sample_siddhartha 0.0.1

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data/.gitignore

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+/.bundle/
+/.yardoc
+/_yardoc/
+/coverage/
+/doc/
+/pkg/
+/spec/reports/
+/tmp/

data/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

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+# Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct
+
+## Our Pledge
+
+In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as
+contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and
+our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body
+size, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience,
+nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and
+orientation.
+
+## Our Standards
+
+Examples of behavior that contributes to creating a positive environment
+include:
+
+* Using welcoming and inclusive language
+* Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
+* Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
+* Focusing on what is best for the community
+* Showing empathy towards other community members
+
+Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:
+
+* The use of sexualized language or imagery and unwelcome sexual attention or
+advances
+* Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
+* Public or private harassment
+* Publishing others' private information, such as a physical or electronic
+  address, without explicit permission
+* Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a
+  professional setting
+
+## Our Responsibilities
+
+Project maintainers are responsible for clarifying the standards of acceptable
+behavior and are expected to take appropriate and fair corrective action in
+response to any instances of unacceptable behavior.
+
+Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or
+reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions
+that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or
+permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate,
+threatening, offensive, or harmful.
+
+## Scope
+
+This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces
+when an individual is representing the project or its community. Examples of
+representing a project or community include using an official project e-mail
+address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed
+representative at an online or offline event. Representation of a project may be
+further defined and clarified by project maintainers.
+
+## Enforcement
+
+Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be
+reported by contacting the project team at matthewallenblack@gmail.com. All
+complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that
+is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. The project team is
+obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.
+Further details of specific enforcement policies may be posted separately.
+
+Project maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct in good
+faith may face temporary or permanent repercussions as determined by other
+members of the project's leadership.
+
+## Attribution
+
+This Code of Conduct is adapted from the [Contributor Covenant][homepage], version 1.4,
+available at [http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4][version]
+
+[homepage]: http://contributor-covenant.org
+[version]: http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/

data/Gemfile

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+source "https://rubygems.org"
+
+git_source(:github) {|repo_name| "https://github.com/#{repo_name}" }
+
+# Specify your gem's dependencies in sample_siddhartha.gemspec
+gemspec

data/LICENSE.txt

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+The MIT License (MIT)
+
+Copyright (c) 2017 Matthew Black
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
+of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
+in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
+to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
+copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
+furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
+all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
+IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
+FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
+AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
+LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
+OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
+THE SOFTWARE.

data/README.md

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+# SampleSiddhartha
+
+Welcome to your new gem! In this directory, you'll find the files you need to be able to package up your Ruby library into a gem. Put your Ruby code in the file `lib/sample_siddhartha`. To experiment with that code, run `bin/console` for an interactive prompt.
+
+TODO: Delete this and the text above, and describe your gem
+
+## Installation
+
+Add this line to your application's Gemfile:
+
+```ruby
+gem 'sample_siddhartha'
+```
+
+And then execute:
+
+    $ bundle
+
+Or install it yourself as:
+
+    $ gem install sample_siddhartha
+
+## Usage
+
+TODO: Write usage instructions here
+
+## Development
+
+After checking out the repo, run `bin/setup` to install dependencies. You can also run `bin/console` for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.
+
+To install this gem onto your local machine, run `bundle exec rake install`. To release a new version, update the version number in `version.rb`, and then run `bundle exec rake release`, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the `.gem` file to [rubygems.org](https://rubygems.org).
+
+## Contributing
+
+Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/[USERNAME]/sample_siddhartha. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the [Contributor Covenant](http://contributor-covenant.org) code of conduct.
+
+## License
+
+The gem is available as open source under the terms of the [MIT License](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT).
+
+## Code of Conduct
+
+Everyone interacting in the SampleSiddhartha project’s codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the [code of conduct](https://github.com/[USERNAME]/sample_siddhartha/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md).

data/Rakefile

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+require "bundler/gem_tasks"
+task :default => :spec

data/bin/console

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+#!/usr/bin/env ruby
+
+require "bundler/setup"
+require "sample_siddhartha"
+
+# You can add fixtures and/or initialization code here to make experimenting
+# with your gem easier. You can also use a different console, if you like.
+
+# (If you use this, don't forget to add pry to your Gemfile!)
+# require "pry"
+# Pry.start
+
+require "irb"
+IRB.start(__FILE__)

data/bin/setup

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+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+set -euo pipefail
+IFS=$'\n\t'
+set -vx
+
+bundle install
+
+# Do any other automated setup that you need to do here

data/lib/sample_siddhartha.rb

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+require "sample_siddhartha/version"
+
+
+module SampleSiddhartha
+  def read(minimum_chars = 1000)
+    file = './lib/siddhartha.txt'
+    text = []
+    File.readlines(file).each do |line|
+      text << line
+    end
+
+    siddhartha_paragraphs = text.join(' ').split("\r\n \r\n")
+    rando = rand(0..517)
+
+    todays_siddhartha = []
+    i = 0
+    until todays_siddhartha.join(' ').length > minimum_chars
+      todays_siddhartha << siddhartha_paragraphs[rando + i]
+      i = i + 1
+    end
+
+    todays_siddhartha.join("\n\n")
+  end
+end

data/lib/sample_siddhartha/version.rb

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+module SampleSiddhartha
+  VERSION = "0.0.1"
+end

