeared to him in the moving water. His father appeared, lonely, mourning for his son. He himself appeared, lonely. He also being tied with the bondage of yearning to his distant son. His son appeared, lonely as well, the boy greedily rushing along the burning course of his young wishes, each one heading for his goal, each one obsessed by the goal, each one suffering. The river sang with a voice of suffering. Longingly it sang, longingly it flowed towards its goal. Lamentingly its voice sang. Do you hear? Vasudeva's mute gaze asked. Siddhartha nodded. Listen better, Vasudeva whispered. Siddhartha made an effort to listen better. The image of his father, his own image, the image of his son merged. Kamala's image also appeared and was dispersed, and the image of Govinda and other images and they merged with each other, turned all into the river, headed all, being the river, for the goal, longing, desiring, suffering, and the river's voice sounded full of yearning, full of burning woe, full of unsatisfiable desire. For the goal the river was heading. Siddhartha saw it hurrying the river, which consisted of him and his loved ones, and of all people he had ever seen. All of these waves and waters were hurrying, suffering towards goals, many goals. The waterfall, the lake, the rapids, the sea, and all goals were reached, and every goal was followed by a new one, and the water turned into vapour and rose to the sky, turned into rain and poured down from the sky, turned into a source, a stream, a river, headed forward once again, flowed on once again. But the longing voice had changed. It still resounded, full of suffering, searching. But other voices joined it, voices of joy and of suffering, and bad voices, laughing and sad ones, a hundred voices, a thousand voices. Siddhartha listened. He was now nothing but a listener, completely concentrated on listening. Completely empty he felt that he had now finished learning to listen. Often before he had heard all this, these many voices in the river. Today it sounded new. Already he could no longer tell the many voices apart, not the happy ones from the weeping ones, not the ones of children from those of men. They all belonged together. The lamentation of yearning, and the laughter of the knowledgeable one, the scream of rage and the moaning of the dying ones. Everything was one. Everything was intertwined and connected, entangled a thousand times. And everything altogether, all voices, all goals, all yearning, all suffering, all pleasure, all that was good and evil, all of this together, was the world. All of it together was the flow of events, was the music of life. And when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice, and submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was om, the perfection. Do you hear? Vasudeva's gaze asked again. Brightly Vasudeva's smile was shining, floating radiantly over all the wrinkles of his old face, as the om was floating in the air above 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. In this hour Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate, stopped suffering. On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a knowledge which is no longer opposed by any will, which knows perfection, which is in agreement with the flow of events, with a current of life, full of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure of others, devoted to the flow belonging to the oneness. When Vasudeva rose from the seat by the bank, when he looked into Siddhartha's eyes, and saw the cheerfulness of the knowledge shining in them, he softly touched his shoulder with his hand in his careful and tender manner, and said, I've been waiting for this hour, my dear, and now that it has come, let me leave. For a long time I've been waiting for this hour, for a long time I've been Vasudeva the ferryman. Now it's enough. Farewell hut, farewell river, farewell Siddhartha. Siddhartha made a deep bow before him who bid his farewell. I've known it, he said quietly. You'll go into the forests? I am going into the forests. I am going into the oneness, spoke Vasudeva with a bright smile. With a bright smile he left. Siddhartha watched him leaving. With deep joy, with great solemnity, he watched him leave. Saw his steps full of peace. Saw his head full of lustre. Saw his body full of light. End of CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII 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. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse Translated by Gunter Olsch, Anke Dreher, Amy Coulter, Stefan Langer, and Simeon Chachanetz, and read by Adrian Pretzellis. CHAPTER XII GOVINDER 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 Gautama 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 although 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 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've 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, O venerable one? Although you are already old in years and are wearing the robe of Gautama's monks. It's true, I am 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, O honorable one? Quoth Siddhartha, what should I possibly have to tell you, O venerable one? Perhaps that you're searching far too much, that in all that searching you don't find the time for a finding. How come, asked Govinda? When someone is searching, said Siddhartha, then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that which he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means having a goal, but finding means being free, being open, having no goal. You, O venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because striving for your goal there are many things you don't see which are directly in front of your eyes. I don't quite understand yet, said Govinda, what do you mean by this? Quoth Siddhartha, a long time ago, O 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 O Govinda, you did not recognize the sleeping man. Astonished as if he had been the object of a magic spell the monk looked into the ferryman's eyes. Are you Siddhartha? He asked, with a timid voice. I wouldn't have recognized 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. In a friendly manner, Siddhartha laughed. A ferryman, yes. Many people, Govinda, have to change a lot, have to wear many a robe. I am one of those, my dear. Be welcome, Govinda, and spend the night in my heart. Siddhartha 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 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? Quote Siddhartha, you know, my dear, that I already as a young man in those days when we lived with the penitents in the forest started distrust teachers and teachings, and to turn my back to them. I have stuck with this. For the less I have had many teachers since then. A beautiful courtesan has been my teacher for a long time, and a rich merchant was my teacher, and some gamblers with dice. Once even a follower of Buddha, travelling on foot, has been my teacher. He sat with me while I had fallen asleep in the forest, on the pilgrimage. I've also learned from him. I'm also grateful to him, very grateful, but most of all I have learned here from this river and from my predecessor, the ferryman, Vasudeva. He was a very simple person, Vasudeva. He was no thinker, but he knew what is necessary just as well as Gautama. He was a perfect man, a saint. Buddha said, Still, O Siddhartha, you love a bit to mock people, as it seems to me. I believe in you, and know that you haven't followed a teacher, but haven't you found something by yourself, though you've found no teachings, you still found certain thoughts, certain insights, which are your own, and which help you to live. If you would like to tell me some of these, you would delight my heart. With Siddhartha I've had thoughts, yes, and insight, again and again, sometimes for an hour or for an entire day I have felt knowledge in me, as one would feel life in one's heart. There have been many thoughts, but it would be hard for me to convey them to you. Look, my dear Govinda, this is one of my thoughts which I have found. Wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom, which a wise man tries to pass on to someone, always sounds like foolishness. Are you kidding, ask Govinda? 