Siddhartha
With whom would he share his life? Whose language would he speak?
Out of this moment, when the world melted away all around him, when he
stood alone like a star in the sky, out of this moment of a cold and
despair, Siddhartha emerged, more a self than before, more firmly
concentrated. He felt: This had been the last tremor of the awakening,
the last struggle of this birth. And it was not long until he walked
again in long strides, started to proceed swiftly and impatiently,
heading no longer for home, no longer to his father, no longer back.
SECOND PART
Dedicated to Wilhelm Gundert, my cousin in Japan
KAMALA
Siddhartha learned something new on every step of his path, for the
world was transformed, and his heart was enchanted. He saw the sun
rising over the mountains with their forests and setting over the
distant beach with its palm-trees. At night, he saw the stars in the
sky in their fixed positions and the crescent of the moon floating like
a boat in the blue. He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds, rainbows,
rocks, herbs, flowers, stream and river, the glistening dew in the
bushes in the morning, distant high mountains which were blue and pale,
birds sang and bees, wind silverishly blew through the rice-field. All
of this, a thousand-fold and colourful, had always been there, always
the sun and the moon had shone, always rivers had roared and bees had
buzzed, but in former times all of this had been nothing more to
Siddhartha than a fleeting, deceptive veil before his eyes, looked upon
in distrust, destined to be penetrated and destroyed by thought, since
it was not the essential existence, since this essence lay beyond, on
the other side of, the visible. But now, his liberated eyes stayed on
this side, he saw and became aware of the visible, sought to be at home
in this world, did not search for the true essence, did not aim at a
world beyond. Beautiful was this world, looking at it thus, without
searching, thus simply, thus childlike. Beautiful were the moon and the
stars, beautiful was the stream and the banks, the forest and the
rocks, the goat and the gold-beetle, the flower and the butterfly.
Beautiful and lovely it was, thus to walk through the world, thus
childlike, thus awoken, thus open to what is near, thus without
distrust. Differently the sun burnt the head, differently the shade of
the forest cooled him down, differently the stream and the cistern, the
pumpkin and the banana tasted. Short were the days, short the nights,
every hour sped swiftly away like a sail on the sea, and under the sail
was a ship full of treasures, full of joy. Siddhartha saw a group of
apes moving through the high canopy of the forest, high in the
branches, and heard their savage, greedy song. Siddhartha saw a male
sheep following a female one and mating with her. In a lake of reeds,
he saw the pike hungrily hunting for its dinner; propelling themselves
away from it, in fear, wiggling and sparkling, the young fish jumped in
droves out of the water; the scent of strength and passion came
forcefully out of the hasty eddies of the water, which the pike stirred
up, impetuously hunting.
All of this had always existed, and he had not seen it; he had not been
with it. Now he was with it, he was part of it. Light and shadow ran
through his eyes, stars and moon ran through his heart.
On the way, Siddhartha also remembered everything he had experienced in
the Garden Jetavana, the teaching he had heard there, the divine
Buddha, the farewell from Govinda, the conversation with the exalted
one. Again he remembered his own words, he had spoken to the exalted
one, every word, and with astonishment he became aware of the fact that
there he had said things which he had not really known yet at this
time. What he had said to Gotama: his, the Buddha’s, treasure and
secret was not the teachings, but the unexpressable and not teachable,
which he had experienced in the hour of his enlightenment—it was
nothing but this very thing which he had now gone to experience, what
he now began to experience. Now, he had to experience his self. It is
true that he had already known for a long time that his self was Atman,
in its essence bearing the same eternal characteristics as Brahman. But
never, he had really found this self, because he had wanted to capture
it in the net of thought. With the body definitely not being the self,
and not the spectacle of the senses, so it also was not the thought,
not the rational mind, not the learned wisdom, not the learned ability
to draw conclusions and to develop previous thoughts in to new ones.
No, this world of thought was also still on this side, and nothing
could be achieved by killing the random self of the senses, if the
random self of thoughts and learned knowledge was fattened on the other
hand. Both, the thoughts as well as the senses, were pretty things, the
ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them, both had to be
listened to, both had to be played with, both neither had to be scorned
nor overestimated, from both the secret voices of the innermost truth
had to be attentively perceived. He wanted to strive for nothing,
except for what the voice commanded him to strive for, dwell on
nothing, except where the voice would advise him to do so. Why had
Gotama, at that time, in the hour of all hours, sat down under the
bo-tree, where the enlightenment hit him? He had heard a voice, a voice
in his own heart, which had commanded him to seek rest under this tree,
and he had neither preferred self-castigation, offerings, ablutions,
nor prayer, neither food nor drink, neither sleep nor dream, he had
obeyed the voice. To obey like this, not to an external command, only
to the voice, to be ready like this, this was good, this was necessary,
nothing else was necessary.