data/lib/siddhartha.txt

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+In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the riverbank near the
+boats, in the shade of the Sal-wood forest, in the shade of the fig tree
+is where Siddhartha grew up, the handsome son of the Brahman, the young
+falcon, together with his friend Govinda, son of a Brahman.  The sun
+tanned his light shoulders by the banks of the river when bathing,
+performing the sacred ablutions, the sacred offerings.  In the mango
+grove, shade poured into his black eyes, when playing as a boy, when
+his mother sang, when the sacred offerings were made, when his father,
+the scholar, taught him, when the wise men talked.  For a long time,
+Siddhartha had been partaking in the discussions of the wise men,
+practising debate with Govinda, practising with Govinda the art of
+reflection, the service of meditation.  He already knew how to speak the
+Om silently, the word of words, to speak it silently into himself while
+inhaling, to speak it silently out of himself while exhaling, with all
+the concentration of his soul, the forehead surrounded by the glow of
+the clear-thinking spirit.  He already knew to feel Atman in the depths
+of his being, indestructible, one with the universe.
+
+Joy leapt in his father's heart for his son who was quick to learn,
+thirsty for knowledge; he saw him growing up to become great wise man
+and priest, a prince among the Brahmans.
+
+Bliss leapt in his mother's breast when she saw him, when she saw him
+walking, when she saw him sit down and get up, Siddhartha, strong,
+handsome, he who was walking on slender legs, greeting her with perfect
+respect.
+
+Love touched the hearts of the Brahmans' young daughters when
+Siddhartha walked through the lanes of the town with the luminous
+forehead, with the eye of a king, with his slim hips.
+
+But more than all the others he was loved by Govinda, his friend, the
+son of a Brahman.  He loved Siddhartha's eye and sweet voice, he loved
+his walk and the perfect decency of his movements, he loved everything
+Siddhartha did and said and what he loved most was his spirit, his
+transcendent, fiery thoughts, his ardent will, his high calling.
+Govinda knew: he would not become a common Brahman, not a lazy official
+in charge of offerings; not a greedy merchant with magic spells; not a
+vain, vacuous speaker; not a mean, deceitful priest; and also not a
+decent, stupid sheep in the herd of the many.  No, and he, Govinda, as
+well did not want to become one of those, not one of those tens of
+thousands of Brahmans.  He wanted to follow Siddhartha, the beloved,
+the splendid.  And in days to come, when Siddhartha would become a god,
+when he would join the glorious, then Govinda wanted to follow him as
+his friend, his companion, his servant, his spear-carrier, his shadow.
+
+Siddhartha was thus loved by everyone.  He was a source of joy for
+everybody, he was a delight for them all.
+
+But he, Siddhartha, was not a source of joy for himself, he found no
+delight in himself.  Walking the rosy paths of the fig tree garden,
+sitting in the bluish shade of the grove of contemplation, washing his
+limbs daily in the bath of repentance, sacrificing in the dim shade of
+the mango forest, his gestures of perfect decency, everyone's love and
+joy, he still lacked all joy in his heart.  Dreams and restless thoughts
+came into his mind, flowing from the water of the river, sparkling from
+the stars of the night, melting from the beams of the sun, dreams came
+to him and a restlessness of the soul, fuming from the sacrifices,
+breathing forth from the verses of the Rig-Veda, being infused into him,
+drop by drop, from the teachings of the old Brahmans.
+
+Siddhartha had started to nurse discontent in himself, he had started
+to feel that the love of his father and the love of his mother, and also
+the love of his friend, Govinda, would not bring him joy for ever and
+ever, would not nurse him, feed him, satisfy him.  He had started to
+suspect that his venerable father and his other teachers, that the wise
+Brahmans had already revealed to him the most and best of their wisdom,
+that they had already filled his expecting vessel with their richness,
+and the vessel was not full, the spirit was not content, the soul was
+not calm, the heart was not satisfied.  The ablutions were good, but
+they were water, they did not wash off the sin, they did not heal the
+spirit's thirst, they did not relieve the fear in his heart.  The
+sacrifices and the invocation of the gods were excellent--but was that
+all?  Did the sacrifices give a happy fortune?  And what about the gods?
+Was it really Prajapati who had created the world?  Was it not the
+Atman, He, the only one, the singular one?  Were the gods not creations,
+created like me and you, subject to time, mortal?  Was it therefore
+good, was it right, was it meaningful and the highest occupation to make
+offerings to the gods?  For whom else were offerings to be made, who
+else was to be worshipped but Him, the only one, the Atman?  And where
+was Atman to be found, where did He reside, where did his eternal heart
+beat, where else but in one's own self, in its innermost part, in its
+indestructible part, which everyone had in himself?  But where, where
+was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part?  It was not
+flesh and bone, it was neither thought nor consciousness, thus the
+wisest ones taught.  So, where, where was it?  To reach this place, the
+self, myself, the Atman, there was another way, which was worthwhile
+looking for?  Alas, and nobody showed this way, nobody knew it, not the
+father, and not the teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial
+songs!  They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they
+knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than
+everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of
+inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the
+gods, they knew infinitely much--but was it valuable to know all of
+this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the
+solely important thing?
+
+Surely, many verses of the holy books, particularly in the Upanishades
+of Samaveda, spoke of this innermost and ultimate thing, wonderful
+verses.  "Your soul is the whole world", was written there, and it was
+written that man in his sleep, in his deep sleep, would meet with his
+innermost part and would reside in the Atman.  Marvellous wisdom was in
+these verses, all knowledge of the wisest ones had been collected here
+in magic words, pure as honey collected by bees.  No, not to be looked
+down upon was the tremendous amount of enlightenment which lay here
+collected and preserved by innumerable generations of wise Brahmans.--
+But where were the Brahmans, where the priests, where the wise men or
+penitents, who had succeeded in not just knowing this deepest of all
+knowledge but also to live it?  Where was the knowledgeable one who wove
+his spell to bring his familiarity with the Atman out of the sleep into
+the state of being awake, into the life, into every step of the way,
+into word and deed?  Siddhartha knew many venerable Brahmans, chiefly
+his father, the pure one, the scholar, the most venerable one.  His
+father was to be admired, quiet and noble were his manners, pure his
+life, wise his words, delicate and noble thoughts lived behind its brow
+--but even he, who knew so much, did he live in blissfulness, did he
+have peace, was he not also just a searching man, a thirsty man?  Did he
+not, again and again, have to drink from holy sources, as a thirsty man,
+from the offerings, from the books, from the disputes of the Brahmans?
+Why did he, the irreproachable one, have to wash off sins every day,
+strive for a cleansing every day, over and over every day?  Was not
+Atman in him, did not the pristine source spring from his heart?  It had
+to be found, the pristine source in one's own self, it had to be
+possessed!  Everything else was searching, was a detour, was getting
+lost.
+
+Thus were Siddhartha's thoughts, this was his thirst, this was his
+suffering.
+
+Often he spoke to himself from a Chandogya-Upanishad the words:
+"Truly, the name of the Brahman is satyam--verily, he who knows such a
+thing, will enter the heavenly world every day."  Often, it seemed near,
+the heavenly world, but never he had reached it completely, never he had
+quenched the ultimate thirst.  And among all the wise and wisest men, he
+knew and whose instructions he had received, among all of them there was
+no one, who had reached it completely, the heavenly world, who had
+quenched it completely, the eternal thirst.
+
+"Govinda," Siddhartha spoke to his friend, "Govinda, my dear, come with
+me under the Banyan tree, let's practise meditation."
+
+They went to the Banyan tree, they sat down, Siddhartha right here,
+Govinda twenty paces away.  While putting himself down, ready to speak
+the Om, Siddhartha repeated murmuring the verse:
+
+Om is the bow, the arrow is soul,
+The Brahman is the arrow's target,
+That one should incessantly hit.
+
+After the usual time of the exercise in meditation had passed, Govinda
+rose.  The evening had come, it was time to perform the evening's ablution.
+He called Siddhartha's name.  Siddhartha did not answer.  Siddhartha sat
+there lost in thought, his eyes were rigidly focused towards a very
+distant target, the tip of his tongue was protruding a little between
+the teeth, he seemed not to breathe.  Thus sat he, wrapped up in
+contemplation, thinking Om, his soul sent after the Brahman as an arrow.
+
+Once, Samanas had travelled through Siddhartha's town, ascetics on a
+pilgrimage, three skinny, withered men, neither old nor young, with
+dusty and bloody shoulders, almost naked, scorched by the sun,
+surrounded by loneliness, strangers and enemies to the world, strangers
+and lank jackals in the realm of humans.  Behind them blew a hot scent
+of quiet passion, of destructive service, of merciless self-denial.
+
+In the evening, after the hour of contemplation, Siddhartha spoke to
+Govinda:  "Early tomorrow morning, my friend, Siddhartha will go to the
+Samanas.  He will become a Samana."
+
+Govinda turned pale, when he heard these words and read the decision in
+the motionless face of his friend, unstoppable like the arrow shot from
+the bow.  Soon and with the first glance, Govinda realized:  Now it is
+beginning, now Siddhartha is taking his own way, now his fate is
+beginning to sprout, and with his, my own.  And he turned pale like a
+dry banana-skin.
+
+"O Siddhartha," he exclaimed, "will your father permit you to do that?"
+
+Siddhartha looked over as if he was just waking up.  Arrow-fast he read
+in Govinda's soul, read the fear, read the submission.
+
+"O Govinda," he spoke quietly, "let's not waste words.  Tomorrow, at
+daybreak I will begin the life of the Samanas.  Speak no more of it."
+
+Siddhartha entered the chamber, where his father was sitting on a mat of
+bast, and stepped behind his father and remained standing there, until
+his father felt that someone was standing behind him.  Quoth the
+Brahman:  "Is that you, Siddhartha?  Then say what you came to say."
+
+Quoth Siddhartha: "With your permission, my father.  I came to tell you
+that it is my longing to leave your house tomorrow and go to the
+ascetics.  My desire is to become a Samana.  May my father not oppose
+this."
+
+The Brahman fell silent, and remained silent for so long that the stars
+in the small window wandered and changed their relative positions, 'ere
+the silence was broken.  Silent and motionless stood the son with his
+arms folded, silent and motionless sat the father on the mat, and the
+stars traced their paths in the sky.  Then spoke the father:  "Not
+proper it is for a Brahman to speak harsh and angry words.  But
+indignation is in my heart.  I wish not to hear this request for a
+second time from your mouth."
+
+Slowly, the Brahman rose; Siddhartha stood silently, his arms folded.
+
+"What are you waiting for?" asked the father.
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "You know what."
+
+Indignant, the father left the chamber; indignant, he went to his bed
+and lay down.
+
+After an hour, since no sleep had come over his eyes, the Brahman stood
+up, paced to and fro, and left the house.  Through the small window of
+the chamber he looked back inside, and there he saw Siddhartha standing,
+his arms folded, not moving from his spot.  Pale shimmered his bright
+robe.  With anxiety in his heart, the father returned to his bed.
+
+After another hour, since no sleep had come over his eyes, the Brahman
+stood up again, paced to and fro, walked out of the house and saw that
+the moon had risen.  Through the window of the chamber he looked back
+inside; there stood Siddhartha, not moving from his spot, his arms
+folded, moonlight reflecting from his bare shins.  With worry in his
+heart, the father went back to bed.
+
+And he came back after an hour, he came back after two hours, looked
+through the small window, saw Siddhartha standing, in the moon light,
+by the light of the stars, in the darkness.  And he came back hour after
+hour, silently, he looked into the chamber, saw him standing in the same
+place, filled his heart with anger, filled his heart with unrest, filled
+his heart with anguish, filled it with sadness.
+
+And in the night's last hour, before the day began, he returned, stepped
+into the room, saw the young man standing there, who seemed tall and
+like a stranger to him.
+
+"Siddhartha," he spoke, "what are you waiting for?"
+
+"You know what."
+
+"Will you always stand that way and wait, until it'll becomes morning,
+noon, and evening?"
+
+"I will stand and wait.
+
+"You will become tired, Siddhartha."
+
+"I will become tired."
+
