Siddhartha
and don’t harm yourself by scolding! If the day will come, when you
will see: this Siddhartha is harming me, then speak a word and
Siddhartha will go on his own path. But until then, let’s be satisfied
with one another.”
Futile were also the merchant’s attempts, to convince Siddhartha that
he should eat his bread. Siddhartha ate his own bread, or rather they
both ate other people’s bread, all people’s bread. Siddhartha never
listened to Kamaswami’s worries and Kamaswami had many worries. Whether
there was a business-deal going on which was in danger of failing, or
whether a shipment of merchandise seemed to have been lost, or a debtor
seemed to be unable to pay, Kamaswami could never convince his partner
that it would be useful to utter a few words of worry or anger, to have
wrinkles on the forehead, to sleep badly. When, one day, Kamaswami held
against him that he had learned everything he knew from him, he
replied: “Would you please not kid me with such jokes! What I’ve
learned from you is how much a basket of fish costs and how much
interest may be charged on loaned money. These are your areas of
expertise. I haven’t learned to think from you, my dear Kamaswami, you
ought to be the one seeking to learn from me.”
Indeed his soul was not with the trade. The business was good enough to
provide him with the money for Kamala, and it earned him much more than
he needed. Besides from this, Siddhartha’s interest and curiosity was
only concerned with the people, whose businesses, crafts, worries,
pleasures, and acts of foolishness used to be as alien and distant to
him as the moon. However easily he succeeded in talking to all of them,
in living with all of them, in learning from all of them, he was still
aware that there was something which separated him from them and this
separating factor was him being a Samana. He saw mankind going through
life in a childlike or animallike manner, which he loved and also
despised at the same time. He saw them toiling, saw them suffering, and
becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him entirely
unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being
slightly honoured, he saw them scolding and insulting each other, he
saw them complaining about pain at which a Samana would only smile, and
suffering because of deprivations which a Samana would not feel.
He was open to everything these people brought his way. Welcome was
the merchant who offered him linen for sale, welcome was the debtor who
sought another loan, welcome was the beggar who told him for one hour
the story of his poverty and who was not half as poor as any given
Samana. He did not treat the rich foreign merchant any different than
the servant who shaved him and the street-vendor whom he let cheat him
out of some small change when buying bananas. When Kamaswami came to
him, to complain about his worries or to reproach him concerning his
business, he listened curiously and happily, was puzzled by him, tried
to understand him, consented that he was a little bit right, only as
much as he considered indispensable, and turned away from him, towards
the next person who would ask for him. And there were many who came to
him, many to do business with him, many to cheat him, many to draw some
secret out of him, many to appeal to his sympathy, many to get his
advice. He gave advice, he pitied, he made gifts, he let them cheat him
a bit, and this entire game and the passion with which all people
played this game occupied his thoughts just as much as the gods and
Brahmans used to occupy them.
At times he felt, deep in his chest, a dying, quiet voice, which
admonished him quietly, lamented quietly; he hardly perceived it. And
then, for an hour, he became aware of the strange life he was leading,
of him doing lots of things which were only a game, of, though being
happy and feeling joy at times, real life still passing him by and not
touching him. As a ball-player plays with his balls, he played with his
business-deals, with the people around him, watched them, found
amusement in them; with his heart, with the source of his being, he was
not with them. The source ran somewhere, far away from him, ran and ran
invisibly, had nothing to do with his life any more. And at several
times he suddenly became scared on account of such thoughts and wished
that he would also be gifted with the ability to participate in all of
these childlike-naive occupations of the daytime with passion and with
his heart, really to live, really to act, really to enjoy and to live
instead of just standing by as a spectator. But again and again, he
came back to beautiful Kamala, learned the art of love, practised the
cult of lust, in which more than in anything else giving and taking
becomes one, chatted with her, learned from her, gave her advice,
received advice. She understood him better than Govinda used to
understand him, she was more similar to him.
Once, he said to her: “You are like me, you are different from most
people. You are Kamala, nothing else, and inside of you, there is a
peace and refuge, to which you can go at every hour of the day and be
at home at yourself, as I can also do. Few people have this, and yet
all could have it.”
“Not all people are smart,” said Kamala.
“No,” said Siddhartha, “that’s not the reason why. Kamaswami is just as
smart as I, and still has no refuge in himself. Others have it, who are
small children with respect to their mind. Most people, Kamala, are
like a falling leaf, which is blown and is turning around through the
air, and wavers, and tumbles to the ground. But others, a few, are like
stars, they go on a fixed course, no wind reaches them, in themselves
they have their law and their course. Among all the learned men and
Samanas, of which I knew many, there was one of this kind, a perfected
one, I’ll never be able to forget him. It is that Gotama, the exalted
one, who is spreading those teachings. Thousands of followers are
listening to his teachings every day, follow his instructions every
hour, but they are all falling leaves, not in themselves they have
teachings and a law.”