In the night when he slept in the straw hut of a ferryman by the river,
Siddhartha had a dream: Govinda was standing in front of him, dressed
in the yellow robe of an ascetic. Sad was how Govinda looked like,
sadly he asked: Why have you forsaken me? At this, he embraced Govinda,
wrapped his arms around him, and as he was pulling him close to his
chest and kissed him, it was not Govinda any more, but a woman, and a
full breast popped out of the woman’s dress, at which Siddhartha lay
and drank, sweetly and strongly tasted the milk from this breast. It
tasted of woman and man, of sun and forest, of animal and flower, of
every fruit, of every joyful desire. It intoxicated him and rendered
him unconscious.—When Siddhartha woke up, the pale river shimmered
through the door of the hut, and in the forest, a dark call of an owl
resounded deeply and pleasantly.
When the day began, Siddhartha asked his host, the ferryman, to get him
across the river. The ferryman got him across the river on his
bamboo-raft, the wide water shimmered reddishly in the light of the
morning.
“This is a beautiful river,” he said to his companion.
“Yes,” said the ferryman, “a very beautiful river, I love it more than
anything. Often I have listened to it, often I have looked into its
eyes, and always I have learned from it. Much can be learned from a
river.”
“I thank you, my benefactor,” spoke Siddhartha, disembarking on the
other side of the river. “I have no gift I could give you for your
hospitality, my dear, and also no payment for your work. I am a man
without a home, a son of a Brahman and a Samana.”
“I did see it,” spoke the ferryman, “and I haven’t expected any payment
from you and no gift which would be the custom for guests to bear. You
will give me the gift another time.”
“Do you think so?” asked Siddhartha amusedly.
“Surely. This too, I have learned from the river: everything is coming
back! You too, Samana, will come back. Now farewell! Let your
friendship be my reward. Commemorate me, when you’ll make offerings to
the gods.”
Smiling, they parted. Smiling, Siddhartha was happy about the
friendship and the kindness of the ferryman. “He is like Govinda,” he
thought with a smile, “all I meet on my path are like Govinda. All are
thankful, though they are the ones who would have a right to receive
thanks. All are submissive, all would like to be friends, like to obey,
think little. Like children are all people.”
At about noon, he came through a village. In front of the mud cottages,
children were rolling about in the street, were playing with
pumpkin-seeds and sea-shells, screamed and wrestled, but they all
timidly fled from the unknown Samana. In the end of the village, the
path led through a stream, and by the side of the stream, a young woman
was kneeling and washing clothes. When Siddhartha greeted her, she
lifted her head and looked up to him with a smile, so that he saw the
white in her eyes glistening. He called out a blessing to her, as it is
the custom among travellers, and asked how far he still had to go to
reach the large city. Then she got up and came to him, beautifully her
wet mouth was shimmering in her young face. She exchanged humorous
banter with him, asked whether he had eaten already, and whether it was
true that the Samanas slept alone in the forest at night and were not
allowed to have any women with them. While talking, she put her left
foot on his right one and made a movement as a woman does who would
want to initiate that kind of sexual pleasure with a man, which the
textbooks call “climbing a tree”. Siddhartha felt his blood heating up,
and since in this moment he had to think of his dream again, he bend
slightly down to the woman and kissed with his lips the brown nipple of
her breast. Looking up, he saw her face smiling full of lust and her
eyes, with contracted pupils, begging with desire.
Siddhartha also felt desire and felt the source of his sexuality
moving; but since he had never touched a woman before, he hesitated for
a moment, while his hands were already prepared to reach out for her.
And in this moment he heard, shuddering with awe, the voice of his
innermost self, and this voice said No. Then, all charms disappeared
from the young woman’s smiling face, he no longer saw anything else but
the damp glance of a female animal in heat. Politely, he petted her
cheek, turned away from her and disappeared away from the disappointed
woman with light steps into the bamboo-wood.
On this day, he reached the large city before the evening, and was
happy, for he felt the need to be among people. For a long time, he had
lived in the forests, and the straw hut of the ferryman, in which he
had slept that night, had been the first roof for a long time he had
had over his head.
Before the city, in a beautifully fenced grove, the traveller came
across a small group of servants, both male and female, carrying
baskets. In their midst, carried by four servants in an ornamental
sedan-chair, sat a woman, the mistress, on red pillows under a
colourful canopy. Siddhartha stopped at the entrance to the
pleasure-garden and watched the parade, saw the servants, the maids,
the baskets, saw the sedan-chair and saw the lady in it. Under black
hair, which made to tower high on her head, he saw a very fair, very
delicate, very smart face, a brightly red mouth, like a freshly cracked
fig, eyebrows which were well tended and painted in a high arch, smart
and watchful dark eyes, a clear, tall neck rising from a green and
golden garment, resting fair hands, long and thin, with wide golden
bracelets over the wrists.
Siddhartha saw how beautiful she was, and his heart rejoiced. He bowed
deeply, when the sedan-chair came closer, and straightening up again,
he looked at the fair, charming face, read for a moment in the smart
eyes with the high arcs above, breathed in a slight fragrant, he did
not know. With a smile, the beautiful woman nodded for a moment and