+"You will fall asleep, Siddhartha."
+
+"I will not fall asleep."
+
+"You will die, Siddhartha."
+
+"I will die."
+
+"And would you rather die, than obey your father?"
+
+"Siddhartha has always obeyed his father."
+
+"So will you abandon your plan?"
+
+"Siddhartha will do what his father will tell him to do."
+
+The first light of day shone into the room.  The Brahman saw that
+Siddhartha was trembling softly in his knees.  In Siddhartha's face he
+saw no trembling, his eyes were fixed on a distant spot.  Then his
+father realized that even now Siddhartha no longer dwelt with him in his
+home, that he had already left him.
+
+The Father touched Siddhartha's shoulder.
+
+"You will," he spoke, "go into the forest and be a Samana.  When
+you'll have found blissfulness in the forest, then come back and teach
+me to be blissful.  If you'll find disappointment, then return and let
+us once again make offerings to the gods together.  Go now and kiss your
+mother, tell her where you are going to.  But for me it is time to go to
+the river and to perform the first ablution."
+
+He took his hand from the shoulder of his son and went outside.
+Siddhartha wavered to the side, as he tried to walk.  He put his limbs
+back under control, bowed to his father, and went to his mother to do as
+his father had said.
+
+As he slowly left on stiff legs in the first light of day the still
+quiet town, a shadow rose near the last hut, who had crouched there,
+and joined the pilgrim--Govinda.
+
+"You have come," said Siddhartha and smiled.
+
+"I have come," said Govinda.
+
+In the evening of this day they caught up with the ascetics, the skinny
+Samanas, and offered them their companionship and--obedience.  They
+were accepted.
+
+Siddhartha gave his garments to a poor Brahman in the street.  He wore
+nothing more than the loincloth and the earth-coloured, unsown cloak.
+He ate only once a day, and never something cooked.  He fasted for
+fifteen days.  He fasted for twenty-eight days.  The flesh waned from
+his thighs and cheeks.  Feverish dreams flickered from his enlarged
+eyes, long nails grew slowly on his parched fingers and a dry, shaggy
+beard grew on his chin.  His glance turned to ice when he encountered
+women; his mouth twitched with contempt, when he walked through a city
+of nicely dressed people.  He saw merchants trading, princes hunting,
+mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians
+trying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day for
+seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children--and all of this
+was not worthy of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank,
+it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful and
+beautiful, and it all was just concealed putrefaction.  The world tasted
+bitter.  Life was torture.
+
+A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of
+thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow.
+Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with an
+emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was
+his goal.  Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every
+desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part
+of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my
+self, the great secret.
+
+Silently, Siddhartha exposed himself to burning rays of the sun directly
+above, glowing with pain, glowing with thirst, and stood there, until he
+neither felt any pain nor thirst any more.  Silently, he stood there in
+the rainy season, from his hair the water was dripping over freezing
+shoulders, over freezing hips and legs, and the penitent stood there,
+until he could not feel the cold in his shoulders and legs any more,
+until they were silent, until they were quiet.  Silently, he cowered in
+the thorny bushes, blood dripped from the burning skin, from festering
+wounds dripped pus, and Siddhartha stayed rigidly, stayed motionless,
+until no blood flowed any more, until nothing stung any more, until
+nothing burned any more.
+
+Siddhartha sat upright and learned to breathe sparingly, learned to
+get along with only few breathes, learned to stop breathing.  He
+learned, beginning with the breath, to calm the beat of his heart,
+leaned to reduce the beats of his heart, until they were only a few and
+almost none.
+
+Instructed by the oldest of the Samanas, Siddhartha practised
+self-denial, practised meditation, according to a new Samana rules.
+A heron flew over the bamboo forest--and Siddhartha accepted the heron
+into his soul, flew over forest and mountains, was a heron, ate fish,
+felt the pangs of a heron's hunger, spoke the heron's croak, died a
+heron's death.  A dead jackal was lying on the sandy bank, and
+Siddhartha's soul slipped inside the body, was the dead jackal, lay on
+the banks, got bloated, stank, decayed, was dismembered by hyaenas, was
+skinned by vultures, turned into a skeleton, turned to dust, was blown
+across the fields.  And Siddhartha's soul returned, had died, had
+decayed, was scattered as dust, had tasted the gloomy intoxication of
+the cycle, awaited in new thirst like a hunter in the gap, where he
+could escape from the cycle, where the end of the causes, where an
+eternity without suffering began.  He killed his senses, he killed his
+memory, he slipped out of his self into thousands of other forms, was an
+animal, was carrion, was stone, was wood, was water, and awoke every
+time to find his old self again, sun shone or moon, was his self again,
+turned round in the cycle, felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt new
+thirst.
+
+Siddhartha learned a lot when he was with the Samanas, many ways leading
+away from the self he learned to go.  He went the way of self-denial
+by means of pain, through voluntarily suffering and overcoming pain,
+hunger, thirst, tiredness.  He went the way of self-denial by means of
+meditation, through imagining the mind to be void of all conceptions.
+These and other ways he learned to go, a thousand times he left his
+self, for hours and days he remained in the non-self.  But though the
+ways led away from the self, their end nevertheless always led back to
+the self.  Though Siddhartha fled from the self a thousand times, stayed
+in nothingness, stayed in the animal, in the stone, the return was
+inevitable, inescapable was the hour, when he found himself back in the
+sunshine or in the moonlight, in the shade or in the rain, and was once
+again his self and Siddhartha, and again felt the agony of the cycle which
+had been forced upon him.
+
+By his side lived Govinda, his shadow, walked the same paths, undertook
+the same efforts.  They rarely spoke to one another, than the service
+and the exercises required.  Occasionally the two of them went through
+the villages, to beg for food for themselves and their teachers.
+
+"How do you think, Govinda," Siddhartha spoke one day while begging
+this way, "how do you think did we progress?  Did we reach any goals?"
+
+Govinda answered:  "We have learned, and we'll continue learning.
+You'll be a great Samana, Siddhartha.  Quickly, you've learned every
+exercise, often the old Samanas have admired you.  One day, you'll be
+a holy man, oh Siddhartha."
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "I can't help but feel that it is not like this, my
+friend.  What I've learned, being among the Samanas, up to this day,
+this, oh Govinda, I could have learned more quickly and by simpler
+means.  In every tavern of that part of a town where the whorehouses
+are, my friend, among carters and gamblers I could have learned it."
+
+Quoth Govinda:  "Siddhartha is putting me on.  How could you have
+learned meditation, holding your breath, insensitivity against hunger
+and pain there among these wretched people?"
+
+And Siddhartha said quietly, as if he was talking to himself:  "What is
+meditation?  What is leaving one's body?  What is fasting?  What is
+holding one's breath?  It is fleeing from the self, it is a short
+escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the
+senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life.  The same escape,
+the same short numbing is what the driver of an ox-cart finds in the
+inn, drinking a few bowls of rice-wine or fermented coconut-milk.  Then
+he won't feel his self any more, then he won't feel the pains of life
+any more, then he finds a short numbing of the senses.  When he falls
+asleep over his bowl of rice-wine, he'll find the same what Siddhartha
+and Govinda find when they escape their bodies through long exercises,
+staying in the non-self.  This is how it is, oh Govinda."
+
+Quoth Govinda:  "You say so, oh friend, and yet you know that Siddhartha
+is no driver of an ox-cart and a Samana is no drunkard.  It's true that
+a drinker numbs his senses, it's true that he briefly escapes and rests,
+but he'll return from the delusion, finds everything to be unchanged, has
+not become wiser, has gathered no enlightenment,--has not risen several
+steps."
+
+And Siddhartha spoke with a smile:  "I do not know, I've never been a
+drunkard.  But that I, Siddhartha, find only a short numbing of the
+senses in my exercises and meditations and that I am just as far removed
+from wisdom, from salvation, as a child in the mother's womb, this I
+know, oh Govinda, this I know."
+
+And once again, another time, when Siddhartha left the forest together
+with Govinda, to beg for some food in the village for their brothers and
+teachers, Siddhartha began to speak and said:  "What now, oh Govinda,
+might we be on the right path?  Might we get closer to enlightenment?
+Might we get closer to salvation?  Or do we perhaps live in a circle--
+we, who have thought we were escaping the cycle?"
+
+Quoth Govinda:  "We have learned a lot, Siddhartha, there is still
+much to learn.  We are not going around in circles, we are moving up,
+the circle is a spiral, we have already ascended many a level."
+
+Siddhartha answered:  "How old, would you think, is our oldest Samana,
+our venerable teacher?"
+
+Quoth Govinda:  "Our oldest one might be about sixty years of age."
+
+And Siddhartha:  "He has lived for sixty years and has not reached the
+nirvana.  He'll turn seventy and eighty, and you and me, we will grow
+just as old and will do our exercises, and will fast, and will meditate.
+But we will not reach the nirvana, he won't and we won't.  Oh Govinda,
+I believe out of all the Samanas out there, perhaps not a single one,
+not a single one, will reach the nirvana.  We find comfort, we find
+numbness, we learn feats, to deceive others.  But the most important
+thing, the path of paths, we will not find."
+
+"If you only," spoke Govinda, "wouldn't speak such terrible words,
+Siddhartha!  How could it be that among so many learned men, among so
+many Brahmans, among so many austere and venerable Samanas, among so
+many who are searching, so many who are eagerly trying, so many holy
+men, no one will find the path of paths?"
+
+But Siddhartha said in a voice which contained just as much sadness as
+mockery, with a quiet, a slightly sad, a slightly mocking voice:  "Soon,
+Govinda, your friend will leave the path of the Samanas, he has walked
+along your side for so long.  I'm suffering of thirst, oh Govinda, and
+on this long path of a Samana, my thirst has remained as strong as ever.
+I always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions.
+I have asked the Brahmans, year after year, and I have asked the holy
+Vedas, year after year, and I have asked the devote Samanas, year after
+year.  Perhaps, oh Govinda, it had been just as well, had been just as
+smart and just as profitable, if I had asked the hornbill-bird or the
+chimpanzee.  It took me a long time and am not finished learning this
+yet, oh Govinda: that there is nothing to be learned!  There is indeed
+no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as `learning'.  There
+is, oh my friend, just one knowledge, this is everywhere, this is Atman,
+this is within me and within you and within every creature.  And so I'm
+starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the
+desire to know it, than learning."
+
+At this, Govinda stopped on the path, rose his hands, and spoke:  "If
+you, Siddhartha, only would not bother your friend with this kind of
+talk!  Truly, you words stir up fear in my heart.  And just consider:
+what would become of the sanctity of prayer, what of the venerability of
+the Brahmans' caste, what of the holiness of the Samanas, if it was as
+you say, if there was no learning?!  What, oh Siddhartha, what would
+then become of all of this what is holy, what is precious, what is
+venerable on earth?!"
+
+And Govinda mumbled a verse to himself, a verse from an Upanishad:
+
+He who ponderingly, of a purified spirit, loses himself in the
+meditation of Atman, unexpressable by words is his blissfulness of his
+heart.
+
+But Siddhartha remained silent.  He thought about the words which
+Govinda had said to him and thought the words through to their end.
+
+Yes, he thought, standing there with his head low, what would remain of
+all that which seemed to us to be holy?  What remains?  What can stand
+the test?  And he shook his head.
+
+At one time, when the two young men had lived among the Samanas for
+about three years and had shared their exercises, some news, a rumour, a
+myth reached them after being retold many times:  A man had appeared,
+Gotama by name, the exalted one, the Buddha, he had overcome the
+suffering of the world in himself and had halted the cycle of rebirths.
+He was said to wander through the land, teaching, surrounded by
+disciples, without possession, without home, without a wife, in the
+yellow cloak of an ascetic, but with a cheerful brow, a man of bliss,
+and Brahmans and princes would bow down before him and would become his
+students.