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. Thoughts 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 of foolishness, but which is my best thought. It says, the opposite of every truth is just as true. That's like this. Every 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 Gautama 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 in 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 good and evil, is also a deception. How come, asks Govinda, timidly? 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 to-day already the future Buddha. His future is already all there. You have to worship in him, in you, in every one, 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 not possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path. In the robber and the 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, O 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 here, 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 an 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 Maya, 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 grey, 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 everyone is special and praise the Om in its own way. Each one is Brahman, but simultaneously and just as much, it is a stone, it 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. Govinda listened silently. Why have you told me this about the stone? He asked hesitantly after a pause. I did it without a 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 and which we can learn. I can love a stone, Govinda, and also a tree or a piece of bark. These 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 is these which keep you from finding peace. Perhaps it is 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. Quote Govinda, not just a word, my friend, is nirvana. It is a thought. Did Arthur continued, A thought it might be so. I must confess to you, my dear, I don't differentiate much between thoughts and words. To be honest, I also have no high opinion of thoughts. I have a better opinion of things. Here on this ferryboat, for instance, a man has been my predecessor and teacher, a holy man who has for many years simply believed in the river, nothing else. He had noticed that the river spoke to him. He learned from it, it educated and taught him. The river seemed to be a god to him. For many years he did not know that every wind, every cloud, every bird, every beetle was just as divine and knows just as much and can teach just as much as the worshipped river. But when this holy man went into the forests, he knew everything, knew more than you and me, without teachers, without books, only because he had believed in the river. Govinda said, But is that what you call things actually something real, something which has existence? Isn't it just a deception of the mire, 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, O Govinda, seems to me 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 am 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 Gautama'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 Gautama. 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 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 wish you to have calm days. But secretly he thought to himself, this Siddhartha is a bizarre person. He expresses bizarre thoughts. His teachings sound foolish. How differently sound the exalted one's pure teachings? Clearer, purer, more comprehensible. Nothing strange, foolish, or silly is contained in them. But different from his thoughts seemed to me Siddhartha's hands and feet, his eyes, his forehead, his breath, his smile, his greeting, his walk. Never again after our exalted Gautama has become one with the Nirvana, never since then have I met a person of whom I felt this is a holy man. Only him, this Siddhartha, I have found to be like this. May his teachings be strange, may his words sound foolish. Out of his gaze and his hand, his skin and his hair, out of every part of him, shines a purity, shines a calmness, shines a cheerfulness and mildness and holiness, which I have seen in no other person since the final death of our exalted teacher. 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, he spoke, we have become old men. It is unlikely for one of us to see the other again in this incarnation. I see, beloved, that you have found peace. I confess that I haven't found it. Call me, O honourable one, one more word. Give me something on my way which I can grasp, which I can understand. Give me something to be with me on my path. It is often hard, my path, often dark, Siddhartha. Siddhartha said nothing and looked at him with the ever unchanged, quiet smile. Siddhartha stared at his face with fear, with yearning, suffering, and the eternal search was visible in his look, eternal not finding. Siddhartha saw it and smiled. Bend down to me, he whispered quietly in Govinda's ear, bend down to me, like this, even closer, very closer, kiss my forehead, Govinda. And 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 ignore 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. He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha. Instead he saw other faces, many, a long sequence, a flowing river of faces of hundreds of thousands, which all came and disappeared, and yet all seemed to be there simultaneously, which all constantly changed and renewed themselves, and which were still all Siddhartha. He saw the face of a fish, a carp, with infinitely painful opened mouth, the face of a dying fish with fading eyes. He saw the face of a newborn child, red and full of wrinkles, distorted from crying. He saw the face of a murderer. He saw him plunging a knife into the body of another person. He saw, in the same second, this criminal in bondage, kneeling and his head being chopped off by the executioner with one blow of his sword. He saw the bodies of men and women naked in positions and cramps of frenzied love. He saw corpses stretched out, motionless, cold, void. He saw the heads of animals, of boars, of crocodiles, of elephants, of bulls, of birds. He saw gods. He saw Krishna. He saw Agni. He saw all of these figures and faces in a thousand relationships with one another, each one helping the other, loving it, hating it, destroying it, giving rebirth to it. Each one was a will to die, a passionate, painful confession of transitoriness, and yet none of them died. Each one only transformed, was always reborn, received evermore a new face without any time having passed between the one and the other face. And all of these figures and faces rested, flowed, generated themselves, floated along and merged with each other, and they were all constantly covered by something thin, without individuality of its own, but yet existing, like a thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, a shell or mould or mask of water. And this mask was smiling. And this mask was Siddhartha's smiling face, which he, Govinda, in this very same moment touched with his lips. And Govinda saw it like this, this smile of the mask, this smile of oneness above the flowing forms, this smile of simultaneousness above the thousand births and deaths. This smile of Siddhartha was precisely the same, was precisely of the same kind as the quiet, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps benevolent, perhaps mocking, wise, thousandfold smile of Gotama the Buddha, as he had seen it himself with great respect a hundred times. Like this, Govinda knew the perfected ones are smiling. 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 stood still 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 sweetly, smiled quietly and softly, perhaps 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. Suddenly he bowed, touching the ground before him who was sitting motionlessly, who smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to him in his life. CHAPTER 12 AND END OF SIDARTHA by Herman Hesse Read by Adrian Pretzelis in Santa Rosa, California, June 2008