Siddhartha
pilgrimage in such clothes, few in such shoes, few with such hair.
Never I have met such a pilgrim, being a pilgrim myself for many
years.”
“I believe you, my dear Govinda. But now, today, you’ve met a pilgrim
just like this, wearing such shoes, such a garment. Remember, my dear:
Not eternal is the world of appearances, not eternal, anything but
eternal are our garments and the style of our hair, and our hair and
bodies themselves. I’m wearing a rich man’s clothes, you’ve seen this
quite right. I’m wearing them, because I have been a rich man, and I’m
wearing my hair like the worldly and lustful people, for I have been
one of them.”
“And now, Siddhartha, what are you now?”
“I don’t know it, I don’t know it just like you. I’m travelling. I was
a rich man and am no rich man any more, and what I’ll be tomorrow, I
don’t know.”
“You’ve lost your riches?”
“I’ve lost them or they me. They somehow happened to slip away from me.
The wheel of physical manifestations is turning quickly, Govinda. Where
is Siddhartha the Brahman? Where is Siddhartha the Samana? Where is
Siddhartha the rich man? Non-eternal things change quickly, Govinda,
you know it.”
Govinda looked at the friend of his youth for a long time, with doubt
in his eyes. After that, he gave him the salutation which one would use
on a gentleman and went on his way.
With a smiling face, Siddhartha watched him leave, he loved him still,
this faithful man, this fearful man. And how could he not have loved
everybody and everything in this moment, in the glorious hour after his
wonderful sleep, filled with Om! The enchantment, which had happened
inside of him in his sleep and by means of the Om, was this very thing
that he loved everything, that he was full of joyful love for
everything he saw. And it was this very thing, so it seemed to him now,
which had been his sickness before, that he was not able to love
anybody or anything.
With a smiling face, Siddhartha watched the leaving monk. The sleep had
strengthened him much, but hunger gave him much pain, for by now he had
not eaten for two days, and the times were long past when he had been
tough against hunger. With sadness, and yet also with a smile, he
thought of that time. In those days, so he remembered, he had boasted
of three things to Kamala, had been able to do three noble and
undefeatable feats: fasting—waiting—thinking. These had been his
possessions, his power and strength, his solid staff; in the busy,
laborious years of his youth, he had learned these three feats, nothing
else. And now, they had abandoned him, none of them was his any more,
neither fasting, nor waiting, nor thinking. For the most wretched
things, he had given them up, for what fades most quickly, for sensual
lust, for the good life, for riches! His life had indeed been strange.
And now, so it seemed, now he had really become a childlike person.
Siddhartha thought about his situation. Thinking was hard on him, he
did not really feel like it, but he forced himself.
Now, he thought, since all these most easily perishing things have
slipped from me again, now I’m standing here under the sun again just
as I have been standing here a little child, nothing is mine, I have no
abilities, there is nothing I could bring about, I have learned
nothing. How wondrous is this! Now, that I’m no longer young, that my
hair is already half gray, that my strength is fading, now I’m starting
again at the beginning and as a child! Again, he had to smile. Yes, his
fate had been strange! Things were going downhill with him, and now he
was again facing the world void and naked and stupid. But he could not
feel sad about this, no, he even felt a great urge to laugh, to laugh
about himself, to laugh about this strange, foolish world.
“Things are going downhill with you!” he said to himself, and laughed
about it, and as he was saying it, he happened to glance at the river,
and he also saw the river going downhill, always moving on downhill,
and singing and being happy through it all. He liked this well, kindly
he smiled at the river. Was this not the river in which he had intended
to drown himself, in past times, a hundred years ago, or had he dreamed
this?
Wondrous indeed was my life, so he thought, wondrous detours it has
taken. As a boy, I had only to do with gods and offerings. As a youth,
I had only to do with asceticism, with thinking and meditation, was
searching for Brahman, worshipped the eternal in the Atman. But as a
young man, I followed the penitents, lived in the forest, suffered of
heat and frost, learned to hunger, taught my body to become dead.
Wonderfully, soon afterwards, insight came towards me in the form of
the great Buddha’s teachings, I felt the knowledge of the oneness of
the world circling in me like my own blood. But I also had to leave
Buddha and the great knowledge. I went and learned the art of love with
Kamala, learned trading with Kamaswami, piled up money, wasted money,
learned to love my stomach, learned to please my senses. I had to spend
many years losing my spirit, to unlearn thinking again, to forget the
oneness. Isn’t it just as if I had turned slowly and on a long detour
from a man into a child, from a thinker into a childlike person? And
yet, this path has been very good; and yet, the bird in my chest has
not died. But what a path has this been! I had to pass through so much
stupidity, through so much vice, through so many errors, through so
much disgust and disappointments and woe, just to become a child again
and to be able to start over. But it was right so, my heart says “Yes”
to it, my eyes smile to it. I’ve had to experience despair, I’ve had to
sink down to the most foolish one of all thoughts, to the thought of
suicide, in order to be able to experience divine grace, to hear Om
again, to be able to sleep properly and awake properly again. I had to
become a fool, to find Atman in me again. I had to sin, to be able to
live again. Where else might my path lead me to? It is foolish, this
path, it moves in loops, perhaps it is going around in a circle. Let it
go as it likes, I want to take it.
