 CHAPTER X of Siddhartha by Herman Hess This Leverbox recording is in the public domain. THE SON Timid and weeping the boy had attended his mother's funeral. Gloomy and shy he had listened to Siddhartha, who had 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 him, 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 honored his mourning. 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 mourning, 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 meantime and the boy remained a stranger and in a gloomy disposition, since he displayed a proud and stubbornly disobedient heart, did not want to do any work, and did not pay his respect to the old men, stole from Vasadeva's fruit trees. Then Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him happiness and peace, but suffering and worry. But he loved him, and he preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and joy without the boy. Since young Siddhartha was in the hut, the old men had split the work. Vasadeva had again taken on the job of the ferryman, all by himself, and Siddhartha, in order to be with his son, did the work in the hut and the field. For a long time, for long months, Siddhartha waited for his son to understand him, to accept his love, to perhaps reciprocate it. For long months Vasadeva waited, watching, 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, Vasadeva took in the evening his friend aside and talked to him. "'Pardon me,' he said, "'from a friendly heart I'm talking to you. I'm seeing that you are tormenting yourself. I'm seeing that you're 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, ran away from riches in the city, being disgusted and fed up with it. Against his will he had to leave all this behind. I ask the river, O friend, many times I have asked you. But the river laughs. It laughs at me. It laughs at you and me. And his shaking was laughter at our foolishness. Water wants to join water. Youth wants to join youth. Your son is not in a place where he can prosper. You too should ask the river. You too should listen to it.' Troubled, Siddhartha looked into his friendly face, in the many wrinkles of which there was an incessant cheerfulness. "'How could I part with him?' he said quietly, ashamed. Give me some more time, my dear. See, I'm fighting for him. I'm seeking to win his heart with love and with friendly patience I intend to capture it. One day the river shall also talk to him. He also is called upon.' Vasadeva'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. Air a lot. Do much injustice, burden themselves with much sin. Tell me, my dear, you're not taking control of your son's upbringing? You don't force him. You don't beat him. You don't punish him. No, Vasadeva, 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 asked, What do you think I should do? Quote Vasadeva, 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 more around, 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 his father's mistakes? Won't he perhaps get entirely lost in sansara? Brightly the ferryman's smile lit up. Softly he touched Siddhartha's arm and said, Ask the river about it, my friend. Hear it laugh about it. Would you actually believe that you had committed your foolish acts in order to spare your son from committing them to? 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, the Brahman's son, which you once told me here on this very spot? Who has kept the 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 should be spared because you love him? 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 have Asadiva had spoken so many words. Kindly Siddhartha thanked him, went troubled into the hut, and could not sleep for a long time. Asadiva 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. Asadiva also said nothing and waited, friendly, knowing, patient. They were both masters of patience. At one time, when the boy's face reminded him very much of Kamala, Siddhartha suddenly had to think of a line which Kamala a long time ago, in the days of their youth, had once said to him. You cannot love, she had said to him. And he had agreed with her, and had compared himself with a star, while comparing the childlike people with falling leaves. And nevertheless, he had also sensed an accusation in that line. Indeed, he had never been able to lose or devote himself completely to another person, to forget himself, to commit foolish acts for the love of another person. Never he had been able to do this. And this was, as it seemed to him at that time, the greatest distinction which set him apart from the childlike people. But now, since his son was here, now he, Siddhartha, had also become completely a childlike person, suffering for the sake of another person, loving another person, lost to a love, having become a fool on account of love. Now he too felt, late, once in his lifetime, this strongest and strangest of all passions, suffered from it, suffered miserably, and was nevertheless in bliss, was nevertheless renewed in one respect, enriched by one thing. He did sense very well that this love, this blind love for his son, was a passion, something very human, that it was sansara, a murky source, dark waters. Nevertheless, he felt at the same time it was not worthless, it was necessary, came from the essence of his own being. This pleasure also had to be atoned for. This pain also had to be endured. These foolish acts also had to be committed. Through all this, the son let him commit his foolish acts, let him court for his affection, let him humiliate himself every day by giving in to his moods. This father had nothing which would have delighted him, and nothing which he would have feared. He was a good man, this father, a good, kind, soft man, perhaps a very devout man, perhaps a saint. All these were no attributes which could win the boy over. He was bored by his father, who kept him prisoner here in this miserable hut of his. He was bored by him and for him to answer every noddiness with a smile, every insult with friendliness, every viciousness with kindness. This very thing was the hated trick of this old sneak. Much more the boy would have liked it if he had been threatened by him, if he had been abused by him. A day came when what young Siddhartha