+
+This myth, this rumour, this legend resounded, its fragrants rose up,
+here and there; in the towns, the Brahmans spoke of it and in the
+forest, the Samanas; again and again, the name of Gotama, the Buddha
+reached the ears of the young men, with good and with bad talk, with
+praise and with defamation.
+
+It was as if the plague had broken out in a country and news had been
+spreading around that in one or another place there was a man, a wise
+man, a knowledgeable one, whose word and breath was enough to heal
+everyone who had been infected with the pestilence, and as such news
+would go through the land and everyone would talk about it, many would
+believe, many would doubt, but many would get on their way as soon as
+possible, to seek the wise man, the helper, just like this this myth
+ran through the land, that fragrant myth of Gotama, the Buddha, the
+wise man of the family of Sakya.  He possessed, so the believers said,
+the highest enlightenment, he remembered his previous lives, he had
+reached the nirvana and never returned into the cycle, was never again
+submerged in the murky river of physical forms.  Many wonderful and
+unbelievable things were reported of him, he had performed miracles,
+had overcome the devil, had spoken to the gods.  But his enemies and
+disbelievers said, this Gotama was a vain seducer, he would spent his
+days in luxury, scorned the offerings, was without learning, and knew
+neither exercises nor self-castigation.
+
+The myth of Buddha sounded sweet.  The scent of magic flowed from these
+reports.  After all, the world was sick, life was hard to bear--and
+behold, here a source seemed to spring forth, here a messenger seemed
+to call out, comforting, mild, full of noble promises.  Everywhere
+where the rumour of Buddha was heard, everywhere in the lands of India,
+the young men listened up, felt a longing, felt hope, and among the
+Brahmans' sons of the towns and villages every pilgrim and stranger was
+welcome, when he brought news of him, the exalted one, the Sakyamuni.
+
+The myth had also reached the Samanas in the forest, and also
+Siddhartha, and also Govinda, slowly, drop by drop, every drop laden
+with hope, every drop laden with doubt.  They rarely talked about it,
+because the oldest one of the Samanas did not like this myth.  He had
+heard that this alleged Buddha used to be an ascetic before and had
+lived in the forest, but had then turned back to luxury and worldly
+pleasures, and he had no high opinion of this Gotama.
+
+"Oh Siddhartha," Govinda spoke one day to his friend.  "Today, I was
+in the village, and a Brahman invited me into his house, and in his
+house, there was the son of a Brahman from Magadha, who has seen the
+Buddha with his own eyes and has heard him teach.  Verily, this made
+my chest ache when I breathed, and thought to myself:  If only I would
+too, if only we both would too, Siddhartha and me, live to see the
+hour when we will hear the teachings from the mouth of this perfected
+man!  Speak, friend, wouldn't we want to go there too and listen to the
+teachings from the Buddha's mouth?"
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "Always, oh Govinda, I had thought, Govinda would
+stay with the Samanas, always I had believed his goal was to live to be
+sixty and seventy years of age and to keep on practising those feats and
+exercises, which are becoming a Samana.  But behold, I had not known
+Govinda well enough, I knew little of his heart.  So now you, my
+faithful friend, want to take a new path and go there, where the Buddha
+spreads his teachings."
+
+Quoth Govinda:  "You're mocking me.  Mock me if you like, Siddhartha!
+But have you not also developed a desire, an eagerness, to hear these
+teachings?  And have you not at one time said to me, you would not walk
+the path of the Samanas for much longer?"
+
+At this, Siddhartha laughed in his very own manner, in which his voice
+assumed a touch of sadness and a touch of mockery, and said:  "Well,
+Govinda, you've spoken well, you've remembered correctly.  If you
+only remembered the other thing as well, you've heard from me, which is
+that I have grown distrustful and tired against teachings and learning,
+and that my faith in words, which are brought to us by teachers, is
+small.  But let's do it, my dear, I am willing to listen to these
+teachings--though in my heart I believe that we've already tasted the
+best fruit of these teachings."
+
+Quoth Govinda:  "Your willingness delights my heart.  But tell me, how
+should this be possible?  How should the Gotama's teachings, even before
+we have heard them, have already revealed their best fruit to us?"
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "Let us eat this fruit and wait for the rest, oh
+Govinda!  But this fruit, which we already now received thanks to the
+Gotama, consisted in him calling us away from the Samanas!  Whether he
+has also other and better things to give us, oh friend, let us await
+with calm hearts."
+
+On this very same day, Siddhartha informed the oldest one of the Samanas
+of his decision, that he wanted to leave him.  He informed the oldest
+one with all the courtesy and modesty becoming to a younger one and a
+student.  But the Samana became angry, because the two young men wanted
+to leave him, and talked loudly and used crude swearwords.
+
+Govinda was startled and became embarrassed.  But Siddhartha put his
+mouth close to Govinda's ear and whispered to him:  "Now, I want to show
+the old man that I've learned something from him."
+
+Positioning himself closely in front of the Samana, with a concentrated
+soul, he captured the old man's glance with his glances, deprived him of
+his power, made him mute, took away his free will, subdued him under his
+own will, commanded him, to do silently, whatever he demanded him to do.
+The old man became mute, his eyes became motionless, his will was
+paralysed, his arms were hanging down; without power, he had fallen
+victim to Siddhartha's spell.  But Siddhartha's thoughts brought the
+Samana under their control, he had to carry out, what they commanded.
+And thus, the old man made several bows, performed gestures of blessing,
+spoke stammeringly a godly wish for a good journey.  And the young men
+returned the bows with thanks, returned the wish, went on their way with
+salutations.
+
+On the way, Govinda said:  "Oh Siddhartha, you have learned more from
+the Samanas than I knew.  It is hard, it is very hard to cast a spell
+on an old Samana.  Truly, if you had stayed there, you would soon have
+learned to walk on water."
+
+"I do not seek to walk on water," said Siddhartha.  "Let old Samanas be
+content with such feats!"
+
+In the town of Savathi, every child knew the name of the exalted Buddha,
+and every house was prepared to fill the alms-dish of Gotama's
+disciples, the silently begging ones.  Near the town was Gotama's
+favourite place to stay, the grove of Jetavana, which the rich merchant
+Anathapindika, an obedient worshipper of the exalted one, had given him
+and his people for a gift.
+
+All tales and answers, which the two young ascetics had received in
+their search for Gotama's abode, had pointed them towards this area.
+And arriving at Savathi, in the very first house, before the door of
+which they stopped to beg, food has been offered to them, and they
+accepted the food, and Siddhartha asked the woman, who handed them the
+food:
+
+"We would like to know, oh charitable one, where the Buddha dwells, the
+most venerable one, for we are two Samanas from the forest and have
+come, to see him, the perfected one, and to hear the teachings from his
+mouth."
+
+Quoth the woman:  "Here, you have truly come to the right place, you
+Samanas from the forest.  You should know, in Jetavana, in the garden
+of Anathapindika is where the exalted one dwells.  There you pilgrims
+shall spent the night, for there is enough space for the innumerable,
+who flock here, to hear the teachings from his mouth."
+
+This made Govinda happy, and full of joy he exclaimed:  "Well so, thus
+we have reached our destination, and our path has come to an end!  But
+tell us, oh mother of the pilgrims, do you know him, the Buddha, have
+you seen him with your own eyes?"
+
+Quoth the woman:  "Many times I have seen him, the exalted one.  On many
+days, I have seen him, walking through the alleys in silence, wearing
+his yellow cloak, presenting his alms-dish in silence at the doors of
+the houses, leaving with a filled dish."
+
+Delightedly, Govinda listened and wanted to ask and hear much more.
+But Siddhartha urged him to walk on.  They thanked and left and hardly
+had to ask for directions, for rather many pilgrims and monks as well
+from Gotama's community were on their way to the Jetavana.  And since
+they reached it at night, there were constant arrivals, shouts, and
+talk of those who sought shelter and got it.  The two Samanas,
+accustomed to life in the forest, found quickly and without making any
+noise a place to stay and rested there until the morning.
+
+At sunrise, they saw with astonishment what a large crowd of believers
+and curious people had spent the night here.  On all paths of the
+marvellous grove, monks walked in yellow robes, under the trees they
+sat here and there, in deep contemplation--or in a conversation about
+spiritual matters, the shady gardens looked like a city, full of people,
+bustling like bees.  The majority of the monks went out with their
+alms-dish, to collect food in town for their lunch, the only meal of the
+day.  The Buddha himself, the enlightened one, was also in the habit of
+taking this walk to beg in the morning.
+
+Siddhartha saw him, and he instantly recognised him, as if a god had
+pointed him out to him.  He saw him, a simple man in a yellow robe,
+bearing the alms-dish in his hand, walking silently.
+
+"Look here!" Siddhartha said quietly to Govinda.  "This one is the
+Buddha."
+
+Attentively, Govinda looked at the monk in the yellow robe, who seemed
+to be in no way different from the hundreds of other monks.  And soon,
+Govinda also realized:  This is the one.  And they followed him and
+observed him.
+
+The Buddha went on his way, modestly and deep in his thoughts, his
+calm face was neither happy nor sad, it seemed to smile quietly and
+inwardly.  With a hidden smile, quiet, calm, somewhat resembling a
+healthy child, the Buddha walked, wore the robe and placed his feet
+just as all of his monks did, according to a precise rule.  But his
+face and his walk, his quietly lowered glance, his quietly dangling hand
+and even every finger of his quietly dangling hand expressed peace,
+expressed perfection, did not search, did not imitate, breathed softly
+in an unwhithering calm, in an unwhithering light, an untouchable peace.
+
+Thus Gotama walked towards the town, to collect alms, and the two
+Samanas recognised him solely by the perfection of his calm, by the
+quietness of his appearance, in which there was no searching, no desire,
+no imitation, no effort to be seen, only light and peace.
+
+"Today, we'll hear the teachings from his mouth." said Govinda.
+
+Siddhartha did not answer.  He felt little curiosity for the teachings,
+he did not believe that they would teach him anything new, but he had,
+just as Govinda had, heard the contents of this Buddha's teachings
+again and again, though these reports only represented second- or
+third-hand information.  But attentively he looked at Gotama's head,
+his shoulders, his feet, his quietly dangling hand, and it seemed to
+him as if every joint of every finger of this hand was of these
+teachings, spoke of, breathed of, exhaled the fragrant of, glistened of
+truth.  This man, this Buddha was truthful down to the gesture of his
+last finger.  This man was holy.  Never before, Siddhartha had venerated
+a person so much, never before he had loved a person as much as this
+one.
+
+They both followed the Buddha until they reached the town and then
+returned in silence, for they themselves intended to abstain from
+on this day.  They saw Gotama returning--what he ate could not even have
+satisfied a bird's appetite, and they saw him retiring into the shade
+of the mango-trees.
+
+But in the evening, when the heat cooled down and everyone in the camp
+started to bustle about and gathered around, they heard the Buddha
+teaching.  They heard his voice, and it was also perfected, was of
+perfect calmness, was full of peace.  Gotama taught the teachings of
+suffering, of the origin of suffering, of the way to relieve suffering.
+Calmly and clearly his quiet speech flowed on.  Suffering was life,
+full of suffering was the world, but salvation from suffering had been
+found:  salvation was obtained by him who would walk the path of the
+Buddha.  With a soft, yet firm voice the exalted one spoke, taught the
+four main doctrines, taught the eightfold path, patiently he went the
+usual path of the teachings, of the examples, of the repetitions,
+brightly and quietly his voice hovered over the listeners, like a light,
+like a starry sky.
+
+When the Buddha--night had already fallen--ended his speech, many a
+pilgrim stepped forward and asked to accepted into the community, sought
+refuge in the teachings.  And Gotama accepted them by speaking:  "You
+have heard the teachings well, it has come to you well.  Thus join us
+and walk in holiness, to put an end to all suffering."
+
+Behold, then Govinda, the shy one, also stepped forward and spoke:  "I
+also take my refuge in the exalted one and his teachings," and he asked
+to accepted into the community of his disciples and was accepted.
+
+Right afterwards, when the Buddha had retired for the night, Govinda
+turned to Siddhartha and spoke eagerly:  "Siddhartha, it is not my place
+to scold you.  We have both heard the exalted one, we have both
