A person or
an act is never entirely Sansara or entirely Nirvana, a person is never
entirely holy or entirely sinful.
an act is never entirely Sansara or entirely Nirvana, a person is never
entirely holy or entirely sinful.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
And in fact, there was no oar
left in the boat. Vasudeva pointed to the bottom of the boat and looked
at his friend with a smile, as if he wanted to say: "Don't you see what
your son is trying to tell you? Don't you see that he doesn't want to
be followed? " But he did not say this in words. He started making a
new oar. But Siddhartha bid his farewell, to look for the run-away.
Vasudeva did not stop him.
When Siddhartha had already been walking through the forest for a long
time, the thought occurred to him that his search was useless. Either,
so he thought, the boy was far ahead and had already reached the city,
or, if he should still be on his way, he would conceal himself from him,
the pursuer. As he continued thinking, he also found that he, on his
part, was not worried for his son, that he knew deep inside that he had
neither perished nor was in any danger in the forest. Nevertheless, he
ran without stopping, no longer to save him, just to satisfy his desire,
just to perhaps see him one more time. And he ran up to just outside of
the city.
When, near the city, he reached a wide road, he stopped, by the entrance
of the beautiful pleasure-garden, which used to belong to Kamala, where
he had seen her for the first time in her sedan-chair. The past rose
up in his soul, again he saw himself standing there, young, a bearded,
naked Samana, the hair full of dust. For a long time, Siddhartha stood
there and looked through the open gate into the garden, seeing monks in
yellow robes walking among the beautiful trees.
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 Brahmanism, 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
song-bird 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 by the gate of the garden for a long time,
Siddhartha realised that his desire was foolish, which had made him go
up to this place, that he could not help his son, that he was not
allowed to cling him. Deeply, he felt the love for the run-away in his
heart, like a wound, and he felt at the same time that this wound had
not been given to him in order to turn the knife in it, that it had to
become a blossom and had to shine.
That this wound did not blossom yet, did not shine yet, at this hour,
made him sad. Instead of the desired goal, which had drawn him here
following the runaway son, there was now emptiness. Sadly, he sat down,
felt something dying in his heart, experienced emptiness, saw no joy any
more, no goal. He sat lost in thought and waited. This he had learned
by the river, this one thing: waiting, having patience, listening
attentively. And he sat and listened, in the dust of the road, listened
to his heart, beating tiredly and sadly, waited for a voice. Many an
hour he crouched, listening, saw no images any more, fell into
emptiness, let himself fall, without seeing a path. And when he felt
the wound burning, he silently spoke the Om, filled himself with Om.
The monks in the garden saw him, and since he crouched for many hours,
and dust was gathering on his gray hair, one of them came to him and
placed two bananas in front of him. The old man did not see him.
From this petrified state, he was awoken by a hand touching his
shoulder. Instantly, he recognised 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.
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 possess 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 still seemed to him as if those childlike people were his
brothers, their vanities, desires for possession, and ridiculous aspects
were no longer ridiculous to him, became understandable, became lovable,
even became worthy of veneration to him. The blind love of a mother
for her child, the stupid, blind pride of a conceited father for his
only son, the blind, wild desire of a young, vain woman for jewelry and
admiring glances from men, all of these urges, all of this childish
stuff, all of these simple, foolish, but immensely strong, strongly
living, strongly prevailing urges and desires were now no childish
notions for Siddhartha any more, he saw people living for their sake,
saw them achieving infinitely much for their sake, travelling,
conducting wars, suffering infinitely much, bearing infinitely much, and
he could love them for it, he saw life, that what is alive, the
indestructible, the Brahman in each of their passions, each of their
acts. Worthy of love and admiration were these people in their blind
loyalty, their blind strength and tenacity. They lacked nothing, there
was nothing the knowledgeable one, the thinker, had to put him above them
except for one little thing, a single, tiny, small thing: the
consciousness, the conscious thought of the oneness of all life. And
Siddhartha even doubted in many an hour, whether this knowledge, this
thought was to be valued thus highly, whether it might not also perhaps
be a childish idea of the thinking people, of the thinking and childlike
people. In all other respects, the worldly people were of equal rank
to the wise men, were often far superior to them, just as animals too
can, after all, in some moments, seem to be superior to humans in their
tough, unrelenting performance of what is necessary.
Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realisation, 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: this face resembled another face, which
he used to know and love and also fear. It resembled his father's face,
the Brahman. And he remembered how he, a long time ago, as a young man,
had forced his father to let him go to the penitents, how he had bed his
farewell to him, how he had gone and had never come back. Had his
father not also suffered the same pain for him, which he now suffered
for his son? Had his father not long since died, alone, without having
seen his son again? Did he not have to expect the same fate for
himself? Was it not a comedy, a strange and stupid matter, this
repetition, this running around in a fateful circle?
The river laughed. Yes, so it was, everything came back, which had not
been suffered and solved up to its end, the same pain was suffered over
and over again. But Siddhartha want back into the boat and ferried back
to the hut, thinking of his father, thinking of his son, laughed at by
the river, at odds with himself, tending towards despair, and not less
tending towards laughing along at (? ? uber) himself and the entire
world.
Alas, the wound was not blossoming yet, his heart was still fighting his
fate, cheerfulness and victory were not yet shining from his suffering.
Nevertheless, he felt hope, and once he had returned to the hut, he felt
an undefeatable desire to open up to Vasudeva, to show him everything,
the master of listening, to say everything.
Vasudeva was sitting in the hut and weaving a basket. He no longer used
the ferry-boat, his eyes were starting to get weak, and not just his
eyes; his arms and hands as well. Unchanged and flourishing was only
the joy and the cheerful benevolence of his face.
Siddhartha sat down next to the old man, slowly he started talking.
What they had never talked about, he now told him of, of his walk to
the city, at that time, of the burning wound, of his envy at the sight
of happy fathers, of his knowledge of the foolishness of such wishes, of
his futile fight against them. He reported everything, he was able to
say everything, even the most embarrassing parts, everything could be
said, everything shown, everything he could tell. He presented his
wound, also told how he fled today, how he ferried across the water,
a childish run-away, willing to walk to the city, how the river had
laughed.
While he spoke, spoke for a long time, while Vasudeva was listening
with a quiet face, Vasudeva's listening gave Siddhartha a stronger
sensation than ever before, he sensed how his pain, his fears flowed
over to him, how his secret hope flowed over, came back at him from
his counterpart. To show his wound to this listener was the same as
bathing it in the river, until it had cooled and become one with the
river. While he was still speaking, still admitting and confessing,
Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no
longer a human being, who was listening to him, that this motionless
listener was absorbing his confession into himself like a tree the rain,
that this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God himself,
that he was the eternal itself. And while Siddhartha stopped thinking
of himself and his wound, this realisation of Vasudeva's changed
character took possession of him, and the more he felt it and entered
into it, the less wondrous it became, the more he realised that
everything was in order and natural, that Vasudeva had already been like
this for a long time, almost forever, that only he had not quite
recognised it, yes, that he himself had almost reached the same state.
He felt, that he was now seeing old Vasudeva as the people see the
gods, and that this could not last; in his heart, he started bidding his
farewell to Vasudeva. Thorough all this, he talked incessantly.
When he had finished talking, Vasudeva turned his friendly eyes, which
had grown slightly weak, at him, said nothing, let his silent love and
cheerfulness, understanding and knowledge, shine at him. He took
Siddhartha's hand, led him to the seat by the bank, sat down with him,
smiled at the river.
"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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 this careful
and tender manner, and said: "I've been waiting for this hour, my dear.
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'm going into the forests, I'm going into the oneness," spoke Vasudeva
with a bright smile.
With a bright smile, he left; Siddhartha watched him leaving. With deep
joy, with deep solemnity he watched him leave, saw his steps full of
peace, saw his head full of lustre, saw his body full of light.
GOVINDA
Together with other monks, Govinda used to spend the time of rest
between pilgrimages in the pleasure-grove, which the courtesan Kamala
had given to the followers of Gotama for a gift. He heard talk of an
old ferryman, who lived one day's journey away by the river, and
who was regarded as a wise man by many. When Govinda went back on his
way, he chose the path to the ferry, eager to see the ferryman.
