I would like to remain by this river, thought Siddhartha, it is the same river that I once crossed on my way to the childlike people, that time I was taken across by a friendly ferryman, I would like to go to him. It was from his hut that my way once led out into a new life, a life which now has become old and dead - I hope the way I am now on, the new life that I have begun, take its starting point from there!
He looked tenderly into the flowing water, into that transparent green, into the crystal lines of its drawing that was so full of secrets. He saw pearls of light rising from its depths, peaceful bubbles of air floating on its surface, the blue of the sky reflected there. With its thousand eyes the river looked back at him, eyes of green, eyes of white, eyes of crystal, eyes of Heavenly blue. How he loved this water, how it delighted him, how he was grateful to it! In his heart he heard the newly-woken voice speak, and it said to him, “Love this water! Stay beside it! Learn from it!” Oh yes, he did want to learn from it, he did want to listen to it. Whoever understood this water and its secrets, it seemed to him, would also have understanding of many other things, many secrets, all secrets.
Of the river’s secrets, however, he saw today just one, and it was understood by his soul. He saw: this water flowed and flowed, it never ceased to flow but was nonetheless always there, it was always and for all time the same, yet each glance at it showed something new! Whoever could grasp this would understand it! He understood but could not grasp it, he felt no more than the rising of some vague notion, a distant memory, voices of gods.
Siddhartha stood up, for the power of hunger in his body was becoming unbearable. He walked on not caring whither he went, he followed the path along the river bank as it led him upstream, he listened to its flow, listened to growling hunger in his body.
When he reached the place where the ferry made its crossings he found the boat lying ready and standing in it was the same ferryman who had once taken the young samana across. Siddhartha recognised him, though he too was greatly altered.
“Would you like to take me across?” he asked.
The ferryman, astonished to see such an elegant man travelling alone and on foot, accepted him into the boat and pushed off from the bank.
“You have chosen a nice life for yourself,” said the passenger. “It must be nice to have a life beside this water every day and to travel on it.”
“It is very nice, sir,” said the oarsman, smiling as he rowed, “just as you say. But is not every life nice, is not every job a good job?”
“You could well be right. But I still envy you your job.”
“Oh, you would soon become tired of it. It is not a job for a gentleman in fine clothes.”
Siddhartha laughed. “This is not the first time today that I have been judged by the clothes I wear, judged and mistrusted. Ferryman, would you not like to take these clothes from me? They have become burdensome to me. And I think you already know I have no money to pay your fare.”
“The gentleman is joking with me,” the ferryman laughed.
“I am not joking, my friend. Listen, you have once before carried me across the water in your boat and you did it for the love of God. Do the same today, and accept my clothes in return.”
“Does the gentleman mean to continue his journey without clothes?”
“Oh, most of all I would like not to continue my journey at all. Most of all, ferryman, I would like you to give me an old loincloth and take me on as your assistant, or rather as your apprentice, for I would need first to learn how to handle the boat.”
The ferryman stared long and quizzically at the stranger.
“Now I recognise you,” he said at last. “You slept in my hut once, that was long ago, it must be more than twenty years, you were taken over the river by me and we took leave of each other as good friends. Were you not a samana? I can’t think what your name is any more.”
“My name is Siddhartha, and I was a samana the last time you saw me.”
“Welcome, Siddhartha. My name is Vasudeva. I hope you will again be my guest today and sleep in my hut and tell me all about where you have come from and why your fine clothes are such a burden to you.”
They had reached the middle of the river and Vasudeva pulled harder on the oars in order to overcome the current. He worked quietly with his powerful arms and with his eye on the bow. Siddhartha sat and watched him and remembered how, once before, in the last days of his time as a samana, love for this man had arisen in his heart. He accepted Vasudeva’s invitation with gratitude. When they reached the bank Siddhartha helped him to tether the boat and the ferryman invited him into the hut where he offered him bread and water, and Siddhartha ate hungrily, and he ate hungrily of the mangoes that Vasudeva offered him.
The sun had begun to set, and they went to sit on a tree trunk at the side of the river where Siddhartha told the ferryman about where he was from and what his life had been, about how he had seen it before his eyes that day in his moment of doubt. His story continued late into the night.
Vasudeva listened with great attention. He took in all that he heard, his origin and childhood, all that learning, all that seeking, all that joy, all that suffering. This was one of the ferryman’s greatest virtues: few knew how to listen as well as he. Vasudeva would not say a word, but the speaker would sense how he allowed the words to enter into him, quiet, open, patient, never losing a word, never waiting impatiently for a word, never offering praise nor censure, simply listening. Siddhartha was aware of what good fortune it was to have the company of a listener such as this, one into whose heart he could sink his own life, his own searchings, his own sorrows.
As Siddhartha neared the end of his story, though, as he spoke of the tree at the riverside and of the depth of his fall, of the holy Om and of how he felt such love for the river when he woke from his sleep, then the ferryman listened with twice as much attention, totally devoted to it with his eyes shut.
But when Siddhartha became silent and there was a long period of stillness, Vasudeva said, “It is just as I thought. The river spoke to you. He is the friend of you also, he speaks to you also. That is good, that is very good. Stay with me, Siddhartha my friend. I had a wife once, her place was next to mine, but it is long since she died, I have lived long alone. Now you live with me, there is room here and there is food here for both of us.”
“I thank you,” said Siddhartha, “I thank you and I accept. And I also thank you, Vasudeva, for being such a good listener! There are few people who know how to listen. And I have never come across anyone who could do it as well as you. This is something else that I shall be learning from you.”
“You will learn,” said Vasudeva, “but not from me. It is the river that taught me how to listen, and he will teach you too. He knows everything, the river, there is nothing you cannot learn from him. Look, this is something else that you have already learned from the river, that it is good to strive to go down, to sink, to seek out the depths. The rich and courtly Siddhartha will become an apprentice oarsman, the learned brahmin Siddhartha will become a ferryman: this is something else that the river has told you. And there is more that you will learn from him.”
There was a long pause, and Siddhartha said, “What more, Vasudeva?”
Vasudeva stood up. “It is getting late,” he said, “let us go to bed. I cannot tell you what more, my friend. You will learn, perhaps you even know it already. I am not a learned man, you see, I do not know how to give speeches, I do not know how to think. All I know how to do is listening and saying my prayers, there is nothing else I have learned how to do. If I could explain it to you and give lessons then that might mean I am a wise man, but as it is I am just a ferryman and it is my job to take people across this river. It could have been thousands that I have taken across and all that my river has ever been to them is something that has gotten in the way on their journey. They have been travelling for the sake of money or business, going to weddings, going on a pilgrimage, and the river was in their way and the ferryman was there so that they could get past that thing in their way as soon as possible. Some of those thousands though, some of them, though not many, four or five of them, for some of them the river stopped being just something in their way, they heard his voice, they listened to him, and the river became something holy for them, just like he has for me. Now let us go and take our rest, Siddhartha.”
Siddhartha remained with the ferryman and learned how to operate the boat, and when there was no ferry work to do he would work with Vasudeva in the rice field, gathering wood, picking the fruits of the plantain trees. He learned how to make an oar and how to repair the boat, he learned how to weave a basket and he was happy at all that he had learned and the days and the months passed quickly. The river, though, taught him more than Vasudeva was able to. He learned from it without cease. Most of all he learned from the river how to listen, to pay attention with a quiet heart, with a patient and open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgement, without opinion.