Kamala looked at him with a smile. “Again, you’re talking about him,”
she said, “again, you’re having a Samana’s thoughts.”
Siddhartha said nothing, and they played the game of love, one of the
thirty or forty different games Kamala knew. Her body was flexible like
that of a jaguar and like the bow of a hunter; he who had learned from
her how to make love, was knowledgeable of many forms of lust, many
secrets. For a long time, she played with Siddhartha, enticed him,
rejected him, forced him, embraced him: enjoyed his masterful skills,
until he was defeated and rested exhausted by her side.
The courtesan bent over him, took a long look at his face, at his eyes,
which had grown tired.
“You are the best lover,” she said thoughtfully, “I ever saw. You’re
stronger than others, more supple, more willing. You’ve learned my art
well, Siddhartha. At some time, when I’ll be older, I’d want to bear
your child. And yet, my dear, you’ve remained a Samana, and yet you do
not love me, you love nobody. Isn’t it so?”
“It might very well be so,” Siddhartha said tiredly. “I am like you.
You also do not love—how else could you practise love as a craft?
Perhaps, people of our kind can’t love. The childlike people can;
that’s their secret.”
SANSARA
For a long time, Siddhartha had lived the life of the world and of
lust, though without being a part of it. His senses, which he had
killed off in hot years as a Samana, had awoken again, he had tasted
riches, had tasted lust, had tasted power; nevertheless he had still
remained in his heart for a long time a Samana; Kamala, being smart,
had realized this quite right. It was still the art of thinking, of
waiting, of fasting, which guided his life; still the people of the
world, the childlike people, had remained alien to him as he was alien
to them.
Years passed by; surrounded by the good life, Siddhartha hardly felt
them fading away. He had become rich, for quite a while he possessed a
house of his own and his own servants, and a garden before the city by
the river. The people liked him, they came to him, whenever they needed
money or advice, but there was nobody close to him, except Kamala.
That high, bright state of being awake, which he had experienced that
one time at the height of his youth, in those days after Gotama’s
sermon, after the separation from Govinda, that tense expectation, that
proud state of standing alone without teachings and without teachers,
that supple willingness to listen to the divine voice in his own heart,
had slowly become a memory, had been fleeting; distant and quiet, the
holy source murmured, which used to be near, which used to murmur
within himself. Nevertheless, many things he had learned from the
Samanas, he had learned from Gotama, he had learned from his father the
Brahman, had remained within him for a long time afterwards: moderate
living, joy of thinking, hours of meditation, secret knowledge of the
self, of his eternal entity, which is neither body nor consciousness.
Many a part of this he still had, but one part after another had been
submerged and had gathered dust. Just as a potter’s wheel, once it has
been set in motion, will keep on turning for a long time and only
slowly lose its vigour and come to a stop, thus Siddhartha’s soul had
kept on turning the wheel of asceticism, the wheel of thinking, the
wheel of differentiation for a long time, still turning, but it turned
slowly and hesitantly and was close to coming to a standstill. Slowly,
like humidity entering the dying stem of a tree, filling it slowly and
making it rot, the world and sloth had entered Siddhartha’s soul,
slowly it filled his soul, made it heavy, made it tired, put it to
sleep. On the other hand, his senses had become alive, there was much
they had learned, much they had experienced.
Siddhartha had learned to trade, to use his power over people, to enjoy
himself with a woman, he had learned to wear beautiful clothes, to give
orders to servants, to bathe in perfumed waters. He had learned to eat
tenderly and carefully prepared food, even fish, even meat and poultry,
spices and sweets, and to drink wine, which causes sloth and
forgetfulness. He had learned to play with dice and on a chess-board,
to watch dancing girls, to have himself carried about in a sedan-chair,
to sleep on a soft bed. But still he had felt different from and
superior to the others; always he had watched them with some mockery,
some mocking disdain, with the same disdain which a Samana constantly
feels for the people of the world. When Kamaswami was ailing, when he
was annoyed, when he felt insulted, when he was vexed by his worries as
a merchant, Siddhartha had always watched it with mockery. Just slowly
and imperceptibly, as the harvest seasons and rainy seasons passed by,
his mockery had become more tired, his superiority had become more
quiet. Just slowly, among his growing riches, Siddhartha had assumed
something of the childlike people’s ways for himself, something of
their childlikeness and of their fearfulness. And yet, he envied them,
envied them just the more, the more similar he became to them. He
envied them for the one thing that was missing from him and that they
had, the importance they were able to attach to their lives, the amount
of passion in their joys and fears, the fearful but sweet happiness of
being constantly in love. These people were all of the time in love
with themselves, with women, with their children, with honours or
money, with plans or hopes. But he did not learn this from them, this
out of all things, this joy of a child and this foolishness of a child;
he learned from them out of all things the unpleasant ones, which he