Because, though he had lived his entire life by the rules, though he was
also looked upon with veneration by the younger monks on account of his
age and his modesty, the restlessness and the searching still had not
perished from his heart.
He came to the river and asked the old man to ferry him over, and when
they got off the boat on the other side, he said to the old man:
"You're very good to us monks and pilgrims, you have already ferried
many of us across the river. Aren't you too, ferryman, a searcher for
the right path? "
Quoth Siddhartha, smiling from his old eyes: "Do you call yourself a
searcher, oh venerable one, though you are already of an old in years
and are wearing the robe of Gotama's monks? "
"It's true, I'm old," spoke Govinda, "but I haven't stopped searching.
Never I'll stop searching, this seems to be my destiny. You too, so it
seems to me, have been searching. Would you like to tell me something,
oh honourable one? "
Quoth Siddhartha: "What should I possibly have to tell you, oh
venerable one? Perhaps that you're searching far too much? That in all
that searching, you don't find the time for 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 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, oh 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," asked Govinda, "what do you mean by
this? "
Quoth Siddhartha: "A long time ago, oh venerable one, many years ago,
you've once before been at this river and have found a sleeping man by
the river, and have sat down with him to guard his sleep. But, oh
Govinda, you did not recognise the sleeping man. "
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
recognised you this time as well! From my heart, I'm greeting you,
Siddhartha; from my heart, I'm happy to see you once again! You've
changed a lot, my friend. --And so you've now become a ferryman? "
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
hut. "
Govinda stayed the night in the hut and slept on the bed which used to
be Vasudeva's bed. Many questions he posed to the friend of his youth,
many things Siddhartha had to tell him from his life.
When in the next morning the time had come to start the day's journey,
Govinda said, not without hesitation, these words: "Before I'll
continue on my path, Siddhartha, permit me to ask one more question.
Do you have a teaching? Do you have a faith, or a knowledge, you
follow, which helps you to live and to do right? "
Quoth 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 and 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, travelling on foot, has been my teacher; he sat with
me when 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 Gotama, he was a
perfect man, a saint. "
Govinda said: "Still, oh 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. "
Quoth 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? " asked 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, miracles can be performed with it, but it
cannot be expressed in words and taught. This was what I, even as a
young man, sometimes suspected, what has driven me away from the
teachers. I have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard as
a joke or foolishness, but which is my best thought. It says: The
opposite of every truth is just as true! That's like this: any truth
can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided.
Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with
words, it's all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness,
roundness, oneness. When the exalted Gotama spoke in his teachings of
the world, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into deception
and truth, into suffering and salvation. It cannot be done differently,
there is no other way for him who wants to teach. But the world itself,
what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided.
A person or
an act is never entirely Sansara or entirely Nirvana, a person is never
entirely holy or entirely sinful. It does really seem like this,
because we are subject to deception, as if time was something real.
Time is not real, Govinda, I have experienced this often and often
again. And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between
the world and the eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between
evil and good, is also a deception. "
"How come? " asked 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 today already the future
Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in
you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible,
the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or
on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment,
all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small
children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already
have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is 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
Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the
possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was,
is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is
good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see
whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness,
wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only
requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be
good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever
harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin
very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed
the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all
resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop
comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection
I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy
being a part of it. --These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which
have come into my mind. "
Siddhartha bent down, picked up a stone from the ground, and weighed it
in his hand.