He lived in friendly proximity with Vasudeva, and they would now and then exchange a few words, a few words which had long been considered. Vasudeva was not a friend of words, it was rare for Siddhartha to move him to speak.
“Have you,” he once asked him, “have you also learned from the river the secret that there is no time?”|
A bright smile spread over Vasudeva’s face.
“Yes, Siddhartha,” he said. “Is this what you are saying: that the river is the same along his whole length, at his source and at his estuary, at the waterfall, at the ferry crossing, at the rapids, at the sea, in the mountains, everywhere the same, and that for him there is only the present, no shadow of the future?”
“Yes, that is right,” said Siddhartha. “And when I had learned this I looked at my life and saw that it too was a river, and separating the boy Siddhartha from the man Siddhartha, and the man Siddhartha from the old man Siddhartha, there was merely a shadow, nothing real. And Siddhartha’s previous births too were not in the past, and his death and his return to Brahma were not in the future. Nothing has been and nothing will be; everything is, everything has its essence and its presence.”
Siddhartha spoke with delight, this elucidation had made him deeply happy. For was not, then, all suffering time, was not all self-torture and self-fear time, was not all difficulty, all hostility in the world expunged and overcome as soon a time has been overcome, as soon as time could be removed from our thoughts? He spoke with gleeful passion, but Vasudeva simple gave him a bright smile and nodded agreement, he nodded in silence, touched Siddhartha’s shoulder and went back to his work.
Another time in the rainy season, and the swollen river made a mighty roar, Siddhartha said, “Would you say, my friend, that the river has many voices, very many voices? Does he not have the voice of a king, and of a warrior, and of a bull, and of a bird at night, and of a mother giving birth, and of a man who sighs and a thousand other voices?”
“You are right,” Vasudeva nodded, “all the voices in creation are in his voice.”
“And do you know,” Siddhartha, “what word he says when you succeed in hearing all ten thousand voices at once?”
Happy laughter appeared on Vasudeva’s face, he leant towards Siddhartha and into his ear he spoke the holy word Om. And this indeed was what Siddhartha also had heard.
And little by little his smile became like the ferryman’s, became nearly as beaming, nearly as permeated with happiness, just as radiant from a thousand tiny wrinkles, just as child-like, just as mature. Many travellers who saw the two ferrymen thought they must be brothers. In the evenings they would often sit together on the tree trunk at the riverside, they would say nothing but both would listen to the water which, for them, was not water but the voice of life, the voice of existence, of eternal becoming. Sometimes, as the two of them listened to the river together, they would both think of the same things, of a discussion that had taken place two days earlier, of one of the travellers whose face and whose destiny occupied them, of death, of their childhood. Sometimes, when the river had said something good to them, they would each look at the other at the same moment, both thinking the same thing, both feeling the same joy at hearing the same answer to the same question.
Many of the travellers felt there was something given out from the ferry and the two ferrymen. Sometimes a traveller would look into the face of one of the ferrymen and begin to tell his life story, would tell of his sorrows, acknowledge where he had done wrong, ask for solace and advice. Sometimes one of them would ask permission to spend the evening with them to listen to the river. Sometimes someone would come to them because he was curious, someone who had heard about these two wise men or magicians or holy men who lived beside this ferry. They would ask many questions but received no answers, and they found neither magicians nor wise men, all they found were two elderly and friendly little men who seemed unable to speak and, in some special way, demented. They would laugh, and tell their friends about how foolish and credulous those people were who spread such empty rumours.
The years went by and nobody counted them. One time there came monks on a pilgrimage, disciples of Gotama, the buddha, and they asked the ferrymen to take them across the river, and the ferrymen learned that they were hurrying back to their great teacher because word was spreading that the noble one was mortally ill and must soon suffer his last death as a human before going to his release. Not long after came a new flux of monks on pilgrimage, and then another, and not only the monks but most of the other travellers and wanderers spoke of nothing but Gotama and his impending death. There was a flow of people here from all parts as if they had been an army on campaign or were going to attend the coronation of a king, they collected like ants, they flowed as if drawn by some kind of magic on their way to where the great buddha lay awaiting death, to the place where that awful event would take place and the great perfect one of an era would rise to majesty.
At this time Siddhartha thought a great deal about the wise man as he was dying, about the great teacher whose voice had admonished and who had brought hundreds of thousands to an awakening, whose voice he too had learned from and whose holy face he too had once looked on with veneration. He thought of him with kindness, saw his way to perfection before his eyes and, with a smile, thought of the words which he once, as a young man, had put to him, the noble one. Those words now seemed proud and arrogant to him, and he remembered them with a smile. He had long known that there was nothing that made him different from Gotama, though he was not able to accept his teachings. No, a true seeker would never be able to accept any teachings, not if he truly wanted to find what he sought. But he who has found what he sought would find goodness in any teachings at all, any path, any objective, he would be in no way different from the thousands of others who lived in eternity, who breathed in the breath of the divine.
One of those days, when there were so many making pilgrimage to the dying buddha, Kamala, who had once been the most beautiful of the courtesans, also made pilgrimage to him. She had long since withdrawn from her earlier way of life, had given her garden to Gotama’s monks, had sought refuge in his teachings, was one of the friends and benefactors of pilgrims. Together with her son, Siddhartha, she had heard news of Gotama’s impending death and set out, on foot and in simple clothes, on her way to him. She was on her way with her little son along the river: but the lad soon became tired, he wanted to go back home, he wanted to rest, he wanted something to eat, he became difficult and whining.
Kamala was frequently obliged to rest with him, he was used to imposing his will on her, she had to feed him, had to comfort him, had to discipline him. The boy was unable to understand why he had to go on this sad and arduous pilgrimage with his mother, to go to a place he did not know about, to go to a strange man who was something holy and who lay dying. So let him die! Why should it matter to him?
The pilgrims were not far from Vasudeva’s ferry when young Siddhartha once more insisted he and his mother should stop and rest. Kamala, too, was tired and while the lad munched on a banana she sank to the ground and, with eyes half closed, rested. Suddenly though, she gave out a piercing scream, the boy looked at her in shock and saw her face pale with horror as out from her dress emerged a small black snake which had just bitten her.
The two of them now ran along the path to reach people as soon as they could and were near the ferry crossing when Kamala collapsed, unable to go any further. But the lad raised a pitiful cry as he kissed and embraced his mother, who added her own voice to the boy’s loud calls for help. The sound reached the ears of Vasudeva as he stood by the ferry and he hurried to Kamala and her son. He took the woman by the arm and carried her into the boat, the boy also ran in, and they were all soon in the hut where Siddhartha stood at the stove, lighting the fire. He looked up and saw, first of all, the face of the boy which reminded him, in a way that was both wonderful and reproachful, of something he had forgotten. Then he saw Kamala. He recognised her immediately even though she lay unconscious in the arms of the ferryman, and now he realised that it was the face of his own son that had so reproached him, and his heart moved within his breast.
