Siddhartha
no child any more, he knows how to get around. He’s looking for the
path to the city, and he is right, don’t forget that. He’s doing what
you’ve failed to do yourself. He’s taking care of himself, he’s taking
his course. Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you’re suffering
a pain at which one would like to laugh, at which you’ll soon laugh for
yourself.”
Siddhartha did not answer. He already held the axe in his hands and
began to make a raft of bamboo, and Vasudeva helped him to tie the
canes together with ropes of grass. Then they crossed over, drifted far
off their course, pulled the raft upriver on the opposite bank.
“Why did you take the axe along?” asked Siddhartha.
Vasudeva said: “It might have been possible that the oar of our boat
got lost.”
But Siddhartha knew what his friend was thinking. He thought, the boy
would have thrown away or broken the oar in order to get even and in
order to keep them from following him. And in fact, there was no oar
left in the boat. Vasudeva pointed 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 to 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 run-away 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 bid
his farewell to him, how he had gone and had never come back. Had his
father not also suffered the same pain for him, which he now suffered
for his son? Had his father not long since died, alone, without having
seen his son again? Did he not have to expect the same fate for
himself? Was it not a comedy, a strange and stupid matter, this
repetition, this running around in a fateful circle?
The river laughed. Yes, so it was, everything came back, which had not
been suffered and solved up to its end, the same pain was suffered over
and over again. But Siddhartha went back into the boat and ferried back
to the hut, thinking of his father, thinking of his son, laughed at by
the river, at odds with himself, tending towards despair, and not less
tending towards laughing along at himself 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