"This 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 of the
Maja; but because it might be able to become also a human being and a
spirit in the cycle of transformations, therefore I also grant it
importance. Thus, I would perhaps have thought in the past. But today
I think: this stone is a stone, it is also animal, it is also god, it is
also Buddha, I do not venerate and love it because it could turn into
this or that, but rather because it is already and always everything--
and it is this very fact, that it is a stone, that it appears to me now
and today as a stone, this is why I love it and see worth and purpose in
each of its veins and cavities, in the yellow, in the gray, in the
hardness, in the sound it makes when I knock at it, in the dryness or
wetness of its surface. There are stones which feel like oil or soap,
and others like leaves, others like sand, and every one is special and
prays the Om in its own way, each one is Brahman, but simultaneously and
just as much it is a stone, is oily or juicy, and this is this very fact
which I like and regard as wonderful and worthy of worship. --But let me
speak no more of this. The words are not good for the secret meaning,
everything always becomes a bit different, as soon as it is put into
words, gets distorted a bit, a bit silly--yes, and this is also very
good, and I like it a lot, I also very much agree with this, that this
what is one man's treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to
another person. "
Govinda 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 can love a stone, Govinda,
and also a tree or a piece of bark. This are things, and things can be
loved. But I cannot love words. Therefore, teachings are no good for
me, they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no edges, no smell,
no taste, they have nothing but words. Perhaps it are these which keep
you from finding peace, perhaps it are the many words. Because
salvation and virtue as well, Sansara and Nirvana as well, are mere
words, Govinda. There is no thing which would be Nirvana; there is just
the word Nirvana. "
Quoth Govinda: "Not just a word, my friend, is Nirvana. It is a
thought. "
Siddhartha 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 ferry-boat, 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's 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
Maja, just an image and illusion? Your stone, your tree, your river--
are they actually a reality? "
"This too," spoke Siddhartha, "I do not care very much about. Let the
things be illusions or not, after all I would then also be an illusion,
and thus they are always like me. This is what makes them so dear and
worthy of veneration for me: they are like me. Therefore, I can love
them. And this is now a teaching you will laugh about: love, oh
Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all. To
thoroughly understand the world, to explain it, to despise it, may be
the thing great thinkers do. But I'm only interested in being able to
love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it and me, to be able to
look upon it and me and all beings with love and admiration and great
respect. "
"This I understand," spoke Govinda. "But this very thing was discovered
by the exalted one to be a deception. He commands benevolence,
clemency, sympathy, tolerance, but not love; he forbade us to tie our
heart in love to earthly things. "
"I know it," said Siddhartha; his smile shone golden. "I know it,
Govinda. And behold, with this we are right in the middle of the
thicket of opinions, in the dispute about words. For I cannot deny, my
words of love are in a contradiction, a seeming contradiction with
Gotama's words. For this very reason, I distrust in words so much, for
I know, this contradiction is a deception. I know that I am in
agreement with Gotama. How should he not know love, he, who has
discovered all elements of human existence in their transitoriness, in
their meaninglessness, and yet loved people thus much, to use a long,
laborious life only to help them, to teach them! Even with him, even
with your great teacher, I prefer the thing over the words, place more
importance on his acts and life than on his speeches, more on the
gestures of his hand than his opinions. Not in his speech, not in his
thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life. "
For a long time, the two old men said nothing. Then spoke Govinda,
while bowing for a farewell: "I thank you, Siddhartha, for telling me
some of your thoughts. They are partially strange thoughts, not all
have been instantly understandable to me. This being as it may, I thank
you, and I wish you to have calm days. "
(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 Gotama 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,
oh 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. Govinda 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 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 to him. While his
thoughts were still dwelling on Siddhartha's wondrous words, while he
was still struggling in vain and with reluctance to think away time, to
imagine Nirvana and Sansara as one, while even a certain contempt for
the words of his friend was fighting in him against an immense love and
veneration, this happened to him:
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 new-born
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, saw Krishna, 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 re-birth
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 re-born, 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 mold 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, thousand-fold
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
still stood for a little while bent over Siddhartha's quiet face, which
he had just kissed, which had just been the scene of all manifestations,
all transformations, all existence. The face was unchanged, after under
its surface the depth of the thousandfoldness had closed up again, he
smiled silently, smiled quietly and softly, perhaps very benevolently,
perhaps very mockingly, precisely as he used to smile, the exalted one.
Deeply, Govinda bowed; tears he knew nothing of, ran down his old face;
like a fire burnt the feeling of the most intimate love, the humblest
veneration in his heart. Deeply, he bowed, touching the ground, before
him who was sitting motionlessly, whose smile reminded him of everything
he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to
him in his life.