Kamala’s wound was washed, but was already black and her body was swollen, a healing drink was poured into her. Consciousness returned to her as she lay on Siddhartha’s bed in the hut, Siddhartha leant over her, he who had once had such earnest love for her. She thought she was dreaming, and, with a smile, looked into the face of her friend, slowly began to realise where she was, remembered the snake bite, and called out anxiously for the boy.
“He is with you. You need not worry,” said Siddhartha.
Kamala looked into his eyes. She spoke with a heavy tongue, made clumsy by the venom. “You have grown old, my love,” she said, “you have gone grey. But you are just like the young samana who once came to me in the garden with no clothes and with dusty feet. You are much more like him than you were then for you have gone away from me and Kamaswami. In your eyes you are just like him, Siddhartha. Oh, I too have grown old, old - did you still recognise me?”
Siddhartha smiled. “I recognised you immediately, Kamala, my love.”
Kamala pointed to her boy and said, “Did you recognise him, too? He is your son.”
Her eyes became erratic and fell shut. The boy wept, Siddhartha took him on his knee, let him cry, stroked his hair and, as he looked at the child’s face, a brahmanic prayer that he had once learned came to his mind, one that he had learned when he himself was a lad. Slowly, with melodic voice, he began to say it, the words flowed into him from the past, from his childhood. Affected by his sing-song the boy became quiet, sobbed now and then, and then fell asleep. Siddhartha put him down on Vasudeva’s bed. Vasudeva stood at the stove cooking rice. Siddhartha threw him a glance which he returned with a smile.
“She’s dying,” said Siddhartha quietly.
Vasudeva nodded, the light of the fire in the stove ran over his friendly face.
Kamala became conscious once again. Her face was twisted with pain, Siddhartha’s eye could read the pain on her mouth, on her pale cheeks. He read it in silence, watching, waiting, immersed in her suffering. Kamala felt it, her eyes sought his.
Looking at him, she said, “I can see, now, that your eyes have changed. They have become quite different. How is it that I can still see that you are Siddhartha? You are Siddhartha, yet you are not.”
Siddhartha said nothing, his eyes looked into hers in silence.
“Have you achieved it?” she asked. “Have you found peace?”
He smiled, and laid his hand on hers.
“I can see it,” she said, “I can see it. I will find peace too.”
“You have found peace,” said Siddhartha in a whisper.
Kamala looked steadily into his eyes. She thought of how she had intended to make pilgrimage to Gotama in order to see the face of a perfect one, in order to breathe in his peace, and now instead of finding Gotama she had found Siddhartha, and it was good so, just as good as if she had seen Gotama. She wanted to tell him so, but her tongue would no longer do as she wished. She looked at him in silence, and he saw in her eyes how her life was fading. When her final pain filled her eyes, when the final shudder ran through her limbs, he put his finger to her eyelids and closed them.
He sat there long, looking at her now lifeless face. He looked long at her mouth, her aged tired mouth with its lips, that now had become thin, and he remembered how once, in the springtime of his years, how he had once compared this mouth with a freshly opened fig. He sat there long, studied that pale face, those tired creases, filled himself with what he saw there, saw his own face lying in the same way, just as white, just as extinguished, simultaneously saw his own face and hers with its red lips, its burning eyes, and the sense of the present and of simultaneity permeated his being, the sense of eternity. He felt it deeply, more deeply than he had ever felt it before, now in that moment of the immortality of every life, the eternity of every glance.
When he raised himself Vasudeva had prepared rice for him. But Siddhartha did not eat. In the stall where they kept their goat the two old men prepared a beds of straw for themselves, and Vasudeva lay down to sleep. Siddhartha, though, went outside and spent the night sitting in front of the hut, listening to the river, the past flowing over him, all the ages of his life at the same time touching him and embracing him. From time to time, though, he would raise himself, go to the door of the hut and listen to find out whether the boy was sleeping.
Early in the morning, even before the sun had become visible, Vasudeva came out of the stall and went to his friend.
“You have not slept,” he said.
“No, Vasudeva. I sat here listening to the river. He told me much, he filled me deeply with the healing thought, the thought of unity.”
“You have gone through pain, Siddhartha, but I can see that there is no sadness that has entered your heart.”
“No, my friend, what do I have to be sad about? I used to be rich and happy, and now I have become even richer and happier. I have received the gift of a son.”
“Your son is also welcome. But now, Siddhartha, let us go to work, there is much to be done. Kamala died on the same bed as my wife did, long ago. Let us make her pyre on the same hill where I made hers.”
They built her pyre while the boy still slept.
At his mother’s funeral the boy was shy and tearful, Siddhartha greeted him as his son and told him he was welcome in Vasudeva’s hut and he was shy and gloomy as he listened. With pale face he sat all day on the hill of the dead, refused to eat, refused to look, refused to open his heart, struggled to defend himself against fate.
Siddhartha had respect for his grief and did nothing to change his behaviour. He understood that his son did not know him and could not love him as a father. Slowly, he also saw and understood that the eleven year old was spoilt, a mummy’s boy, as he grew he had become used to riches and fancy food, to a soft bed and to giving orders to servants. Siddhartha understood that, spoilt and grieving as the boy was, he would not become content with poverty in a strange place either quickly or with good grace. He did not force him, he did many jobs for him, always found the daintiest food for him. He hoped he could slowly win him over by friendliness and patience.
He had counted himself rich and happy when the lad came to him. But time flowed by and the boy continued to be alien and gloomy, he showed a heart that was proud and truculent, wanted to do no work, showed no respect for his elders, robbed Vasudeva of the fruit on his trees, and so Siddhartha began to understand that it was not peace and happiness that the boy had brought with him but sorrow and worries. But Siddhartha loved him, and he preferred the sorrow and worries of love over the happiness he had enjoyed without the boy. Since the young Siddhartha had been in the hut the two old men had taken on separate tasks. Vasudeva had once more taken on the office of ferryman by himself and, in order to be with his son, it was Siddhartha who did the work in the hut and the fields.
Siddhartha waited long, through many months, for his son to understand him, for him to accept his love, for him perhaps to return it. Vasudeva waited long, while he watched and waited and said nothing. One day though, when the lad had again made his father suffer with his disobedience and bad humour and had broken both rice dishes, Vasudeva took his friend aside when evening had come and spoke to him.
“Please forgive me,” he said, “if I say something to you, as I do so with a friendly heart. I see that you are suffering, I see that you are worrying. Your son, my friend, is causing you worries and he is causing me worries too.”
“He is used to a different life, he is a young bird used to a different nest. He did not run away from wealth and the city in weary disgust as you did, he was made to leave all this behind him against his will. I have asked the river, my friend, I have asked him many times. But the river laughs at me, he laughs at both of us and shakes his head at our folly. Water will be water, boys will be boys, your son is not in a place where he can flourish. You too should ask the river, you too should listen to what he says!”
Siddhartha looked anxiously at the friendly face which showed, in the many wrinkles it bore, that it was the home of constant cheerfulness.
“Do you think, then, that I would be able to separate myself from him?” he said gently, with some shame. “Allow me some time, my friend! Look, I am struggling for him, I am trying to win his heart, I am trying to gain it with love and with friendly patience. And one day the river will speak also to him, he also has a calling.”