had on his mind came bursting forth, and he openly turned against his father. The latter had given him a task. He had told him to gather brushwood. But the boy did not leave the hut in stubborn disobedience and rage he stayed where he was, thumped on the ground with his feet, clenched his fists, and screamed in a powerful outburst of 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 go to hell than to become like you. I hate you, you're not my father, and if you've ten times been my mother's fornicator. Rage and grief boiled over 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 vast of two colors, in which the ferrymen kept their copper and silver coins which they received as a fare. The boat had also disappeared. Siddhartha saw it lying by the opposite bank. The boy had ran away. I must follow him, said Siddhartha, who had been shivering with grief since those ranting speeches the boy had made yesterday. The child can't go through the forest all alone. He'll perish. We must build a raft, Vasadeva, to get over the water. We will build a raft, said Vasadeva, to get our boat back, which the boy has taken away. But him you shall let run along, my friend. He is no child anymore. 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 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 hand, began to make a raft of bamboo, and Vasadeva helped him to tie the canes together with ropes of grass. Then they crossed over, drifted far off their course, pulled the raft up river on the opposite bank. Why did you take the axe along, asked Siddhartha? Vasadeva 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. Vasadeva pointed to the bottom of the boat and looked at his friend with a smile, as if he wanted to say, Don't you see what your son is trying to tell you? Don't you see that he doesn't want to be followed? But he did not say this in words. He started making a new oar. But Siddhartha bid his farewell to look for the runaway. Vasadeva 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 so far ahead and had already reached the city, or, if he should still be on his way, he would conceal himself from him, the pursuer. As he continued thinking, he also found that he, on his part, was not worried for his son, that he knew deep inside that he had neither perished nor was in any danger in the forest. Nevertheless, he ran without stopping, no longer to save him, just to satisfy his desire, just to perhaps see him one more time. And he ran up to just outside of the city. When, near the city, he reached a wide road he stopped by the entrance of the beautiful pleasure-garden, which used to belong to Kamala, where he had seen her for the first time in her sedan chair. The past rose up in his soul, again he saw himself standing there. Young, a bearded naked samana, the hair full of dust. For a long time Siddhartha stood there and looked through the open gate into the garden, seeing monks in yellow robes walking among the beautiful trees. 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 once again, old and tired, felt once again disgust, felt once again the wish to annihilate himself, was once again healed by the holy own. After having been standing by the gate of the garden for a long time, Siddhartha realized 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 to him. Deeply he felt the love for the runaway in his heart, like a wound, he felt at the 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 anymore, 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 anymore, fell into emptiness, let himself fall, without seeing a path. And when he felt the wound burning, he silently spoke the omen, filled himself with omen. The monks in the garden saw him, and since he crouched for many hours, and dust was gathering on his gray hair, one of them came to him and placed two bananas in front of him. The old man did not see him. From this petrified state, he was awoke by a hand touching his shoulder. Instantly he recognized this touch, this tender, bashful touch, and regained his senses. He rose and greeted Vasadeva, who had followed him. And when he looked into Vasadeva's friendly face, into the small wrinkles which were as if they had been filled with nothing but his smile, into the happy eyes, then he smiled too. Now he saw the bananas lying in front of him, and picked them up, and gave one to the ferrymen, ate the other one himself. After this he silently went back into the forest with Vasadeva, 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, Vasadeva came to him to offer him a bowl of coconut milk, he already found him to sleep. End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 of Siddhartha by Harman Hess This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. O'm. For a long time the wound continued to burn. Many a traveler 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. Different than before he now looked upon people, less smart, less proud, but instead warmer, more curious, more involved. When he ferried travelers of the ordinary kind, childlike people, businessmen, warriors, women, these people did not seem alien to him as they used to. He understood them. He understood and shared their life, which was not guided by thoughts and insight, but solely by urges and wishes. He felt like them. Though he was near perfection and was bearing his final wound, it still seemed to him as if those childlike people were his brothers. Their vanities, desires for possessions, and ridiculous aspects were no longer ridiculous to him. Became understandable, became lovable, even became worthy of veneration to him. The blind love of a mother for her child, the stupid, blind pride of a conceded father for his only son. The blind, wild desire of a young, vain woman for jewelry and admiring glances from men. All of these urges, all of this childish stuff, all of these simple, foolish, but immensely strong, strongly living, strongly prevailing urges and desires were now no childish notions for Siddhartha any more. He saw people living for their sake, saw them achieving infinitely much for their sake, traveling, conducting wars, suffering infinitely much, bearing infinitely much, and he could love them for it. He saw life and 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 royalty, their blind strength and tenacity. They lacked nothing, there was nothing the knowledgeable one, the thinker had to put him above them except for one little thing, a single, tiny, small thing, the consciousness, the conscious thought of the oneness of all life. And Siddhartha even doubted in many an hour whether this knowledge, this thought was to be valued thus highly, whether it might not also perhaps be a childish idea of the thinking people, of the thinking and childlike people. In all other respects the worldly people were of equal rank to the wise men, were often far superior to them, just as animals too can, after all in some moments seem to be superior to humans in their top, unrelenting performance of what is necessary. Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha realization, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul and 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 Vasadeva'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 his voice sounded strange. It laughed. It laughed clearly. The river laughed. It laughed brightly and clearly at the old ferryman. Siddhartha stopped and bent over the water in order to hear even better. And he saw his face reflected in the quietly moving waters. And in this reflected face there was something which reminded him, something he had forgotten. And as he thought about it, he found it. This face resembled another face, which he used to know and love and also fear. It resembled his father's face, the 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 bid his farewell to him, how he had gone and had never come back. Had his father not also suffered the same pain for him, which he now suffered for his son? Had his father not long since died alone, without having seen his son again, did he not have to expect the same fate for himself? Was it not a comedy, a strange and stupid matter, this repetition, this running around in a fateful circle? The river laughed. Yes, so it was, everything came back, which had not been suffered and solved up to its end. The same pain was suffered over and over again. But Siddhartha 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 in the entire world. The last the wound was not blossoming yet, his heart was still fighting his fate. Cheerfulness and victory were not yet shining from his suffering. Nevertheless he felt hope, and once he had returned to the hut, he felt an undefeatable desire to open up to Vasadeva, to show him everything, the master of listening, to say everything. Vasadeva was sitting in the hut and weaving a basket. He no longer used the ferry boat, his eyes were starting to get weak, and not just his eyes, his arms and hands as well. Unchanged and flourishing was only the joy and the cheerful benevolence of his face. Siddhartha sat down next to the old man. Slowly he started talking. What they had never talked about he now told him of, of his walk to the city at that time, of the burning wound, of his envy at the sight of happy fathers, of his knowledge of the foolishness of such wishes, of his futile fight against them. He reported everything. He was able to say everything, even the most embarrassing parts. Everything could be said, everything shown, everything he could tell. He presented his wound, also told how he fled today, how he ferried across the water a childish runaway, willing to walk to the city, how the river had laughed. While he spoke, spoke for a long time, while Vasadeva was listening with a quiet face, Vasadeva'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 cold 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 Vasadeva, 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 this was God himself, that he was the eternal itself. And while Siddhartha stopped thinking of himself and his wound, this realization of Vasadeva'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 Vasadeva 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 the old Vasadeva as the people see the gods, and that this could not last, in his heart he started bidding his farewell to Vasadeva. Throughout all this he talked and cessed it. When he finished talking, Vasadeva turned his friendly eyes, which had blown slightly weak at him, said nothing, let his silent love and cheerfulness, understanding and knowledge, shine at him. He took Siddhartha's hand, led him to the seat by the bank, sat down with him, smiled at the river. 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 water, and images appeared to him in the moving water. His father appeared, lonely, mourning for his son. He himself appeared, lonely, as 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 headed 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 toward its goal. Lamentingly its voice sang. Do you hear Vasadeva's mute gaze asked? Siddhartha nodded. Listen better, Vasadeva 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 vapor 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, good 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 now had 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 together, 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 own, the perfection. Do you hear Vasadeva's gaze ask again? Brightly Vasadeva's smile was shining, floating radiantly over all the wrinkles of his old face, as the ome was floating in the air over all the voices of the river. Brightly his smile was shining, when he looked at his friend, and brightly the same smile was now starting to shine on Siddhartha's face as well. His wound blossomed, his suffering was shining, his self had flown into the oneness. In this hour Siddhartha stopped fighting his faith, stopped suffering. On his face flourished a 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 the 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 Vasadeva 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 shore with his hand, in his careful and tender manner, and said, I've been waiting for this hour, my friend. 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 Vasadeva 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'm going into the forests. I'm going into the oneness, spoke Vasadeva with a bright smile. With a bright smile he left. Siddhartha watched him leaving. With a deep joy, with deep solemnity he watched him leave. Saw his steps full of peace. Saw his head full of lustre. Saw his body full of light. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of Siddhartha by Herman Hess This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Govinda Together with other monks, Govinda used to spend the time of rest between pilgrimages in the pleasure-brow which the courteson Kamala had given to the followers of Gadama for a gift. He heard talk of an old ferryman who lived one day's journey away by the river and who was regarded as a wise man by many. When Govinda went back on his way he chose the path to the ferry, eager to see the ferryman. Because though he had lived his entire life by the rules, though he was also looked upon with veneration by the younger monks on account of his age and his modesty, the restlessness and the searching still had not perished from his heart. He came to the river and asked the old man to ferry him over, and when they got off the boat on the other side he said to the old man, you're very good to us monks and pilgrims. You've already ferried many of us across the river. Aren't you, too, ferryman, a searcher for the right path? Close Siddhartha smiling from his old eyes. Do you call yourself a searcher, O venerable one, though you are already of an old in years and are wearing the robe of Gadama's monks? It's true I'm old, spoke Govinda, but I haven't stopped searching. Never I'll stop searching. This seems to be my destiny. You, too, so it seems to me, have been searching. Would you like to tell me something, O honorable one? Close 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 finding? How calm, ask Govinda. When someone is searching, said Siddhartha, then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what 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 driving 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, ask Govinda. What do you mean by this? Close 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 man or Siddhartha laugh, 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 hut. Govinda stayed the night in the hut and slept on the bed, which used to be Vasadeva'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 to distrust teachers in teachings, and to turn my back to them. I have stuck with this. Nevertheless, 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, traveling on foot, has been my teacher. He sat with me when I had fallen asleep in the forest on the pilgrimage. I have also learned from him. I am also grateful to him, very grateful. But most of all I have learned here from this river and from my predecessor, the ferryman, Vasadeva. He was a very simple person, Vasadeva. He was no thinker, but he knew what is necessary, just as well as Gautama. He was a perfect man, a saint. Gavinda 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. Quote 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 Gavinda, this is one of my thoughts, which I have found. Wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness. Are you kidding, ask Gavinda? I'm not kidding. I'm telling you what I've found. Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found. It can be lived. It is possible to be carried by it. Miracles can be performed with it. But it cannot be expressed in words and taught. This was what I, even as a young man, sometimes suspected, what was driven me away from the teaching. I have found a thought, Gavinda, which you'll again regard as a joke or foolishness, for which is my best thought. It says, the opposite of every truth is just as true. That's like this. Any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided. Everything is one-sided, which can be thought with thoughts and said with words. It's all one-sided, all just one half, all lax completeness, roundness, oneness. When the exalted Godama spoke in his teachings of the world, he had to divide it into sansara and nirvana, into deception and truth, into suffering and salvation. It cannot be done differently. There is no other way for him who wants to teach. But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided. A person or an act is never entirely sansara or entirely nirvana. A person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful. It does really seem like this because we are subject to deception. As if time was something real. Time is not real, Govinda. I have experienced this often and often again. And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between the world and the eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between evil and good, is also a deception. How come, asks Govinda, tendably. Listen well, my dear, listen well. The sinner, which I am and which you are, is a sinner. But in times to come, he will be Brahma again. He will reach the nirvana, will be Buddha. And now see, these times to come are a deception, are only a parable. The sinner is not on his way to become a Buddha. He is not in the process of developing, though our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these things. No, within the sinner is now and today already the future Buddha. His future is already all there. You have to worship in him and you and everyone, the Buddha, which is coming into being. The possible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect or on a slow path towards perfection. No, it is perfect in every moment. All sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself. All small children already have the old person in themselves. All infants already have death. All dying people the eternal life. It is not possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path. In the robber and dice gambler, the Buddha is waiting. In the Brahma, 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 simultaneously. 