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1.
left in the boat. Vasudeva pointed to the bottom of the boat and looked
at his friend with a smile, as if he wanted to say: "Don't you see what
your son is trying to tell you? Don't you see that he doesn't want to
be followed? " But he did not say this in words. He started making a
new oar. But Siddhartha bid his farewell, to look for the run-away.
Vasudeva did not stop him.
When Siddhartha had already been walking through the forest for a long
time, the thought occurred to him that his search was useless. Either,
so he thought, the boy was far ahead and had already reached the city,
or, if he should still be on his way, he would conceal himself from him,
the pursuer. As he continued thinking, he also found that he, on his
part, was not worried for his son, that he knew deep inside that he had
neither perished nor was in any danger in the forest. Nevertheless, he
ran without stopping, no longer to save him, just to satisfy his desire,
just to perhaps see him one more time. And he ran up to just outside of
the city.
When, near the city, he reached a wide road, he stopped, by the entrance
of the beautiful pleasure-garden, which used to belong to Kamala, where
he had seen her for the first time in her sedan-chair. The past rose
up in his soul, again he saw himself standing there, young, a bearded,
naked Samana, the hair full of dust. For a long time, Siddhartha stood
there and looked through the open gate into the garden, seeing monks in
yellow robes walking among the beautiful trees.
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 Brahmanism, 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
song-bird 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 by the gate of the garden for a long time,
Siddhartha realised that his desire was foolish, which had made him go
up to this place, that he could not help his son, that he was not
allowed to cling him. Deeply, he felt the love for the run-away in his
heart, like a wound, and he felt at the same time that this wound had
not been given to him in order to turn the knife in it, that it had to
become a blossom and had to shine.
That this wound did not blossom yet, did not shine yet, at this hour,
made him sad. Instead of the desired goal, which had drawn him here
following the runaway son, there was now emptiness. Sadly, he sat down,
felt something dying in his heart, experienced emptiness, saw no joy any
more, no goal. He sat lost in thought and waited. This he had learned
by the river, this one thing: waiting, having patience, listening
attentively. And he sat and listened, in the dust of the road, listened
to his heart, beating tiredly and sadly, waited for a voice. Many an
hour he crouched, listening, saw no images any more, fell into
emptiness, let himself fall, without seeing a path. And when he felt
the wound burning, he silently spoke the Om, filled himself with Om.
The monks in the garden saw him, and since he crouched for many hours,
and dust was gathering on his gray hair, one of them came to him and
placed two bananas in front of him. The old man did not see him.
From this petrified state, he was awoken by a hand touching his
shoulder. Instantly, he recognised 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.
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 possess 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 still seemed to him as if those childlike people were his
brothers, their vanities, desires for possession, and ridiculous aspects
were no longer ridiculous to him, became understandable, became lovable,
even became worthy of veneration to him. The blind love of a mother
for her child, the stupid, blind pride of a conceited father for his
only son, the blind, wild desire of a young, vain woman for jewelry and
admiring glances from men, all of these urges, all of this childish
stuff, all of these simple, foolish, but immensely strong, strongly
living, strongly prevailing urges and desires were now no childish
notions for Siddhartha any more, he saw people living for their sake,
saw them achieving infinitely much for their sake, travelling,
conducting wars, suffering infinitely much, bearing infinitely much, and
he could love them for it, he saw life, that what is alive, the
indestructible, the Brahman in each of their passions, each of their
acts. Worthy of love and admiration were these people in their blind
loyalty, their blind strength and tenacity. They lacked nothing, there
was nothing the knowledgeable one, the thinker, had to put him above them
except for one little thing, a single, tiny, small thing: the
consciousness, the conscious thought of the oneness of all life. And
Siddhartha even doubted in many an hour, whether this knowledge, this
thought was to be valued thus highly, whether it might not also perhaps
be a childish idea of the thinking people, of the thinking and childlike
people. In all other respects, the worldly people were of equal rank
to the wise men, were often far superior to them, just as animals too
can, after all, in some moments, seem to be superior to humans in their
tough, unrelenting performance of what is necessary.
Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realisation, 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: this face resembled another face, which
he used to know and love and also fear. It resembled his father's face,
the Brahman. And he remembered how he, a long time ago, as a young man,
had forced his father to let him go to the penitents, how he had bed his
farewell to him, how he had gone and had never come back. Had his
father not also suffered the same pain for him, which he now suffered
for his son? Had his father not long since died, alone, without having
seen his son again? Did he not have to expect the same fate for
himself? Was it not a comedy, a strange and stupid matter, this
repetition, this running around in a fateful circle?
The river laughed. Yes, so it was, everything came back, which had not
been suffered and solved up to its end, the same pain was suffered over
and over again. But Siddhartha want back into the boat and ferried back
to the hut, thinking of his father, thinking of his son, laughed at by
the river, at odds with himself, tending towards despair, and not less
tending towards laughing along at (? ? uber) himself and the entire
world.
Alas, the wound was not blossoming yet, his heart was still fighting his
fate, cheerfulness and victory were not yet shining from his suffering.
Nevertheless, he felt hope, and once he had returned to the hut, he felt
an undefeatable desire to open up to Vasudeva, to show him everything,
the master of listening, to say everything.
Vasudeva was sitting in the hut and weaving a basket. He no longer used
the ferry-boat, his eyes were starting to get weak, and not just his
eyes; his arms and hands as well. Unchanged and flourishing was only
the joy and the cheerful benevolence of his face.
Siddhartha sat down next to the old man, slowly he started talking.
What they had never talked about, he now told him of, of his walk to
the city, at that time, of the burning wound, of his envy at the sight
of happy fathers, of his knowledge of the foolishness of such wishes, of
his futile fight against them. He reported everything, he was able to
say everything, even the most embarrassing parts, everything could be
said, everything shown, everything he could tell. He presented his
wound, also told how he fled today, how he ferried across the water,
a childish run-away, willing to walk to the city, how the river had
laughed.
While he spoke, spoke for a long time, while Vasudeva was listening
with a quiet face, Vasudeva's listening gave Siddhartha a stronger
sensation than ever before, he sensed how his pain, his fears flowed
over to him, how his secret hope flowed over, came back at him from
his counterpart. To show his wound to this listener was the same as
bathing it in the river, until it had cooled and become one with the
river. While he was still speaking, still admitting and confessing,
Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no
longer a human being, who was listening to him, that this motionless
listener was absorbing his confession into himself like a tree the rain,
that this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God himself,
that he was the eternal itself. And while Siddhartha stopped thinking
of himself and his wound, this realisation of Vasudeva's changed
character took possession of him, and the more he felt it and entered
into it, the less wondrous it became, the more he realised that
everything was in order and natural, that Vasudeva had already been like
this for a long time, almost forever, that only he had not quite
recognised it, yes, that he himself had almost reached the same state.
He felt, that he was now seeing old Vasudeva as the people see the
gods, and that this could not last; in his heart, he started bidding his
farewell to Vasudeva. Thorough all this, he talked incessantly.
When he had finished talking, Vasudeva turned his friendly eyes, which
had grown slightly weak, at him, said nothing, let his silent love and
cheerfulness, understanding and knowledge, shine at him. He took
Siddhartha's hand, led him to the seat by the bank, sat down with him,
smiled at the river.
"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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 this careful
and tender manner, and said: "I've been waiting for this hour, my dear.
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'm going into the forests, I'm going into the oneness," spoke Vasudeva
with a bright smile.
With a bright smile, he left; Siddhartha watched him leaving. With deep
joy, with deep solemnity he watched him leave, saw his steps full of
peace, saw his head full of lustre, saw his body full of light.
GOVINDA
Together with other monks, Govinda used to spend the time of rest
between pilgrimages in the pleasure-grove, which the courtesan Kamala
had given to the followers of Gotama for a gift. He heard talk of an
old ferryman, who lived one day's journey away by the river, and
who was regarded as a wise man by many. When Govinda went back on his
way, he chose the path to the ferry, eager to see the ferryman.