Vasudeva’s smile became warmer. “Oh yes, he also has a calling, he also is part of the eternal life. But do we know, you and I, what it is that he is called to, what path, what acts, what sufferings? His sufferings will not be light, he has a heart that is proud and hard, such as he must suffer greatly, make many mistakes, commit many injustices, burden themselves with many sins. Tell me, my friend; are you not bringing your son up? Do you not compel him to do what he does not want to do? Do you not strike him? Do you not punish him?”
“No, Vasudeva, I do not do any of those things.”
“I knew it. You do not compel him, you do not strike him, you give him no orders, because you know that softness is stronger than hardness, water stronger than stone, love stronger than violence. That is very good, and I praise you for it. But are you not mistaken in thinking you should not compel him, should not punish him? Do you not bind him in the bondage of your love? Do you not shame him every day, making it more difficult for him with your goodness and patience? Do you not compel this arrogant and spoilt child to live in a hut with a pair of aged banana eaters for whom even rice is a luxury, whose thoughts cannot ever be his thoughts, whose heart is old and quiet and who are following a different path from his? Is all of this not a compulsion on him, not a punishment?”
Siddhartha saw that Vasudeva was right and looked down at the ground. Gently he asked him, “What is it you think I should do?”
Vasudeva said, “Take him to the city, take him to his mother’s house, the servants will still be there, give him over to them. And if there are no servants still there then take him to a teacher, not for the sake of being taught but so that he can have the company of other boys, and of girls, take him into the world which is his world. Have you never thought of that?”
“You have seen into my heart,” said Siddhartha sadly. “I have often thought of doing that. But listen, how should I put him into this world when he does not have a gentle heart as it is? Will he not become extravagant, will he not lose himself in the pursuit of fun and of power, will he not repeat all the errors of his father, might he not become totally lost in sansara?”
The ferryman’s smile shone brightly; he gently touched Siddhartha’s arm and said, “Ask the river about it, my friend! Listen to him laughing about it! Do you really think that you have gone through these follies of yours so that your son would not have to? And can you protect your son from sansara? How? By teaching, by prayer, by admonishment? Dear friend, have you entirely forgotten that story, that story of the well educated brahmin’s son, Siddhartha, that you once told me once on this very spot? Who was it who held Siddhartha the samana back from sansara, from sin, from greed, from folly? The piety of his father, his teachings and his warnings, his own wisdom and his own seekings, were these things able to keep Siddhartha safe? What father, what teacher has been able to protect him from living his own life, from soiling himself with the dirt of life, from taking guilt onto himself, from taking the bitter drink himself, from having to find his path for himself?
“Do you really think, my friend, that there is anyone who is spared this path? Do you think your young son might be spared sorrow and pain and disappointed because you love him and you want to save him from those things? You could die for him ten times over, but you still would not take even the tiniest part of his destiny onto yourself.”
Vasudeva had never spoken so many words before. Siddhartha gave him his friendly thanks, then, feeling anxious, he went into the hut, but was long unable to sleep. Vasudeva had said nothing to him that he had not already thought and known. But it was knowledge that he could not implement, his love for the lad was stronger than that knowledge, his affection was stronger, the fear of losing him was stronger. Had he ever before lost his heart for anything so completely, had he ever loved anyone this much, so blindly, so passionately, so hopelessly and yet so happily?
Siddhartha was not able to follow his friend’s advice, his was not able to give his son up. He allowed the boy to give him orders, he allowed him to show him contempt. He remained silent and waited, every day he would begin the wordless struggle for friendliness, the soundless war of patience. Vasudeva, too, remained silent and waited, with friendship, with understanding, with forbearance. Both of them were masters of patience.
One time, when the boy’s face reminded him especially of Kamala, Siddhartha suddenly remembered something that Kamala, long before had said to him when he was young; she had once said to him, “you are not capable of love,” and he had conceded that she was right. He had been comparing himself with a star, while comparing the childlike people with falling leaves, but he had nonetheless felt an accusation in every word. It was true that he had never been able to entirely lose himself in another person and devote himself to them till he forgot himself, had never undergone the folly of love for another; he had never been capable of it, and it had seemed to him then that that was the great difference that divided him from the childlike people. But now, since his son had been there, even he, Siddhartha, had become entirely childlike, feeling sorrow for someone, feeling love for someone, losing himself in love, becoming a fool for love. It was late, but now even he felt for once in his life this strongest and oddest of passions, suffered for it, suffered grievously but was nonetheless blessed, nonetheless somewhat rejuvenated, somewhat wealthier.
He was well aware that this love, this blind love for his son, was a passion, something very human, aware that it was sansara, a cloudy source, a dark water. But he felt at the same time that it was not without value, that it was something necessary, that it sprang from its own essence. Even this craving had to be paid for, even these pains had to be tasted, even these follies had to be gone through.
During all this the son let him go through these follies, let him try to win him over, every day he would humiliate him with his moods. This father of his had nothing that pleased him and nothing that he would be afraid of. He was a good man, this father, a good, good-natured and gentle man, perhaps a very pious man, perhaps a holy man - but none of these characteristics were anything that could win the boy over. He found his father boring, keeping him prisoner in this miserable hut of his, he was boring, and every time he behaved badly he would respond with a smile, respond to insults with friendliness, respond to malice with goodness. This was probably the trick of the old creep that he hated most. The boy would rather have had him threaten him and mistreat him.
The day came when the young Siddhartha felt it was time to break out, and he turned against his father quite openly. Siddhartha had given him the task of collecting firewood, but the boy did not leave the hut, he stood there in angry defiance, stamped his foot, clenched his fists and burst out in a fit, screaming hatred and contempt in his father’s face.
“Get the firewood yourself!” he shouted, frothing at the mouth, “I’m not your servant. I’m well aware you never hit me, ‘cause you don’t dare to; I’m well aware you want to punish me a make me small with your God-fearingness and your softness. You want me to be just like you, all pious and all gentle and all full of wisdom! But listen! I’m going to make you sorry, I’d rather be a bandit on the roads, rather be a murderer and go to Hell than be like you! I hate you, you’re not my father even if you’d been my mother’s lover ten times over!”
He gushed over with anger and self-pity, spat a hundred vapid and spiteful words out at his father. Then the boy ran off and did not come back until late in the evening.
But by the following morning he had disappeared. The little basket, woven of fibres in two colours in which the ferrymen kept all the copper or silvers coins they received as passengers’ fares, was also missing. Also their boat was missing, which Siddhartha saw lying at the other side of river. The boy had run away.
“I will have to go after him,” said Siddhartha, who was still shaken from the previous day’s tirade by the boy. “A child cannot go through the forest by himself. He will be killed. We need to build a raft, Vasudeva, to get across the water.”
“We will build a raft,” said Vasudeva, “to fetch back our boat that the lad took away. But you should let him go, my friend, he is not a child any more, he knows how to look after himself. He is looking for the way to the city, and he is right, do not forget that. He is doing what you have failed to do yourself. He is looking after himself, he is following his own path. Oh Siddhartha, I can see that you are suffering, but the pains you are suffering are pains that could be laughed about, pains that you too will soon laugh about.”
Siddhartha gave no answer. He already held the chopper in his hand and had begun to build the raft from bamboo wood. Vasudeva helped him to tie them together with rope made of grass. Then they made the crossing, were carried far off course and, on the opposite shore, pulled the raft back upstream.