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. My only 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 waited 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 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 or the maha. But because it might be able to become a human being, and a spirit in the cycle of transformations, therefore I also granted importance. Thus I would perhaps have thought it in the past, but today I think this stone is a stone. It is also an animal. It is also God. It is also Buddha. I do not venerate and love it because it could turn into this or that, but rather because it is already and always everything, and it is this very fact that it is a stone, that it appears to me now and today as a stone. This is why I love it, and see worth and purpose, in each of its veins and cavities, in the yellow, in the gray, in the hardness, in the sound it makes when I knock at it, in the dryness or wetness of its surface. There are stones which feel like oil or soap, and others like leaves, others like sand, and everyone is special and prays the own in its own way. Each one is Brahmin, but simultaneously and just as much it is a stone, is oily or juicy, and this is very fact which I like in 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 the 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's man's treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to another person. Gavinda listened silently. Why have you told me this about the stone, he asked hesitantly after a pause? I did it without any specific intention, or perhaps what I meant was, that love this very stone and the river and all these things we are looking at and from which we can learn. I could love a stone, Gavinda, and also a tree or a piece of bark. This are things and things can be loved, but I cannot love words. Therefore, teachings are no good for me. They have no hardness, no softness, no colors, no edges, no smell, no taste. They have nothing but words. Perhaps it are these which keep you from finding peace. Perhaps it are the many words. Because salvation and virtue as well, sansara and nirvana as well, are mere words, Gavinda. There is no thing which would be nirvana. There is just the word nirvana. Close Gavinda, not just a word, my friend, is nirvana. It is a thought. Siddhartha continued, The 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 ferry boat, for instance, a man has been my predecessor and teacher, a holy man who, as 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 worshiped 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. Gavinda said, But is that what you call things, actually something real, something which has existed? Isn't it just a deception of the maha, 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, Gavinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all. To thoroughly understand the world, to explain it, to despise it may be the thing great thinkers do. But I'm only interested in being able to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it in me, to be able to look upon it in me and all beings with love and admiration in great respect. This, I understand, spoke Gavinda, 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, Gavinda. 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 Godama'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 Godama's. How should he not know love, he who has discovered all elements of human existence in their transitoryness, in their meaninglessness, and yet loved people thus much to use a long, laborious life only to help them, to teach them. Even with him, even with your great teacher, I prefer the thing over the words, place more importance on his acts and life than on his speeches, more on the gestures of his hand than his opinions. Not in his speech, not in his thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life. For a long time the two old men said nothing, then spoke Gavinda while bowing for a farewell. I thank you, Siddhartha, for telling me some of your thoughts. They are partially strange thoughts, not all have been instantly understandable to me. This being as it may, I thank you, and I wish you to have calm days. But secretly he thought to himself, this Siddhartha is a bizarre person. He expresses bizarre thoughts. His teachings sound foolish. So 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. Tell me, O honorable 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. Govinda stared at his face with fear, with yearning, suffering, and the eternal search was visible in his look, eternal not finding. Siddhartha sighed and smiled. Bend down to me, he whispered quietly in Govinda's ear. Bend down to me, like this, even closer, very close. Kiss my forehead, Govinda. But while Govinda, with astonishment, and yet drawn by great love and expectation, obeyed his words, bent down closely to him, and touched his forehead with his lips, something miraculous happened in him. While his thoughts were still dwelling on Siddhartha's wondrous words, while he was still struggling in vain and with reluctance to think away time, to imagine Nirvana and Sansara as one, while even a certain contempt for the words of his friends were 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 an infinitely painfully 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 in 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 passionately 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 things. With all of these figures and faces rested, flowed, generated themselves, floating 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 a mold or a 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 Godama, 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 Godama, a me and you, feeling in his innermost self as if he had been wounded by a divine arrow, the injury of which tasted sweet. Being enchanted and dissolved in his innermost self, Govinda still stood for a little while, bent over Siddhartha's quiet face, which he had just kissed, which had just been the scene of all manifestations, all transformations, all existence. The face was unchanged, after under its surface the depth of the thousandfoldness had closed up again. He smiled silently, smiled quietly and softly, perhaps very benevolently, perhaps very mockingly, precisely as he used to smile, the exalted one. Deeply, Govinda bowed, tears he knew nothing of, ran down his old face, like a fire burnt to feeling of the most intimate love, the humblest veneration in his heart. Deeply, he bowed, touching the ground before him who was sitting motionlessly, whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to him in his life.