Because, though he had lived his entire life by the rules, though he was
also looked upon with veneration by the younger monks on account of his
age and his modesty, the restlessness and the searching still had not
perished from his heart.
He came to the river and asked the old man to ferry him over, and when
they got off the boat on the other side, he said to the old man:
"You're very good to us monks and pilgrims, you have already ferried
many of us across the river. Aren't you too, ferryman, a searcher for
the right path? "
Quoth Siddhartha, smiling from his old eyes: "Do you call yourself a
searcher, oh venerable one, though you are already of an old in years
and are wearing the robe of Gotama's monks? "
"It's true, I'm old," spoke Govinda, "but I haven't stopped searching.
Never I'll stop searching, this seems to be my destiny. You too, so it
seems to me, have been searching. Would you like to tell me something,
oh honourable one? "
Quoth Siddhartha: "What should I possibly have to tell you, oh
venerable one? Perhaps that you're searching far too much? That in all
that searching, you don't find the time for 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 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, oh 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," asked Govinda, "what do you mean by
this? "
Quoth Siddhartha: "A long time ago, oh venerable one, many years ago,
you've once before been at this river and have found a sleeping man by
the river, and have sat down with him to guard his sleep. But, oh
Govinda, you did not recognise the sleeping man. "
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
recognised you this time as well! From my heart, I'm greeting you,
Siddhartha; from my heart, I'm happy to see you once again! You've
changed a lot, my friend. --And so you've now become a ferryman? "
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
hut. "
Govinda stayed the night in the hut and slept on the bed which used to
be Vasudeva's bed. Many questions he posed to the friend of his youth,
many things Siddhartha had to tell him from his life.
When in the next morning the time had come to start the day's journey,
Govinda said, not without hesitation, these words: "Before I'll
continue on my path, Siddhartha, permit me to ask one more question.
Do you have a teaching? Do you have a faith, or a knowledge, you
follow, which helps you to live and to do right? "
Quoth 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 and 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, travelling on foot, has been my teacher; he sat with
me when 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 Gotama, he was a
perfect man, a saint. "
Govinda said: "Still, oh 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. "
Quoth 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? " asked 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, miracles can be performed with it, but it
cannot be expressed in words and taught. This was what I, even as a
young man, sometimes suspected, what has driven me away from the
teachers. I have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard as
a joke or foolishness, but which is my best thought. It says: The
opposite of every truth is just as true! That's like this: any truth
can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided.
Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with
words, it's all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness,
roundness, oneness. When the exalted Gotama spoke in his teachings of
the world, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into deception
and truth, into suffering and salvation. It cannot be done differently,
there is no other way for him who wants to teach. But the world itself,
what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided.
A person or
an act is never entirely Sansara or entirely Nirvana, a person is never
entirely holy or entirely sinful. It does really seem like this,
because we are subject to deception, as if time was something real.
Time is not real, Govinda, I have experienced this often and often
again. And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between
the world and the eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between
evil and good, is also a deception. "
"How come? " asked 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 today already the future
Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in
you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible,
the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or
on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment,
all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small
children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already
have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is 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
Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the
possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was,
is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is
good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see
whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness,
wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only
requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be
good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever
harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin
very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed
the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all
resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop
comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection
I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy
being a part of it. --These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which
have come into my mind. "
Siddhartha bent down, picked up a stone from the ground, and weighed it
in his hand.