“Why have you brought the chopper with you?” asked Siddhartha.
Vasudeva answered, “It could be that the rudder of our boat will be missing.”
But Siddhartha knew what his friend was thinking. He was thinking that the boy will have thrown the rudder away or smashed it in order to take his revenge and to make it harder to follow him. And the rudder was indeed no longer in the boat. Vasudeva pointed to the floor of the boat and looked at his friend with a smile, as if he meant to say, “Do you not see what it is that your son wants to tell you? Do you not see that he does not want to be pursued?” He did not, however, say this in words. He set about making a new rudder, but Siddhartha took his leave and went to search for the fugitive. Vasudeva did nothing to stop him.
Siddhartha had long been making his way through the forest before it occurred to him that his search was pointless. On the one hand, he thought, the boy might be a long way ahead of him and had already reached the city or, on the other, if he was still on his journey he would hide himself from his pursuer. He continued to think about this, and he found that he was not himself worried about his son for, deep within himself, he knew he had neither been killed nor faced any danger in the woods. Siddhartha nonetheless hurried on without rest, no longer in order to save his son but just because there was something he wanted, just in order to have the chance of seeing him again. He continued to hurry forward until he was at the outskirts of the city.
Near by the city, on the broad highway, he reached the entrance to the beautiful pleasure garden which had once belonged to Kamala, where he had seen her for the first time carried on her litter, and there he stopped. The memory rose up in his soul and he once more saw himself standing there, a young and naked samana, bearded and with hair full of dust. Siddhartha stood there long, looking in through the open gate into the garden where monks in yellow robes walked about under the beautiful trees.
He stood there long, thinking, seeing pictures, listening to the story of his life. He stood there long, watching the monks, and instead of seeing them he saw the young Siddhartha, saw the young Kamala as she moved about under the lofty trees. He saw himself clearly, how Kamala made him her guest, how he accepted her first kiss, the pride and contempt he felt as he looked back on his life as a brahmin, the pride and greed with which he began his secular life. He saw Kamaswami, saw the servants, saw the wild parties, the gamblers with their dice, the musicians, he saw Kamala’s songbird in its cage, he lived through all this once again, he breathed sansara, he was once again old and tired, felt once again the wish to extinguish himself, was healed once again by the holy Om.
He stood long at the gateway into the garden until he saw that it was a foolish wish that had driven him to this place, that he was unable to help his son, that he should not stay too attached to him. He felt his love for the fugitive deep in his heart, like a wound, and at the same time he saw that the wound had not been given to him for him to dig at it, but that it would blossom and had to shine.
It made him sad that by this time the wound still had not blossomed, still did not shine. Instead of having an objective for his wishes, the objective that had drawn him to this place in pursuit of his runaway son, he now had nothing. Disheartened, he sat down, felt something die within his heart, felt the emptiness, saw nothing to bring him joy, nothing to be his objective. He sat there deep in thought and waited. This was what he had learned at the riverside, just this: to wait, to be patient, to listen. And he sat and listened, in the dust of the road, he listened to his sad and tired heart, he waited for a voice. He remained there for many hours, crouched and listening, he saw no more pictures, he sank into emptiness, allowed himself to sink, and saw no path to follow. And when he felt the wound burning he would silently utter Om, would fill himself with Om. The monks in the garden saw him, for he crouched there for many hours, and on his grey hair the dust accumulated, one of them came to him and put two bananas down in front of him. The old man did not see him.
He was woken from this stupor by a hand shaking his shoulder. He recognised this gentle and tentative movement straight away, and came out of his state. He stood up and greeted Vasudeva who had come after him. And as he looked into Vasudeva’s friendly face, into those cheerful little eyes surrounded by many laughter wrinkles, he smiled too. Now he saw the bananas lying in front of him, lifted them up, gave one to the ferryman and ate the other one himself. Then he and Vasudeva went in silence back into the wood and back to their home at the ferry point. Neither spoke of what had happened that day, neither spoke the name of the lad, neither spoke of his flight, neither spoke of the wound. In the hut Siddhartha lay down on his bed and a little while later, when Vasudeva came to him to offer him a cup of coconut milk, he found he was already asleep.
The wound continued to cause pain. Siddhartha had to take many travellers across the river who had a son or a daughter with them, and there was not one of them whom Siddhartha did not look on with envy, and he would think, “There are so many, so many thousands, who have this noblest of happiness - why do I not? Even evil people, even thieves and robbers have children whom they love and who are loved by them, and I alone do not have.” This was the simplicity of his thoughts at that time, so lacking in understanding, so similar had he become to the child-like people.
He no longer looked on people in the way he had done, less clever, less proud, but with more warmth, more curiosity, more concerned. When he carried people who were normal - child-people, businessmen, soldiers, women - these people did not seem as alien to him as they had done previously: he understood them, he shared the life they led, a life which was not directed by thoughts and insights but solely by drives and wishes, he felt he was the same as they were. He was now near liberation, though he still suffered from the wound which was still fresh. These people seemed to him nonetheless to be his brothers, these childlike people, with all their vanities, their greed and their ridiculousness, no longer seemed ridiculous, they had become understandable, become deserving of love, even, it seemed to him, become venerable. The blind love of a mother for her child, the stupid blind pride of an over-proud father for his only little son, the vanity of a young woman who has a blind wild wish for more jewelry and for admiration in the eyes of men, all these drives, all this childishness, all these simple drives and greeds which were so foolish but so monstrously strong, strong for life, strong enough to make themselves felt. For Siddhartha now, these drives and greeds were no longer childish, he saw how they gave people life, he saw how people could achieve the infinite, how they could go on journeys, wage war, bear infinite sorrows, and he was able to love them for it, he saw life, he saw the living, he saw the indestructible, he saw Brahman in all their sorrows and all their actions. These people had a faith that was blind, blind was their strength and their tenderness, and that made them deserving of both love and of admiration. There was nothing they lacked, there was no way that the wise man, the thinking man, was ahead of them except for one detail, one single tiny detail: consciousness, conscious awareness of the unity of all life. And Siddhartha was often in doubt as to whether he should value this knowledge, these thoughts, so highly, whether he would not also like to be as childlike as the thought-people the childlike thought-people. In all other respects the people of the world were the equals of the wise, in many respects far superior, just like animals that do what they have to do with harshness and without error, animals that can seem at many times superior to man.
The realisation, the knowledge of what wisdom actually is, and of what it was that he had been seeking for so long, was slow to blossom, slow to ripen in Siddhartha. It was nothing more than the readiness of the soul, a capability, a secret talent, to think the thought of the one at every moment, in the middle of life to feel the one, the ability to breathe the one. This was slow to blossom in him, it shone on him back from the child-like face of Vasudeva: harmony, knowledge of eternal perfection, the world, a smile, the one.
The wound, however, still burned. Siddhartha yearned bitterly for his son, he nurtured his love and tenderness in his heart, he allowed the pain to consume him, he went through all the follies of love. This was a flame that would not die away by itself.