+perceived the teachings.  Govinda has heard the teachings, he has taken
+refuge in it.  But you, my honoured friend, don't you also want to walk
+the path of salvation?  Would you want to hesitate, do you want to wait
+any longer?"
+
+Siddhartha awakened as if he had been asleep, when he heard Govinda's
+words.  For a long time, he looked into Govinda's face.  Then he spoke
+quietly, in a voice without mockery:  "Govinda, my friend, now you have
+taken this step, now you have chosen this path.  Always, oh Govinda,
+you've been my friend, you've always walked one step behind me.  Often I
+have thought:  Won't Govinda for once also take a step by himself,
+without me, out of his own soul?  Behold, now you've turned into a man
+and are choosing your path for yourself.  I wish that you would go it up
+to its end, oh my friend, that you shall find salvation!"
+
+Govinda, not completely understanding it yet, repeated his question in
+an impatient tone:  "Speak up, I beg you, my dear!  Tell me, since it
+could not be any other way, that you also, my learned friend, will take
+your refuge with the exalted Buddha!"
+
+Siddhartha placed his hand on Govinda's shoulder:  "You failed to hear
+my good wish for you, oh Govinda.  I'm repeating it:  I wish that you
+would go this path up to its end, that you shall find salvation!"
+
+In this moment, Govinda realized that his friend had left him, and he
+started to weep.
+
+"Siddhartha!" he exclaimed lamentingly.
+
+Siddhartha kindly spoke to him:  "Don't forget, Govinda, that you are
+now one of the Samanas of the Buddha!  You have renounced your home
+and your parents, renounced your birth and possessions, renounced your
+free will, renounced all friendship.  This is what the teachings
+require, this is what the exalted one wants.  This is what you wanted
+for yourself.  Tomorrow, oh Govinda, I'll leave you."
+
+For a long time, the friends continued walking in the grove; for a long
+time, they lay there and found no sleep.  And over and over again,
+Govinda urged his friend, he should tell him why he would not want to
+seek refuge in Gotama's teachings, what fault he would find in these
+teachings.  But Siddhartha turned him away every time and said:  "Be
+content, Govinda!  Very good are the teachings of the exalted one, how
+could I find a fault in them?"
+
+Very early in the morning, a follower of Buddha, one of his oldest
+monks, went through the garden and called all those to him who had as
+novices taken their refuge in the teachings, to dress them up in the
+yellow robe and to instruct them in the first teachings and duties of
+their position.  Then Govinda broke loose, embraced once again his
+childhood friend and left with the novices.
+
+But Siddhartha walked through the grove, lost in thought.
+
+Then he happened to meet Gotama, the exalted one, and when he greeted
+him with respect and the Buddha's glance was so full of kindness and
+calm, the young man summoned his courage and asked the venerable one for
+the permission to talk to him.  Silently the exalted one nodded his
+approval.
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "Yesterday, oh exalted one, I had been privileged to
+hear your wondrous teachings.  Together with my friend, I had come from
+afar, to hear your teachings.  And now my friend is going to stay with
+your people, he has taken his refuge with you.  But I will again start
+on my pilgrimage."
+
+"As you please," the venerable one spoke politely.
+
+"Too bold is my speech," Siddhartha continued, "but I do not want to
+leave the exalted one without having honestly told him my thoughts.
+Does it please the venerable one to listen to me for one moment longer?"
+
+Silently, the Buddha nodded his approval.
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "One thing, oh most venerable one, I have admired in
+your teachings most of all.  Everything in your teachings is perfectly
+clear, is proven; you are presenting the world as a perfect chain, a
+chain which is never and nowhere broken, an eternal chain the links of
+which are causes and effects.  Never before, this has been seen so
+clearly; never before, this has been presented so irrefutably; truly,
+the heart of every Brahman has to beat stronger with love, once he has
+seen the world through your teachings perfectly connected, without gaps,
+clear as a crystal, not depending on chance, not depending on gods.
+Whether it may be good or bad, whether living according to it would be
+suffering or joy, I do not wish to discuss, possibly this is not
+essential--but the uniformity of the world, that everything which
+happens is connected, that the great and the small things are all
+encompassed by the same forces of time, by the same law of causes, of
+coming into being and of dying, this is what shines brightly out of your
+exalted teachings, oh perfected one.  But according to your very own
+teachings, this unity and necessary sequence of all things is
+nevertheless broken in one place, through a small gap, this world of
+unity is invaded by something alien, something new, something which had
+not been there before, and which cannot be demonstrated and cannot be
+proven: these are your teachings of overcoming the world, of salvation.
+But with this small gap, with this small breach, the entire eternal and
+uniform law of the world is breaking apart again and becomes void.
+Please forgive me for expressing this objection."
+
+Quietly, Gotama had listened to him, unmoved.  Now he spoke, the
+perfected one, with his kind, with his polite and clear voice:  "You've
+heard the teachings, oh son of a Brahman, and good for you that you've
+thought about it thus deeply.  You've found a gap in it, an error.  You
+should think about this further.  But be warned, oh seeker of knowledge,
+of the thicket of opinions and of arguing about words.  There is nothing
+to opinions, they may be beautiful or ugly, smart or foolish, everyone
+can support them or discard them.  But the teachings, you've heard from
+me, are no opinion, and their goal is not to explain the world to those
+who seek knowledge.  They have a different goal; their goal is salvation
+from suffering.  This is what Gotama teaches, nothing else."
+
+"I wish that you, oh exalted one, would not be angry with me," said the
+young man.  "I have not spoken to you like this to argue with you, to
+argue about words.  You are truly right, there is little to opinions.
+But let me say this one more thing:  I have not doubted in you for a
+single moment.  I have not doubted for a single moment that you are
+Buddha, that you have reached the goal, the highest goal towards which
+so many thousands of Brahmans and sons of Brahmans are on their way.
+You have found salvation from death.  It has come to you in the course
+of your own search, on your own path, through thoughts, through
+meditation, through realizations, through enlightenment.  It has not
+come to you by means of teachings!  And--thus is my thought, oh exalted
+one,--nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings!  You will not
+be able to convey and say to anybody, oh venerable one, in words and
+through teachings what has happened to you in the hour of enlightenment!
+The teachings of the enlightened Buddha contain much, it teaches many to
+live righteously, to avoid evil.  But there is one thing which these so
+clear, these so venerable teachings do not contain:  they do not contain
+the mystery of what the exalted one has experienced for himself, he
+alone among hundreds of thousands.  This is what I have thought and
+realized, when I have heard the teachings.  This is why I am continuing
+my travels--not to seek other, better teachings, for I know there are
+none, but to depart from all teachings and all teachers and to reach my
+goal by myself or to die.  But often, I'll think of this day, oh exalted
+one, and of this hour, when my eyes beheld a holy man."
+
+The Buddha's eyes quietly looked to the ground; quietly, in perfect
+equanimity his inscrutable face was smiling.
+
+"I wish," the venerable one spoke slowly, "that your thoughts shall not
+be in error, that you shall reach the goal!  But tell me:  Have you seen
+the multitude of my Samanas, my many brothers, who have taken refuge in
+the teachings?  And do you believe, oh stranger, oh Samana, do you
+believe that it would be better for them all the abandon the teachings
+and to return into the life the world and of desires?"
+
+"Far is such a thought from my mind," exclaimed Siddhartha.  "I wish
+that they shall all stay with the teachings, that they shall reach their
+goal!  It is not my place to judge another person's life.  Only for
+myself, for myself alone, I must decide, I must chose, I must refuse.
+Salvation from the self is what we Samanas search for, oh exalted one.
+If I merely were one of your disciples, oh venerable one, I'd fear that
+it might happen to me that only seemingly, only deceptively my self
+would be calm and be redeemed, but that in truth it would live on and
+grow, for then I had replaced my self with the teachings, my duty to
+follow you, my love for you, and the community of the monks!"
+
+With half of a smile, with an unwavering openness and kindness,
+Gotama looked into the stranger's eyes and bid him to leave with a
+hardly noticeable gesture.
+
+"You are wise, oh Samana.", the venerable one spoke.
+
+"You know how to talk wisely, my friend.  Be aware of too much wisdom!"
+
+The Buddha turned away, and his glance and half of a smile remained
+forever etched in Siddhartha's memory.
+
+I have never before seen a person glance and smile, sit and walk this
+way, he thought; truly, I wish to be able to glance and smile, sit and
+walk this way, too, thus free, thus venerable, thus concealed, thus
+open, thus child-like and mysterious.  Truly, only a person who has
+succeeded in reaching the innermost part of his self would glance and
+walk this way.  Well so, I also will seek to reach the innermost part
+of my self.
+
+I saw a man, Siddhartha thought, a single man, before whom I would have
+to lower my glance.  I do not want to lower my glance before any other,
+not before any other.  No teachings will entice me any more, since this
+man's teachings have not enticed me.
+
+I am deprived by the Buddha, thought Siddhartha, I am deprived, and
+even more he has given to me.  He has deprived me of my friend, the one
+who had believed in me and now believes in him, who had been my shadow
+and is now Gotama's shadow.  But he has given me Siddhartha, myself.
+
+When Siddhartha left the grove, where the Buddha, the perfected one,
+stayed behind, where Govinda stayed behind, then he felt that in this
+grove his past life also stayed behind and parted from him.  He pondered
+about this sensation, which filled him completely, as he was slowly
+walking along.  He pondered deeply, like diving into a deep water he
+let himself sink down to the ground of the sensation, down to the place
+where the causes lie, because to identify the causes, so it seemed to
+him, is the very essence of thinking, and by this alone sensations turn
+into realizations and are not lost, but become entities and start to
+emit like rays of light what is inside of them.
+
+Slowly walking along, Siddhartha pondered.  He realized that he was no
+youth any more, but had turned into a man.  He realized that one thing
+had left him, as a snake is left by its old skin, that one thing no
+longer existed in him, which had accompanied him throughout his youth
+and used to be a part of him: the wish to have teachers and to listen to
+teachings.  He had also left the last teacher who had appeared on his
+path, even him, the highest and wisest teacher, the most holy one,
+Buddha, he had left him, had to part with him, was not able to accept
+his teachings.
+
+Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself:  "But what
+is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers,
+and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach
+you?"  And he found:  "It was the self, the purpose and essence of which
+I sought to learn.  It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which
+I sought to overcome.  But I was not able to overcome it, could only
+deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it.  Truly, no
+thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own
+self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being
+separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha!  And
+there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about
+Siddhartha!"
+
+Having been pondering while slowly walking along, he now stopped as
+these thoughts caught hold of him, and right away another thought sprang
+forth from these, a new thought, which was:  "That I know nothing about
+myself, that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown to me, stems
+from one cause, a single cause:  I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing
+from myself!  I searched Atman, I searched Brahman, I was willing to
+dissect my self and peel off all of its layers, to find the core of
+all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life, the divine part, the
+ultimate part.  But I have lost myself in the process."
+
+Siddhartha opened his eyes and looked around, a smile filled his face
+and a feeling of awakening from long dreams flowed through him from his
+head down to his toes.  And it was not long before he walked again,
+walked quickly like a man who knows what he has got to do.
+
+"Oh," he thought, taking a deep breath, "now I would not let Siddhartha
+escape from me again!  No longer, I want to begin my thoughts and my
+life with Atman and with the suffering of the world.  I do not want to
+kill and dissect myself any longer, to find a secret behind the ruins.
+Neither Yoga-Veda shall teach me any more, nor Atharva-Veda, nor the