"This 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 of the
Maja; but because it might be able to become also a human being and a
spirit in the cycle of transformations, therefore I also grant it
importance. Thus, I would perhaps have thought in the past. But today
I think: this stone is a stone, it is also animal, it is also god, it is
also Buddha, I do not venerate and love it because it could turn into
this or that, but rather because it is already and always everything--
and it is this very fact, that it is a stone, that it appears to me now
and today as a stone, this is why I love it and see worth and purpose in
each of its veins and cavities, in the yellow, in the gray, in the
hardness, in the sound it makes when I knock at it, in the dryness or
wetness of its surface. There are stones which feel like oil or soap,
and others like leaves, others like sand, and every one is special and
prays the Om in its own way, each one is Brahman, but simultaneously and
just as much it is a stone, is oily or juicy, and this is this very fact
which I like and regard as wonderful and worthy of worship. --But let me
speak no more of this. The words are not good for the secret meaning,
everything always becomes a bit different, as soon as it is put into
words, gets distorted a bit, a bit silly--yes, and this is also very
good, and I like it a lot, I also very much agree with this, that this
what is one man's treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to
another person. "
Govinda 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 can love a stone, Govinda,
and also a tree or a piece of bark. This are things, and things can be
loved. But I cannot love words. Therefore, teachings are no good for
me, they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no edges, no smell,
no taste, they have nothing but words. Perhaps it are these which keep
you from finding peace, perhaps it are the many words. Because
salvation and virtue as well, Sansara and Nirvana as well, are mere
words, Govinda. There is no thing which would be Nirvana; there is just
the word Nirvana. "
Quoth Govinda: "Not just a word, my friend, is Nirvana. It is a
thought. "
Siddhartha 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 ferry-boat, 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's 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
Maja, just an image and illusion? Your stone, your tree, your river--
are they actually a reality? "
"This too," spoke Siddhartha, "I do not care very much about. Let the
things be illusions or not, after all I would then also be an illusion,
and thus they are always like me. This is what makes them so dear and
worthy of veneration for me: they are like me. Therefore, I can love
them. And this is now a teaching you will laugh about: love, oh
Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all. To
thoroughly understand the world, to explain it, to despise it, may be
the thing great thinkers do. But I'm only interested in being able to
love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it and me, to be able to
look upon it and me and all beings with love and admiration and great
respect. "
"This I understand," spoke Govinda. "But this very thing was discovered
by the exalted one to be a deception. He commands benevolence,
clemency, sympathy, tolerance, but not love; he forbade us to tie our
heart in love to earthly things. "
"I know it," said Siddhartha; his smile shone golden. "I know it,
Govinda. And behold, with this we are right in the middle of the
thicket of opinions, in the dispute about words. For I cannot deny, my
words of love are in a contradiction, a seeming contradiction with
Gotama's words. For this very reason, I distrust in words so much, for
I know, this contradiction is a deception. I know that I am in
agreement with Gotama. How should he not know love, he, who has
discovered all elements of human existence in their transitoriness, in
their meaninglessness, and yet loved people thus much, to use a long,
laborious life only to help them, to teach them! Even with him, even
with your great teacher, I prefer the thing over the words, place more
importance on his acts and life than on his speeches, more on the
gestures of his hand than his opinions. Not in his speech, not in his
thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life. "
For a long time, the two old men said nothing. Then spoke Govinda,
while bowing for a farewell: "I thank you, Siddhartha, for telling me
some of your thoughts. They are partially strange thoughts, not all
have been instantly understandable to me. This being as it may, I thank
you, and I wish you to have calm days. "
(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 Gotama 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,
oh 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. Govinda 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 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 to him. While his
thoughts were still dwelling on Siddhartha's wondrous words, while he
was still struggling in vain and with reluctance to think away time, to
imagine Nirvana and Sansara as one, while even a certain contempt for
the words of his friend was fighting in him against an immense love and
veneration, this happened to him:
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 new-born
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, saw Krishna, 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 re-birth
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 re-born, 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 mold 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, thousand-fold
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
still stood for a little while bent over Siddhartha's quiet face, which
he had just kissed, which had just been the scene of all manifestations,
all transformations, all existence. The face was unchanged, after under
its surface the depth of the thousandfoldness had closed up again, he
smiled silently, smiled quietly and softly, perhaps very benevolently,
perhaps very mockingly, precisely as he used to smile, the exalted one.
Deeply, Govinda bowed; tears he knew nothing of, ran down his old face;
like a fire burnt the feeling of the most intimate love, the humblest
veneration in his heart. Deeply, he bowed, touching the ground, before
him who was sitting motionlessly, whose smile reminded him of everything
he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to
him in his life.
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