One day, when the wound was burning fiercely, Siddhartha, impelled by the yearning for his son, crossed the river, disembarked and wanted to go to the city to seek him out. The river flowed with gentle smoothness, it was the dry time of year, but his voice sounded odd: it was the voice of laughter. It was clearly the voice of laughter. The river was laughing, laughing brightly and clearly at the aged ferryman. Siddhartha stopped and bent towards the water in order to hear it better, and in the smoothly flowing water he saw the reflection of his own face, and this reflection seemed to remind him of something, something forgotten, and as he thought about it he found it: this face was the same as another face he had once known and loved and feared. It was the same face as his father’s, the face of the brahmin. And he remembered how, long ago as a young man, he had forced his father to let him go and join the penitents, how he had taken his leave of him, how he had left and never gone back. Had his father not suffered the same grief as he now suffered for his own son? Was his father not now long dead, dying alone without ever having seen his son again? Would he not now have to expect the same fate for himself? Was it not a comedy, something peculiar and stupid, this repetition, this running round in circles that would lead only to his fate.
The river was laughing. It was true, everything came back to you that had not been endured to the end and resolved, the same pains would be suffered again and again. But Siddhartha got back into the boat and went back to the hut, thinking of his father, thinking of his son, laughed at by the river, in dispute with himself, inclined to doubt and no less inclined to join in with the laughter at himself and at the whole world. But the wound had still not matured into blossom, his heart still struggled against his fate, there was still no merriment, no victory, shining from his suffering. He nonetheless felt hope, and when he had arrived back at the hut he felt a wish that he could not overcome to open himself to Vasudeva, to show him all, him the master of listening, to tell him everything.
Vasudeva sat in the hut weaving a basket. He no longer went out on the boat, his eyes were becoming weak, and not only his eyes; his arms and his hands were becoming weak too. It was only his joy and the cheerful benevolence shown in his face that remained unchanged and flourishing.
Siddhartha sat down by the old man and slowly began to speak. He told him of things they had never before discussed, of his journey to the city, of his burning wound, of his envy when he saw a happy father, of his awareness of the folly of such wishes and his unsuccessful struggle against them. He told him all, he was able to tell him all, even the most painful, all could be said, all could be shown, all could he relate. He displayed his wound to him, even told him of his attempt to flee that very day, how he had crossed the river, fleeing like a child and wishing to walk to the city, how the river had laughed at him.
He spoke long, Vasudeva listened with a quiet expression on his face, Siddhartha felt that Vasudeva listened more closely than he ever had before, he felt how his pain, his anxieties flowed over to him, how his secret hopes flowed over to him, how he came across to meet him. To tell this listener about his wounds was the same a bathing them in the river till they became cool and became one with the river. As he continued to speak, continued to acknowledge his faults, continued to make his confession, Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no longer a human being, that was listening to him, that Vasudeva as he sat motionless and listening was drawing in his confession like a tree draws up rainwater, that Vasudeva as he sat motionless was the river himself, that he was God himself, that he was the eternal himself. And as Siddhartha ceased thinking about himself and his wounds awareness of Vasudeva’s changed nature took possession of him, the more he received it and penetrated it, the less wonderful it became and he saw that all was as it should be, all was natural, he saw that Vasudeva had long been in this state, he had almost always been in this state, he saw that only he had not quite understood this, he saw that he himself was hardly separate from him. He perceived that he now saw the aged Vasudeva in the way that people see the gods, and that this was not something that could last; he began, in his heart, to take his leave of Vasudeva. And as he saw these things he continued to speak.
When he had finally finished speaking Vasudeva raised his eyes, friendly but grown somewhat weak, to Siddhartha. He said nothing, but in silence he remained cheerful and shone his love, his understanding, and his wisdom onto him. He took Siddhartha’s hand, led him out to their seat at the riverside, sat down with him, and smiled down at the water.
“You heard him laughing,” he said. “But you did not hear everything. Let us listen, you will hear more.”
They listened. The song of the river, sung in his many voices, was sweet. Siddhartha looked into the water, pictures appeared to him in the water as it flowed: his father appeared to him, alone and in mourning for his son; he appeared to himself, alone and he, too, was bound in the fetters of longing for his son; his son appeared to him, also alone, as the lad hurried greedily along the burning road of his youthful desire. Each of them was directed to his aim, each of them obsessed with his aim, each of them suffering. The river sang with a voice of sorrow, with yearning it sang, with yearning it flowed towards its aim, its voice was one of lament.
Without speaking, Vasudeva looked at Siddhartha, and his look asked, “Do you hear?” Siddhartha nodded.
“Hear better,” Vasudeva whispered.
Siddhartha strained to hear better. The image of his father, the image of himself, the image of his son flowed in and out of each other, the image of Kamala also appeared and flowed away, the image of Govinda and other images appeared, flowed in and out of each other, each became a part of the river, each of them, as a part of the river, strove to reach its aim, yearning, greedy, suffering, and the voice of the river was full of yearning, full of burning pain, full of insatiable desire. The river strove to reach its aim, Siddhartha saw it rushing, the river that was made up of him and of those who belonged to him and all the people he had ever seen, all the waves and all the water rushed in sorrow to their aim, to their many aims, to the waterfall, to the lake, to the rapids, to the sea, and all the aims were achieved, and each one was followed by another, and water became steam and rose up to the sky, it became rain and poured from the sky, it became a spring, became a stream, became a river, striving for the new, flowing into the new. But the voice of yearning had changed. It could still be heard, full of sorrow, full of searching, but other voices came to keep it company, voices of joy and of sorrow, good voices and bad voices, laughing and mourning, a hundred voices, a thousand voices.
Siddhartha listened. By now he was nothing but listener, engrossed in listening, quite empty, sucking in, he felt he had now fully learned how to listen. He had heard all these things many times before, all these voices in the river, but today it sounded new. He could no longer distinguish these countless voices, not the gay from the plangent, not the childish from the manly, they all belonged together, lamentations of yearning, laughter of the wise man, the shout of anger and the groans of the dying, all was as one, all was interwoven and conjoined, interwoven in a thousand places. And all of this together, all the voices, all the aims, all the yearning, all the sorrows, all the joys, all the good and all the bad, all of this together was the world. All of this together was the events that happened, flowing like the river, all of this was the music of life. And when Siddhartha listened carefully to this flow, to this river with its thousand voices, when he listened not to the sorrow or the laughter, when he bound his soul not with any one of those voices and went into it with his Self, but when he heard everything, the whole, when he perceived the unity of the whole, that was when the great song of a thousand voices was made up of a single word, the word Om: Perfection.
Once more, Vasudeva’s glance asked, “Do you hear?”
Vasudeva’s smile shone brightly, all round Vasudeva’s face with all its wrinkles there was a glow of brightness, just as, over and around all the voices of the river, there was the Om. His smile shone brightly as he looked at his friend, also now, on Siddhartha’s face, the same smile began to glow brightly. His wounds blossomed, his sorrow glowed, his Self had flowed into the unity.
It was at that moment that Siddhartha stopped struggling against his fate, stopped suffering. On his face there blossomed the gaiety of knowledge when there is no longer any will standing against it, the knowledge known by liberation, the knowledge that is in agreement with the flow of events, with the river of life with all its shared sorrows, with all its shared joys, surrendering to the flow, belonging to the unity.