+ascetics, nor any kind of teachings.  I want to learn from myself, want
+to be my student, want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha."
+
+He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time.
+Beautiful was the world, colourful was the world, strange and mysterious
+was the world!  Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky
+and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it
+was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was
+he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself.  All of this,
+all this yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha for the
+first time through the eyes, was no longer a spell of Mara, was no
+longer the veil of Maya, was no longer a pointless and coincidental
+diversity of mere appearances, despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman,
+who scorns diversity, who seeks unity.  Blue was blue, river was river,
+and if also in the blue and the river, in Siddhartha, the singular and
+divine lived hidden, so it was still that very divinity's way and
+purpose, to be here yellow, here blue, there sky, there forest, and here
+Siddhartha.  The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere
+behind the things, they were in them, in everything.
+
+"How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along.
+"When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not
+scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence,
+and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them,
+letter by letter.  But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and
+the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had
+anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the
+visible world a deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental
+and worthless forms without substance.  No, this is over, I have
+awakened, I have indeed awakened and have not been born before this
+very day."
+
+In thinking this thoughts, Siddhartha stopped once again, suddenly, as
+if there was a snake lying in front of him on the path.
+
+Because suddenly, he had also become aware of this:  He, who was indeed
+like someone who had just woken up or like a new-born baby, he had to
+start his life anew and start again at the very beginning.  When he had
+left in this very morning from the grove Jetavana, the grove of that
+exalted one, already awakening, already on the path towards himself,
+he had every intention, regarded as natural and took for granted, that
+he, after years as an ascetic, would return to his home and his father.
+But now, only in this moment, when he stopped as if a snake was lying on
+his path, he also awoke to this realization:  "But I am no longer the
+one I was, I am no ascetic any more, I am not a priest any more, I am no
+Brahman any more.  Whatever should I do at home and at my father's
+place?  Study?  Make offerings?  Practise meditation?  But all this is
+over, all of this is no longer alongside my path."
+
+Motionless, Siddhartha remained standing there, and for the time of
+one moment and breath, his heart felt cold, he felt a cold in his chest,
+as a small animal, a bird or a rabbit, would when seeing how alone he
+was.  For many years, he had been without home and had felt nothing.
+Now, he felt it.  Still, even in the deepest meditation, he had been
+his father's son, had been a Brahman, of a high caste, a cleric.  Now,
+he was nothing but Siddhartha, the awoken one, nothing else was left.
+Deeply, he inhaled, and for a moment, he felt cold and shivered.
+Nobody was thus alone as he was.  There was no nobleman who did not
+belong to the noblemen, no worker that did not belong to the workers,
+and found refuge with them, shared their life, spoke their language.
+No Brahman, who would not be regarded as Brahmans and lived with them,
+no ascetic who would not find his refuge in the caste of the Samanas,
+and even the most forlorn hermit in the forest was not just one and
+alone, he was also surrounded by a place he belonged to, he also
+belonged to a caste, in which he was at home.  Govinda had become a
+monk, and a thousand monks were his brothers, wore the same robe as he,
+believed in his faith, spoke his language.  But he, Siddhartha, where
+did he belong to?  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.
+
+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 if 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 has
+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 women nodded for a moment and
+disappeared into the grove, and then the servant as well.
+
+Thus I am entering this city, Siddhartha thought, with a charming omen.
+He instantly felt drawn into the grove, but he thought about it, and
+only now he became aware of how the servants and maids had looked at him
+at the entrance, how despicable, how distrustful, how rejecting.
+
+I am still a Samana, he thought, I am still an ascetic and beggar.  I
+must not remain like this, I will not be able to enter the grove like
+this.  And he laughed.
+
+The next person who came along this path he asked about the grove and
+for the name of the woman, and was told that this was the grove of
+Kamala, the famous courtesan, and that, aside from the grove, she owned
+a house in the city.
+
+Then, he entered the city.  Now he had a goal.
+
+Pursuing his goal, he allowed the city to suck him in, drifted through
+the flow of the streets, stood still on the squares, rested on the
+stairs of stone by the river.  When the evening came, he made friends
+with barber's assistant, whom he had seen working in the shade of an
+arch in a building, whom he found again praying in a temple of Vishnu,
+whom he told about stories of Vishnu and the Lakshmi.  Among the boats
+by the river, he slept this night, and early in the morning, before the
+first customers came into his shop, he had the barber's assistant shave
+his beard and cut his hair, comb his hair and anoint it with fine oil.
+Then he went to take his bath in the river.
+
+When late in the afternoon, beautiful Kamala approached her grove in her
+sedan-chair, Siddhartha was standing at the entrance, made a bow and
+received the courtesan's greeting.  But that servant who walked at the
+very end of her train he motioned to him and asked him to inform his
+mistress that a young Brahman would wish to talk to her.  After a while,
+the servant returned, asked him, who had been waiting, to follow him
+conducted him, who was following him, without a word into a pavilion,
+where Kamala was lying on a couch, and left him alone with her.
+
+"Weren't you already standing out there yesterday, greeting me?" asked
+Kamala.
+
+"It's true that I've already seen and greeted you yesterday."
+
+"But didn't you yesterday wear a beard, and long hair, and dust in your
+hair?"
+
+"You have observed well, you have seen everything.  You have seen
+Siddhartha, the son of a Brahman, who has left his home to become a
+Samana, and who has been a Samana for three years.  But now, I have
+left that path and came into this city, and the first one I met, even
+before I had entered the city, was you.  To say this, I have come to
+you, oh Kamala!  You are the first woman whom Siddhartha is not
+addressing with his eyes turned to the ground.  Never again I want to
+turn my eyes to the ground, when I'm coming across a beautiful woman."
+
+Kamala smiled and played with her fan of peacocks' feathers.  And asked:
+"And only to tell me this, Siddhartha has come to me?"
+
+"To tell you this and to thank you for being so beautiful.  And if it
+doesn't displease you, Kamala, I would like to ask you to be my friend
+and teacher, for I know nothing yet of that art which you have mastered
+in the highest degree."
+
+At this, Kamala laughed aloud.
+
+"Never before this has happened to me, my friend, that a Samana from the
+forest came to me and wanted to learn from me!  Never before this has
+happened to me, that a Samana came to me with long hair and an old, torn
+loin-cloth!  Many young men come to me, and there are also sons of
+Brahmans among them, but they come in beautiful clothes, they come in
+fine shoes, they have perfume in their hair and money in their pouches.
+This is, oh Samana, how the young men are like who come to me."
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "Already I am starting to learn from you.  Even
+yesterday, I was already learning.  I have already taken off my beard,
+have combed the hair, have oil in my hair.  There is little which is
+still missing in me, oh excellent one: fine clothes, fine shoes, money
+in my pouch.  You shall know, Siddhartha has set harder goals for
+himself than such trifles, and he has reached them.  How shouldn't I
+reach that goal, which I have set for myself yesterday:  to be your
+friend and to learn the joys of love from you!  You'll see that I'll
+learn quickly, Kamala, I have already learned harder things than what
+you're supposed to teach me.  And now let's get to it: You aren't
+satisfied with Siddhartha as he is, with oil in his hair, but without
+clothes, without shoes, without money?"
+
+Laughing, Kamala exclaimed:  "No, my dear, he doesn't satisfy me yet.
+Clothes are what he must have, pretty clothes, and shoes, pretty shoes,
+and lots of money in his pouch, and gifts for Kamala.  Do you know it
+now, Samana from the forest?  Did you mark my words?"
+
+"Yes, I have marked your words," Siddhartha exclaimed.  "How should I
+not mark words which are coming from such a mouth!  Your mouth is like
+a freshly cracked fig, Kamala.  My mouth is red and fresh as well, it
+will be a suitable match for yours, you'll see.--But tell me, beautiful
+Kamala, aren't you at all afraid of the Samana from the forest, who has
+come to learn how to make love?"
+
+"Whatever for should I be afraid of a Samana, a stupid Samana from the
+forest, who is coming from the jackals and doesn't even know yet what
+women are?"
+
+"Oh, he's strong, the Samana, and he isn't afraid of anything.  He could
+force you, beautiful girl.  He could kidnap you.  He could hurt you."
+
+"No, Samana, I am not afraid of this.  Did any Samana or Brahman ever
+fear, someone might come and grab him and steal his learning, and his
+religious devotion, and his depth of thought?  No, for they are his very
+own, and he would only give away from those whatever he is willing to
+give and to whomever he is willing to give.  Like this it is, precisely
+like this it is also with Kamala and with the pleasures of love.
+Beautiful and red is Kamala's mouth, but just try to kiss it against
+Kamala's will, and you will not obtain a single drop of sweetness from
+it, which knows how to give so many sweet things!  You are learning
+easily, Siddhartha, thus you should also learn this: love can be
+obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the
+street, but it cannot be stolen.  In this, you have come up with the
+wrong path.  No, it would be a pity, if a pretty young man like you
+would want to tackle it in such a wrong manner."
+
+Siddhartha bowed with a smile.  "It would be a pity, Kamala, you are so
+right!  It would be such a great pity.  No, I shall not lose a single
+drop of sweetness from your mouth, nor you from mine!  So it is settled:
+Siddhartha will return, once he'll have what he still lacks:
+clothes, shoes, money.  But speak, lovely Kamala, couldn't you still
+give me one small advice?"
+
+"An advice?  Why not?  Who wouldn't like to give an advice to a poor,
+ignorant Samana, who is coming from the jackals of the forest?"
+
+"Dear Kamala, thus advise me where I should go to, that I'll find these
+three things most quickly?"
+
+"Friend, many would like to know this.  You must do what you've learned
+and ask for money, clothes, and shoes in return.  There is no other way
+for a poor man to obtain money.  What might you be able to do?"
+
+"I can think.  I can wait.  I can fast."
+
+"Nothing else?"
+
+"Nothing.  But yes, I can also write poetry.  Would you like to give me
+a kiss for a poem?"
+
+"I would like to, if I'll like your poem.  What would be its title?"
+
+Siddhartha spoke, after he had thought about it for a moment, these
+verses:
+
+Into her shady grove stepped the pretty Kamala,
+At the grove's entrance stood the brown Samana.
+Deeply, seeing the lotus's blossom,
+Bowed that man, and smiling Kamala thanked.
+More lovely, thought the young man, than offerings for gods,
+More lovely is offering to pretty Kamala.
+
+Kamala loudly clapped her hands, so that the golden bracelets clanged.
+
+"Beautiful are your verses, oh brown Samana, and truly, I'm losing
+nothing when I'm giving you a kiss for them."
+
+She beckoned him with her eyes, he tilted his head so that his face
+touched hers and placed his mouth on that mouth which was like a
+freshly cracked fig.  For a long time, Kamala kissed him, and with a
+deep astonishment Siddhartha felt how she taught him, how wise she was,
+how she controlled him, rejected him, lured him, and how after this first
+one there was to be a long, a well ordered, well tested sequence of
+kisses, everyone different from the others, he was still to receive.
+Breathing deeply, he remained standing where he was, and was in this
+moment astonished like a child about the cornucopia of knowledge and
+things worth learning, which revealed itself before his eyes.
+
+"Very beautiful are your verses," exclaimed Kamala, "if I was rich, I
+would give you pieces of gold for them.  But it will be difficult for
+you to earn thus much money with verses as you need.  For you need a lot
+of money, if you want to be Kamala's friend."
+
+"The way you're able to kiss, Kamala!" stammered Siddhartha.
+
+"Yes, this I am able to do, therefore I do not lack clothes, shoes,
+bracelets, and all beautiful things.  But what will become of you?