Wonderfully, he felt joy rolling like waves in his chest.
Wherever from, he asked his heart, where from did you get this
happiness? Might it come from that long, good sleep, which has done me
so good? Or from the word Om, which I said? Or from the fact that I
have escaped, that I have completely fled, that I am finally free again
and am standing like a child under the sky? Oh how good is it to have
fled, to have become free! How clean and beautiful is the air here, how
good to breathe! There, where I ran away from, there everything smelled
of ointments, of spices, of wine, of excess, of sloth. How I hated this
world of the rich, of those who revel in fine food, of the gamblers!
How I hated myself for staying in this terrible world for so long! How
I hated myself, have deprived, poisoned, tortured myself, have made
myself old and evil! No, never again I will, as I used to like doing so
much, delude myself into thinking that Siddhartha was wise! But this
one thing I have done well, this I like, this I must praise, that there
is now an end to that hatred against myself, to that foolish and dreary
life! I praise you, Siddhartha, after so many years of foolishness, you
have once again had an idea, have done something, have heard the bird
in your chest singing and have followed it!
Thus he praised himself, found joy in himself, listened curiously to
his stomach, which was rumbling with hunger. He had now, so he felt, in
these recent times and days, completely tasted and spit out, devoured
up to the point of desperation and death, a piece of suffering, a piece
of misery. Like this, it was good. For much longer, he could have
stayed with Kamaswami, made money, wasted money, filled his stomach,
and let his soul die of thirst; for much longer he could have lived in
this soft, well upholstered hell, if this had not happened: the moment
of complete hopelessness and despair, that most extreme moment, when he
hung over the rushing waters and was ready to destroy himself. That he
had felt this despair, this deep disgust, and that he had not succumbed
to it, that the bird, the joyful source and voice in him was still
alive after all, this was why he felt joy, this was why he laughed,
this was why his face was smiling brightly under his hair which had
turned gray.
“It is good,” he thought, “to get a taste of everything for oneself,
which one needs to know. That lust for the world and riches do not
belong to the good things, I have already learned as a child. I have
known it for a long time, but I have experienced only now. And now I
know it, don’t just know it in my memory, but in my eyes, in my heart,
in my stomach. Good for me, to know this!”
For a long time, he pondered his transformation, listened to the bird,
as it sang for joy. Had not this bird died in him, had he not felt its
death? No, something else from within him had died, something which
already for a long time had yearned to die. Was it not this what he
used to intend to kill in his ardent years as a penitent? Was this not
his self, his small, frightened, and proud self, he had wrestled with
for so many years, which had defeated him again and again, which was
back again after every killing, prohibited joy, felt fear? Was it not
this, which today had finally come to its death, here in the forest, by
this lovely river? Was it not due to this death, that he was now like a
child, so full of trust, so without fear, so full of joy?
Now Siddhartha also got some idea of why he had fought this self in
vain as a Brahman, as a penitent. Too much knowledge had held him back,
too many holy verses, too many sacrificial rules, to much
self-castigation, so much doing and striving for that goal! Full of
arrogance, he had been, always the smartest, always working the most,
always one step ahead of all others, always the knowing and spiritual
one, always the priest or wise one. Into being a priest, into this
arrogance, into this spirituality, his self had retreated, there it sat
firmly and grew, while he thought he would kill it by fasting and
penance. Now he saw it and saw that the secret voice had been right,
that no teacher would ever have been able to bring about his salvation.
Therefore, he had to go out into the world, lose himself to lust and
power, to woman and money, had to become a merchant, a dice-gambler, a
drinker, and a greedy person, until the priest and Samana in him was
dead. Therefore, he had to continue bearing these ugly years, bearing
the disgust, the teachings, the pointlessness of a dreary and wasted
life up to the end, up to bitter despair, until Siddhartha the lustful,
Siddhartha the greedy could also die. He had died, a new Siddhartha had
woken up from the sleep. He would also grow old, he would also
eventually have to die, mortal was Siddhartha, mortal was every
physical form. But today he was young, was a child, the new Siddhartha,
and was full of joy.
He thought these thoughts, listened with a smile to his stomach,
listened gratefully to a buzzing bee. Cheerfully, he looked into the
rushing river, never before he had liked a water so well as this one,
never before he had perceived the voice and the parable of the moving
water thus strongly and beautifully. It seemed to him, as if the river
had something special to tell him, something he did not know yet, which
was still awaiting him. In this river, Siddhartha had intended to drown
himself, in it the old, tired, desperate Siddhartha had drowned today.
But the new Siddhartha felt a deep love for this rushing water, and
decided for himself, not to leave it very soon.
THE FERRYMAN
By this river I want to stay, thought Siddhartha, it is the same which