Vasudeva stood up from where he had been sitting on the bank of the river, he looked in Siddhartha’s eyes and saw the gaiety of wisdom shining there, he put his hand lightly in his careful and gentle way on Siddhartha’s shoulder and he said, “I have been waiting for this moment, my friend. Now that it has come let me take my leave of you. I have been waiting long for this moment, long have I been Vasudeva the ferryman. It is now enough. Farewell hut, farewell river, farewell Siddhartha!”
Siddhartha bowed deeply to Vasudeva as he took his leave.
“I knew it,” he said gently. “Will you go into the woods?”
Vasudeva’s face shone, and he said, “I will go into the woods, I will go into the unity.”
Still beaming he went on his way; Siddhartha watched him as he went. With the deepest joy, with the deepest earnestness, he watched him as he went, saw his steps full of contentment, saw his head as it shone, saw his shape full of light.
Govinda was spending a rest period with other monks in the pleasure garden which the courtesan, Kamala, had given to the followers of Gotama. He heard there about an aged ferryman who lived by a river about a day’s journey away, and whom many regarded as a wise man. When Govinda resumed his walking he chose to take the path to the ferry, curious to see who this ferryman was. All through his life he had lived according to the regimen of his order, and the younger monks regarded him with veneration because of his age and his modesty, but there was still unrest in his heart and a searching which had not been extinguished.
He arrived at the river and asked the old man to take him across. On the other bank, as they stepped out of the boat, he said to the old man, “You have been very good to us monks and pilgrims, and you have taken many of us across the river. Could it be that you too, ferryman, are a seeker of the right path?”
Siddhartha showed a smile in his aging eyes and said, “Do you call yourself a seeker, venerable sir, when you are already advanced in years and you wear the robes of a monk of Gotama?”
“Yes, I am old,” said Govinda, “but I have never stopped searching. I never will stop searching, this seems to be my destiny. And it seems to me that you, too, have been seeking. Would you like to say a word to me, honoured one?”
“What might I want to say to you, venerable sir?” Siddhartha asked. “Perhaps I should ask you if you are not seeking too hard. Or ask if it is your seeking that prevents you from finding.”
“How do you mean that?” Govinda asked.
“When someone is seeking,” said Siddhartha, “it is very easy for his eye to see nothing but the thing sought, that he is unable to find, unable to receive into himself anything because he thinks only of that which he seeks, because he has an objective, because he is obsessed with that objective. Seeking means having an objective, but finding means being free, being receptive, having no objective. It could be, venerable sir, that you are indeed a seeker, for in your efforts to reach your objective you fail to see many things that are close before your eyes.”
“I still do not quite understand,” Govinda asked, “how do you mean that?”
Siddhartha said, “Once before, venerable sir, many years ago, you were beside this river, and you found there a man who was sleeping, and you sat down beside him to watch over him as he slept. But, Govinda, you did not recognise this sleeper.”
Astonished as if bewitched, the monk looked into the ferryman’s eyes.
“You are Siddhartha?” he asked, in timid voice. “Again, I failed to recognise you! Hearty greetings, Siddhartha, I am heartily glad to see you again! You have changed so much, my friend - and now, you have become a ferryman?”
Siddhartha gave a friendly laugh. “Yes, Govinda, a ferryman. There are many who have to go through many changes, have to wear many different clothes, and I am one of them, my friend. Welcome Govinda! Come and stay the night in my hut.”
Govinda did stay the night in the hut and he slept in the place which had formerly been Vasudeva’s bed. He had many questions to put to his childhood friend, Siddhartha had to recount many episodes of his life to him.
The following morning came and it was time for Govinda to resume his wandering. Govinda said, with some hesitation, “Before I continue my journey, Siddhartha, let me ask you one more thing. Do you have a doctrine? Do you have a belief or a knowledge that you follow and which helps you through life and to do the right thing?”
Siddhartha said, “My friend, you know that when I was a young man, living with you and the other penitents in the woods, that I had already begun to mistrust doctrines and their teachers, and so I turned my back on them. I have not changed my view. I have nonetheless had many teachers since that time. There was a beautiful courtesan who was my teacher for a long time, and a rich businessman was my teacher, as well as several gamblers. One time there was even a wandering disciple of the Buddha who was my teacher; he was on pilgrimage but he sat beside me while I was asleep in the woods. I learned from him too, and I am grateful to him too, very grateful. But most of all, I have learned from the river here, and from my predecessor, Vasudeva the ferryman. He was a very simple man, Vasudeva, he was not a thinker but he knew the important things as well as Gotama, he was a perfect man, he was a holy man.”
“I think you’re mocking me again, Siddhartha,” said Govinda. “I believe you and I both know that you have never followed any teacher. But even if you have never followed a teacher have you not had certain thoughts, found certain kinds of knowledge yourself, knowledge which is your own and which have helped you through life? If you would like to tell me something of this it would bring joy to my heart.”
“Yes,” said Siddhartha, “there are some things that I have thought from time to time, and some things that I have seen. There have been times when, for one hour or for one day, I have felt there is knowledge within me, just as it is possible to feel life in one’s heart. I have had many such thoughts, but I would find it very hard to tell you about them. Govinda, listen, here is one of the thoughts that I have found: wisdom cannot be taught. If a wise man tries to teach wisdom it will always sound like folly.”
“Are you joking now?” Govinda asked.
“I am not joking. I am saying what I have found. Knowledge can be taught, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it can be what carries you, it can work wonders, but it cannot be spoken and it cannot be taught. This is what I had already begun to suspect when I was young, this is what drove me away from the teachers. I have found a thought, Govinda, a thought that you will again suppose is folly or a joke, but it is the best thought I have. It reads: For every truth, the opposite is equally true! This means that a truth that is one-sided can only ever be spoken, it is encased in words. All that is thought with thoughts and can be spoken in words will be one-sided, all will be half, all will be lacking in wholeness, in roundness, in unity. When the noble Gotama spoke of the world in his teachings he had to divide it into sansara and nirvana, into delusion and truth, into suffering and liberation. He who wishes to be a teacher has no choice in the matter, there is no other path for him to follow. The world itself, though, that which exists around us and within us, is never one sided. It is never a person, never an act, never the whole of sansara and never the whole of nirvana, and a person is never entirely holy and never entirely sinful. It does seem so because we are subjected to delusion and believe that time is something real. Time is not real, Govinda, that is something I have experienced many times. And if time is not real then the gap that seems to lie between the world and eternity, between suffering and being blessed, between evil and good, is also just delusion.”
“How do you mean that?” asked Govinda, with some anxiety.