+Aren't you able to do anything else but thinking, fasting, making
+poetry?"
+
+"I also know the sacrificial songs," said Siddhartha, "but I do not want
+to sing them any more.  I also know magic spells, but I do not want to
+speak them any more.  I have read the scriptures--"
+
+"Stop," Kamala interrupted him.  "You're able to read?  And write?"
+
+"Certainly, I can do this.  Many people can do this."
+
+"Most people can't.  I also can't do it.  It is very good that you're
+able to read and write, very good.  You will also still find use for
+the magic spells."
+
+In this moment, a maid came running in and whispered a message into
+her mistress's ear.
+
+"There's a visitor for me," exclaimed Kamala.  "Hurry and get yourself
+away, Siddhartha, nobody may see you in here, remember this!  Tomorrow,
+I'll see you again."
+
+But to the maid she gave the order to give the pious Brahman white
+upper garments.  Without fully understanding what was happening to him,
+Siddhartha found himself being dragged away by the maid, brought into
+a garden-house avoiding the direct path, being given upper garments as a
+gift, led into the bushes, and urgently admonished to get himself out of
+the grove as soon as possible without being seen.
+
+Contently, he did as he had been told.  Being accustomed to the forest,
+he managed to get out of the grove and over the hedge without making a
+sound.  Contently, he returned to the city, carrying the rolled up
+garments under his arm.  At the inn, where travellers stay, he
+positioned himself by the door, without words he asked for food, without
+a word he accepted a piece of rice-cake.  Perhaps as soon as tomorrow,
+he thought, I will ask no one for food any more.
+
+Suddenly, pride flared up in him.  He was no Samana any more, it was no
+longer becoming to him to beg.  He gave the rice-cake to a dog and
+remained without food.
+
+"Simple is the life which people lead in this world here," thought
+Siddhartha.  "It presents no difficulties.  Everything was difficult,
+toilsome, and ultimately hopeless, when I was still a Samana.  Now,
+everything is easy, easy like that lessons in kissing, which Kamala is
+giving me.  I need clothes and money, nothing else; this a small, near
+goals, they won't make a person lose any sleep."
+
+He had already discovered Kamala's house in the city long before, there
+he turned up the following day.
+
+"Things are working out well," she called out to him.  "They are
+expecting you at Kamaswami's, he is the richest merchant of the city.
+If he'll like you, he'll accept you into his service.  Be smart, brown
+Samana.  I had others tell him about you.  Be polite towards him, he is
+very powerful.  But don't be too modest!  I do not want you to become
+his servant, you shall become his equal, or else I won't be satisfied
+with you.  Kamaswami is starting to get old and lazy.  If he'll like
+you, he'll entrust you with a lot."
+
+Siddhartha thanked her and laughed, and when she found out that he had
+not eaten anything yesterday and today, she sent for bread and fruits
+and treated him to it.
+
+"You've been lucky," she said when they parted, "I'm opening one door
+after another for you.  How come?  Do you have a spell?"
+
+Siddhartha said:  "Yesterday, I told you I knew how to think, to wait,
+and to fast, but you thought this was of no use.  But it is useful for
+many things, Kamala, you'll see.  You'll see that the stupid Samanas are
+learning and able to do many pretty things in the forest, which the
+likes of you aren't capable of.  The day before yesterday, I was still a
+shaggy beggar, as soon as yesterday I have kissed Kamala, and soon I'll
+be a merchant and have money and all those things you insist upon."
+
+"Well yes," she admitted.  "But where would you be without me?  What
+would you be, if Kamala wasn't helping you?"
+
+"Dear Kamala," said Siddhartha and straightened up to his full height,
+"when I came to you into your grove, I did the first step.  It was my
+resolution to learn love from this most beautiful woman.  From that
+moment on when I had made this resolution, I also knew that I would
+carry it out.  I knew that you would help me, at your first glance at
+the entrance of the grove I already knew it."
+
+"But what if I hadn't been willing?"
+
+"You were willing.  Look, Kamala:  When you throw a rock into the water,
+it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water.  This
+is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution.  Siddhartha does
+nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things
+of the world like a rock through water, without doing anything, without
+stirring; he is drawn, he lets himself fall.  His goal attracts him,
+because he doesn't let anything enter his soul which might oppose the
+goal.  This is what Siddhartha has learned among the Samanas.  This is
+what fools call magic and of which they think it would be effected by
+means of the daemons.  Nothing is effected by daemons, there are no
+daemons.  Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if
+he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast."
+
+Kamala listened to him.  She loved his voice, she loved the look from
+his eyes.
+
+"Perhaps it is so," she said quietly, "as you say, friend.  But perhaps
+it is also like this: that Siddhartha is a handsome man, that his glance
+pleases the women, that therefore good fortune is coming towards him."
+
+With one kiss, Siddhartha bid his farewell.  "I wish that it should be
+this way, my teacher; that my glance shall please you, that always
+good fortune shall come to me out of your direction!"
+
+Siddhartha went to Kamaswami the merchant, he was directed into a rich
+house, servants led him between precious carpets into a chamber, where
+he awaited the master of the house.
+
+Kamaswami entered, a swiftly, smoothly moving man with very gray hair,
+with very intelligent, cautious eyes, with a greedy mouth.  Politely,
+the host and the guest greeted one another.
+
+"I have been told," the merchant began, "that you were a Brahman, a
+learned man, but that you seek to be in the service of a merchant.
+Might you have become destitute, Brahman, so that you seek to serve?"
+
+"No," said Siddhartha, "I have not become destitute and have never been
+destitute.  You should know that I'm coming from the Samanas, with
+whom I have lived for a long time."
+
+"If you're coming from the Samanas, how could you be anything but
+destitute?  Aren't the Samanas entirely without possessions?"
+
+"I am without possessions," said Siddhartha, "if this is what you mean.
+Surely, I am without possessions.  But I am so voluntarily, and
+therefore I am not destitute."
+
+"But what are you planning to live of, being without possessions?"
+
+"I haven't thought of this yet, sir.  For more than three years, I have
+been without possessions, and have never thought about of what I should
+live."
+
+"So you've lived of the possessions of others."
+
+"Presumable this is how it is.  After all, a merchant also lives of
+what other people own."
+
+"Well said.  But he wouldn't take anything from another person for
+nothing; he would give his merchandise in return."
+
+"So it seems to be indeed.  Everyone takes, everyone gives, such is
+life."
+
+"But if you don't mind me asking: being without possessions, what would
+you like to give?"
+
+"Everyone gives what he has.  The warrior gives strength, the merchant
+gives merchandise, the teacher teachings, the farmer rice, the fisher
+fish."
+
+"Yes indeed.  And what is it now what you've got to give?  What is it
+that you've learned, what you're able to do?"
+
+"I can think.  I can wait.  I can fast."
+
+"That's everything?"
+
+"I believe, that's everything!"
+
+"And what's the use of that?  For example, the fasting--what is it
+good for?"
+
+"It is very good, sir.  When a person has nothing to eat, fasting is the
+smartest thing he could do.  When, for example, Siddhartha hadn't
+learned to fast, he would have to accept any kind of service before this
+day is up, whether it may be with you or wherever, because hunger would
+force him to do so.  But like this, Siddhartha can wait calmly, he knows
+no impatience, he knows no emergency, for a long time he can allow
+hunger to besiege him and can laugh about it.  This, sir, is what
+fasting is good for."
+
+"You're right, Samana.  Wait for a moment."
+
+Kamaswami left the room and returned with a scroll, which he handed to
+his guest while asking:  "Can you read this?"
+
+Siddhartha looked at the scroll, on which a sales-contract had been
+written down, and began to read out its contents.
+
+"Excellent," said Kamaswami.  "And would you write something for me on
+this piece of paper?"
+
+He handed him a piece of paper and a pen, and Siddhartha wrote and
+returned the paper.
+
+Kamaswami read:  "Writing is good, thinking is better.  Being smart is
+good, being patient is better."
+
+"It is excellent how you're able to write," the merchant praised him.
+"Many a thing we will still have to discuss with one another.  For
+today, I'm asking you to be my guest and to live in this house."
+
+Siddhartha thanked and accepted, and lived in the dealers house from now
+on.  Clothes were brought to him, and shoes, and every day, a servant
+prepared a bath for him.  Twice a day, a plentiful meal was served, but
+Siddhartha only ate once a day, and ate neither meat nor did he drink
+wine.  Kamaswami told him about his trade, showed him the merchandise
+and storage-rooms, showed him calculations.  Siddhartha got to know
+many new things, he heard a lot and spoke little.  And thinking of
+Kamala's words, he was never subservient to the merchant, forced him
+to treat him as an equal, yes even more than an equal.  Kamaswami
+conducted his business with care and often with passion, but Siddhartha
+looked upon all of this as if it was a game, the rules of which he
+tried hard to learn precisely, but the contents of which did not touch
+his heart.
+
+He was not in Kamaswami's house for long, when he already took part in
+his landlords business.  But daily, at the hour appointed by her, he
+visited beautiful Kamala, wearing pretty clothes, fine shoes, and soon
+he brought her gifts as well.  Much he learned from her red, smart
+mouth.  Much he learned from her tender, supple hand.  Him, who was,
+regarding love, still a boy and had a tendency to plunge blindly and
+insatiably into lust like into a bottomless pit, him she taught,
+thoroughly starting with the basics, about that school of thought which
+teaches that pleasure cannot be taken without giving pleasure, and
+that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every look, every spot
+of the body, however small it was, had its secret, which would bring
+happiness to those who know about it and unleash it.  She taught him,
+that lovers must not part from one another after celebrating love,
+without one admiring the other, without being just as defeated as they
+have been victorious, so that with none of them should start feeling
+fed up or bored and get that evil feeling of having abused or having
+been abused.  Wonderful hours he spent with the beautiful and smart
+artist, became her student, her lover, her friend.  Here with Kamala
+was the worth and purpose of his present life, nit with the business
+of Kamaswami.
+
+The merchant passed to duties of writing important letters and contracts
+on to him and got into the habit of discussing all important affairs
+with him.  He soon saw that Siddhartha knew little about rice and wool,
+shipping and trade, but that he acted in a fortunate manner, and that
+Siddhartha surpassed him, the merchant, in calmness and equanimity, and
+in the art of listening and deeply understanding previously unknown
+people.  "This Brahman," he said to a friend, "is no proper merchant and
+will never be one, there is never any passion in his soul when he
+conducts our business.  But he has that mysterious quality of those
+people to whom success comes all by itself, whether this may be a good
+star of his birth, magic, or something he has learned among Samanas.
+He always seems to be merely playing with out business-affairs, they
+never fully become a part of him, they never rule over him, he is never
+afraid of failure, he is never upset by a loss."
+
+The friend advised the merchant:  "Give him from the business he
+conducts for you a third of the profits, but let him also be liable for
+the same amount of the losses, when there is a loss.  Then, he'll become
+more zealous."
+
+Kamaswami followed the advice.  But Siddhartha cared little about this.
+When he made a profit, he accepted it with equanimity; when he made
+losses, he laughed and said:  "Well, look at this, so this one turned
+out badly!"
+
+It seemed indeed, as if he did not care about the business.  At one
+time, he travelled to a village to buy a large harvest of rice there.
+But when he got there, the rice had already been sold to another
+merchant.  Nevertheless, Siddhartha stayed for several days in that
+village, treated the farmers for a drink, gave copper-coins to their
+children, joined in the celebration of a wedding, and returned extremely
+satisfied from his trip.  Kamaswami held against him that he had not
+turned back right away, that he had wasted time and money.  Siddhartha
+answered:  "Stop scolding, dear friend!  Nothing was ever achieved by
+scolding.  If a loss has occurred, let me bear that loss.  I am very
+satisfied with this trip.  I have gotten to know many kinds of people,
+a Brahman has become my friend, children have sat on my knees, farmers
+have shown me their fields, nobody knew that I was a merchant."
+
+"That's all very nice," exclaimed Kamaswami indignantly, "but in fact,
+you are a merchant after all, one ought to think!  Or might you have
+only travelled for your amusement?"
+