“Listen, my friend, listen well. The sinner, such as me, such as you, is a sinner, but he will one day become once more Brahma, he will one day achieve nirvana, will become a buddha - but now think of this: this ‘one day’ is delusion, it is only a comparison! The sinner is not on his way to becoming a buddha, he is not engrossed in any kind of development, even though it is not possible for our thought to imagine these things in any other way. No, the prospective buddha is already within the sinner, now and today, his future is all already there, within him, within you, within everyone is that which will be, that which is possible, that which is the hidden buddha to be honoured. The world, Govinda my friend, is not imperfect, nor is it trapped on a weary road to perfection: no, it has perfection in every glance of the eye, every sin contains mercy within it, every little child has the old man within it, every suckling has death within it, every dying man has eternal life within him. No man is able to see how far he has progressed along his path by looking at others, within the thief and within the gambler the buddha is waiting, within the brahmin the thief is waiting. In deep meditation it is possible to remove time and to see all that has been, all that is and all that will be in one moment, and in that moment all is good, all is perfect, all is Brahman. That is why it appears to me that all that is good, death appears to me as the same as life, sin appears to me the same as holiness, wisdom appears to me the same as folly, everything has to be thus, nothing needs anything more than my agreement, more than my will, my loving involvement, and so, for me, it is good, it can only advance me and can never harm me. I have learned through experience that I needed to sin, body and soul, I needed lust, I strove for more possessions, I was vain, and I needed only the slightest doubt to teach me to give up struggling against these things, to learn to love the world, to stop comparing it with any kind of imaginary world I might have wished for or any kind of perfection I might have invented, I learned to leave the world as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it. These, Govinda, are some of the thoughts that have come into my mind.”
Siddhartha reached down and picked up a stone from the ground, then he weighed it in his hand. “This,” he said playfully, “is a stone, and after a certain time it might become soil, and then the soil might become a plant or an animal or a person. But earlier I would have said: this stone is just a stone, it is worthless, it belongs to the world of maya; but through the circle of metamorphoses it might become a person or a spirit, and that is why I attribute value to it. That is what I might have thought earlier. But now I think: this stone is a stone, it is also an animal, it is also a god, it is also a buddha, I do not venerate it, I do not love it because it might one day become this or that but because it has always been everything and always will be - and that is exactly why I love it, for being a stone, because it appears to me as a stone and always will do, that is why I see value and meaning in each of its veins and each of its hollows, in the yellow, in the grey, in its hardness, in the sound it makes when I tap it, in the dryness or the wetness of its surface. There are some stones that feel like oil or soap, others feel like leaves, others like sand, and each of them is unique and each of them prays to Om in its own way, each of them is Brahman but at the same time each of them is a stone, all the more is it a stone, it is oily or juicy, and that is what appeals to me, that is what seems so wonderful to me and so worthy of worship. But do not let continue talking about this. Words are not good for the invisible spirit, it always instantly becomes a little different when spoken about, a little false, a little foolish - and even that is something very good and something I like very much, something I fully consent to, that which one man sees as valuable wisdom will always seem to another to be folly.”
Govinda listened in silence.
After a pause he asked, hesitantly, “Why did you tell me all that about the stone?”
“It just happened. I did not plan it. Or perhaps I meant to say that I love this stone, and the river, and all these things we think about and from which we can learn. I am capable of loving a stone, Govinda, and also a tree or a piece of bark. Those are things, and it is possible to love things. But it is not possible to love words. That is why teachings are not for me, they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no edges, no smell, no taste, they have nothing but words. Maybe that is what is preventing you from finding peace, maybe it is all those words. As even redemption and virtue, even sansara and nirvana are nothing but words, Govinda. There is nothing for nirvana to be; there is only the word, ‘nirvana’.”
Govinda said, “Nirvana is not merely a word, my friend. It is a thought.”
Siddhartha continued, “A thought, maybe it is. I have to admit, my friend, I do not make any great distinction between thoughts and words. To put it simply, I do not have much respect for thoughts. I have more respect for things. There was a man here on this ferryboat, for example, who was my predecessor and my teacher, a holy man who, for many years, believed simply in the river, and nothing else. He had noticed that the river’s voice spoke to him and he learned from it, it brought him up, it helped him to develop, it taught him. The river seemed to him like a god, for many years he did not know that every wind, every cloud, every bird, every beetle is just as god-like as the river he venerated so much, and knew just as much, and had just as much to teach him. By the time this holy man went off into the woods he knew everything, he knew more than you and I, without a teacher, without books, and only because he believed in the river.”
Govinda said, “And is that what you mean by ‘things,’ something real, something that exists? Is that not just the delusion of maya, just a picture, just an appearance? This stone of yours, this tree, this river, are they then reality?”
“Even this question,” said Siddhartha, “no longer gives me much bother. Perhaps these things are delusory and perhaps they are not, but then I too am an illusion and so they continue to be the same as me. That is what makes them so dear and so venerable for me: they are the same as me. That is why I can love them. And now, here is a teaching that will make you laugh: it seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing of all. Perhaps seeing through the world, explaining the world, despising the world, is an important matter for the great thinkers, but only one thing is important for me, the ability to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it or myself, but the ability to see it and myself and all that exists with love and admiration and honour.”
“I can understand that,” said Govinda. “But this, too, is something that the noble one has recognised as delusion. He instructs us to show benevolence, mercy, compassion, patience, but not love; he has forbidden us to tether our hearts to the world with love.”
“I know it well,” said Siddhartha, and his face shone with smile of gold. “I know it well, Govinda. But now look; we find ourselves now in the middle of a thicket of meanings, we’re quibbling about words. I cannot deny that my words about love contradict - or seem to contradict - the words of Gotama. And that is the very reason I mistrust words so much, I know that this contradiction is delusory. I know that I agree with Gotama. For how could it be that he knew nothing of love, even he who acknowledged the transitoriness of all human existence, acknowledged it in all its nothingness, but nonetheless loved mankind so much that he devoted his long and strenuous life to one thing, to help them and to teach them! And even the things about him, about your great teacher are more important for me than his words, his actions and his life are more important than what he said, the movements of his hand are more important than his beliefs. I don’t see his greatness in what he said or what he thought, I see it only in his actions, in his life.”
For a long while the two old men remained silent. Then Govinda began to take his leave of Siddhartha, saying, “Thank you for showing me something of your thoughts, Siddhartha. Some of them are odd, and I am not able to understand them all straight away. Be that as it may, I give you my thanks and wish you peaceful days.”
(Privately, though, Govinda thought to himself, “This Siddhartha is a wonderful man, these are wonderful thoughts he expresses, his teaching sounds foolish. The pure teachings of the noble one are different, they are clearer, purer, easier to understand, and contain nothing odd or foolish or ridiculous. But Siddhartha’s hands and feet seem different from his thoughts. His eyes, his brow, his breath, his smile, his greeting, his walk, they all seem different. Since our noble one, Gotama, went into Nirvana I have never met any one about whom I have felt, ‘This is a holy man.’ He alone, this Siddhartha, is the only one I have found. His teachings may sound odd, his words may sound foolish, but his look and his hands, his skin and his hair, everything about him is radiant with purity, radiant with peace, radiant with gaiety and gentleness and holiness. Not since the recent death of our noble teacher have I seen this on anyone.”)
As Govinda was thinking these things, things which his heart strongly resisted, he bowed to Siddhartha once again, drawn by love. He bowed deeply as Siddhartha sat peacefully.
“Siddhartha,” he said, “we have grown into old men. It seems hardly likely that either of us will see the other in his present form ever again. I see, my dear friend, that you have found peace. I admit that I have not. Give me another word, venerated one, give me something that I can grasp, something I can understand! Give me something to take as I go on my way. My way is often difficult, often dark, Siddhartha.”
Siddhartha remained silent and continued to look at him with the same quiet smile. Govinda stared into his face, with anxiety, with yearning. Sorrow and a never ending search could be read in his expression, a never ending search without finding.