+"Surely," Siddhartha laughed, "surely I have travelled for my amusement.
+For what else?  I have gotten to know people and places, I have received
+kindness and trust, I have found friendship.  Look, my dear, if I had
+been Kamaswami, I would have travelled back, being annoyed and in a
+hurry, as soon as I had seen that my purchase had been rendered
+impossible, and time and money would indeed have been lost.  But like
+this, I've had a few good days, I've learned, had joy, I've neither
+harmed myself nor others by annoyance and hastiness.  And if I'll ever
+return there again, perhaps to buy an upcoming harvest, or for whatever
+purpose it might be, friendly people will receive me in a friendly and
+happy manner, and I will praise myself for not showing any hurry and
+displeasure at that time.  So, leave it as it is, my friend, 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 interests 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 to 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
+this 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 that 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."
+
+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
+himself despised.  It happened more and more often that, in the morning
+after having had company the night before, he stayed in bed for a long
+time, felt unable to think and tired.  It happened that he became angry
+and impatient, when Kamaswami bored him with his worries.  It happened
+that he laughed just too loud, when he lost a game of dice.  His face
+was still smarter and more spiritual than others, but it rarely laughed,
+and assumed, one after another, those features which are so often
+found in the faces of rich people, those features of discontent, of
+sickliness, of ill-humour, of sloth, of a lack of love.  Slowly the
+disease of the soul, which rich people have, grabbed hold of him.
+
+Like a veil, like a thin mist, tiredness came over Siddhartha, slowly,
+getting a bit denser every day, a bit murkier every month, a bit heavier
+every year.  As a new dress becomes old in time, loses its beautiful
+colour in time, gets stains, gets wrinkles, gets worn off at the seams,
+and starts to show threadbare spots here and there, thus Siddhartha's
+new life, which he had started after his separation from Govinda, had
+grown old, lost colour and splendour as the years passed by, was
+gathering wrinkles and stains, and hidden at bottom, already showing its
+ugliness here and there, disappointment and disgust were waiting.
+Siddhartha did not notice it.  He only noticed that this bright and
+reliable voice inside of him, which had awoken in him at that time and
+had ever guided him in his best times, had become silent.
+
+He had been captured by the world, by lust, covetousness, sloth, and
+finally also by that vice which he had used to despise and mock the
+most as the most foolish one of all vices: greed.  Property,
+possessions, and riches also had finally captured him; they were no
+longer a game and trifles to him, had become a shackle and a burden.
+On a strange and devious way, Siddhartha had gotten into this final and
+most base of all dependencies, by means of the game of dice.  It was
+since that time, when he had stopped being a Samana in his heart, that
+Siddhartha began to play the game for money and precious things, which
+he at other times only joined with a smile and casually as a custom of
+the childlike people, with an increasing rage and passion.  He was a
+feared gambler, few dared to take him on, so high and audacious were his
+stakes.  He played the game due to a pain of his heart, losing and
+wasting his wretched money in the game brought him an angry joy, in no
+other way he could demonstrate his disdain for wealth, the merchants'
+false god, more clearly and more mockingly.  Thus he gambled with high
+stakes and mercilessly, hating himself, mocking himself, won thousands,
+threw away thousands, lost money, lost jewelry, lost a house in the
+country, won again, lost again.  That fear, that terrible and petrifying
+fear, which he felt while he was rolling the dice, while he was worried
+about losing high stakes, that fear he loved and sought to always renew
+it, always increase it, always get it to a slightly higher level, for in
+this feeling alone he still felt something like happiness, something
+like an intoxication, something like an elevated form of life in the
+midst of his saturated, lukewarm, dull life.
+
+And after each big loss, his mind was set on new riches, pursued the
+trade more zealously, forced his debtors more strictly to pay, because
+he wanted to continue gambling, he wanted to continue squandering,
+continue demonstrating his disdain of wealth.  Siddhartha lost his
+calmness when losses occurred, lost his patience when he was not payed
+on time, lost his kindness towards beggars, lost his disposition for
+giving away and loaning money to those who petitioned him.  He, who
+gambled away tens of thousands at one roll of the dice and laughed at
+it, became more strict and more petty in his business, occasionally
+dreaming at night about money!  And whenever he woke up from this ugly
+spell, whenever he found his face in the mirror at the bedroom's wall to
+have aged and become more ugly, whenever embarrassment and disgust came
+over him, he continued fleeing, fleeing into a new game, fleeing into a
+numbing of his mind brought on by sex, by wine, and from there he fled
+back into the urge to pile up and obtain possessions.  In this pointless
+cycle he ran, growing tired, growing old, growing ill.
+
+Then the time came when a dream warned him.  He had spend the hours of
+the evening with Kamala, in her beautiful pleasure-garden.  They had
+been sitting under the trees, talking, and Kamala had said thoughtful
+words, words behind which a sadness and tiredness lay hidden.  She had
+asked him to tell her about Gotama, and could not hear enough of him,
+how clear his eyes, how still and beautiful his mouth, how kind his
+smile, how peaceful his walk had been.  For a long time, he had to tell
+her about the exalted Buddha, and Kamala had sighed and had said:  "One
+day, perhaps soon, I'll also follow that Buddha.  I'll give him my
+pleasure-garden for a gift and take my refuge in his teachings."  But
+after this, she had aroused him, and had tied him to her in the act
+of making love with painful fervour, biting and in tears, as if, once
+more, she wanted to squeeze the last sweet drop out of this vain,
+fleeting pleasure.  Never before, it had become so strangely clear to
+Siddhartha, how closely lust was akin to death.  Then he had lain by
+her side, and Kamala's face had been close to him, and under her eyes
+and next to the corners of her mouth he had, as clearly as never before,
+read a fearful inscription, an inscription of small lines, of slight
+grooves, an inscription reminiscent of autumn and old age, just as
+Siddhartha himself, who was only in his forties, had already noticed,
+here and there, gray hairs among his black ones.  Tiredness was written
+on Kamala's beautiful face, tiredness from walking a long path, which
+has no happy destination, tiredness and the beginning of withering,
+and concealed, still unsaid, perhaps not even conscious anxiety: fear of
+old age, fear of the autumn, fear of having to die.  With a sigh, he had
+bid his farewell to her, the soul full of reluctance, and full of
+concealed anxiety.
+
+Then, Siddhartha had spent the night in his house with dancing girls
+and wine, had acted as if he was superior to them towards the
+fellow-members of his caste, though this was no longer true, had drunk
+much wine and gone to bed a long time after midnight, being tired and
+yet excited, close to weeping and despair, and had for a long time
+sought to sleep in vain, his heart full of misery which he thought he
+could not bear any longer, full of a disgust which he felt penetrating
+his entire body like the lukewarm, repulsive taste of the wine, the
+just too sweet, dull music, the just too soft smile of the dancing
+girls, the just too sweet scent of their hair and breasts.  But more
+than by anything else, he was disgusted by himself, by his perfumed
+hair, by the smell of wine from his mouth, by the flabby tiredness and
+listlessness of his skin.  Like when someone, who has eaten and drunk
+far too much, vomits it back up again with agonising pain and is
+nevertheless glad about the relief, thus this sleepless man wished to
+free himself of these pleasures, these habits and all of this pointless
+life and himself, in an immense burst of disgust.  Not until the light
+of the morning and the beginning of the first activities in the street
+before his city-house, he had slightly fallen asleep, had found for a
+few moments a half unconsciousness, a hint of sleep.  In those moments,
+he had a dream:
+
+Kamala owned a small, rare singing bird in a golden cage.  Of this bird,
+he dreamt.  He dreamt: this bird had become mute, who at other times
+always used to sing in the morning, and since this arose his attention,
+he stepped in front of the cage and looked inside; there the small bird
+was dead and lay stiff on the ground.  He took it out, weighed it for a
+moment in his hand, and then threw it away, out in the street, and in
+the same moment, he felt terribly shocked, and his heart hurt, as if he
+had thrown away from himself all value and everything good by throwing
+out this dead bird.
+
+Starting up from this dream, he felt encompassed by a deep sadness.
+Worthless, so it seemed to him, worthless and pointless was the way he
+had been going through life; nothing which was alive, nothing which was
+in some way delicious or worth keeping he had left in his hands.  Alone
+he stood there and empty like a castaway on the shore.
+
+With a gloomy mind, Siddhartha went to the pleasure-garden he owned,
+locked the gate, sat down under a mango-tree, felt death in his heart
+and horror in his chest, sat and sensed how everything died in him,
+withered in him, came to an end in him.  By and by, he gathered his
+thoughts, and in his mind, he once again went the entire path of his
+life, starting with the first days he could remember.  When was there
+ever a time when he had experienced happiness, felt a true bliss?  Oh
+yes, several times he had experienced such a thing.  In his years as a
+boy, he has had a taste of it, when he had obtained praise from the
+Brahmans, he had felt it in his heart:  "There is a path in front of
+the one who has distinguished himself in the recitation
+of the holy verses, in the dispute with the learned ones, as an
+assistant in the offerings."  Then, he had felt it in his heart:  "There
+is a path in front of you, you are destined for, the gods are awaiting
+you."  And again, as a young man, when the ever rising, upward fleeing,
+goal of all thinking had ripped him out of and up from the multitude of
+those seeking the same goal, when he wrestled in pain for the purpose of
+Brahman, when every obtained knowledge only kindled new thirst in him,
+then again he had, in the midst of the thirst, in the midst of the pain
+felt this very same thing:  "Go on!  Go on!  You are called upon!"  He
+had heard this voice when he had left his home and had chosen the life
+of a Samana, and again when he had gone away from the Samanas to that
+perfected one, and also when he had gone away from him to the uncertain.
+For how long had he not heard this voice any more, for how long had he
+reached no height any more, how even and dull was the manner in which
+his path had passed through life, for many long years, without a high
+goal, without thirst, without elevation, content with small lustful
+pleasures and yet never satisfied!  For all of these many years, without
+knowing it himself, he had tried hard and longed to become a man like
+those many, like those children, and in all this, his life had been
+much more miserable and poorer than theirs, and their goals were not
+his, nor their worries; after all, that entire world of the
+Kamaswami-people had only been a game to him, a dance he would watch, a
+comedy.  Only Kamala had been dear, had been valuable to him--but was
+she still thus?  Did he still need her, or she him?  Did they not play
+a game without an ending?  Was it necessary to live for this?  No, it
+was not necessary!  The name of this game was Sansara, a game for
+children, a game which was perhaps enjoyable to play once, twice, ten
+times--but for ever and ever over again?
+
+Then, Siddhartha knew that the game was over, that he could not play it
+any more.  Shivers ran over his body, inside of him, so he felt,
+something had died.
+
+That entire day, he sat under the mango-tree, thinking of his father,
+thinking of Govinda, thinking of Gotama.  Did he have to leave them to
+become a Kamaswami?  He still sat there, when the night had fallen.
+When, looking up, he caught sight of the stars, he thought:  "Here I'm
+sitting under my mango-tree, in my pleasure-garden."  He smiled a little
+--was it really necessary, was it right, was it not as foolish game,
+that he owned a mango-tree, that he owned a garden?
+
+He also put an end to this, this also died in him.  He rose, bid his
+farewell to the mango-tree, his farewell to the pleasure-garden.  Since
+he had been without food this day, he felt strong hunger, and thought
+of his house in the city, of his chamber and bed, of the table with the
+meals on it.  He smiled tiredly, shook himself, and bid his farewell to
+these things.
+
+In the same hour of the night, Siddhartha left his garden, left the
+city, and never came back.  For a long time, Kamaswami had people look
+for him, thinking that he had fallen into the hands of robbers.  Kamala
+had no one look for him.  When she was told that Siddhartha had
+disappeared, she was not astonished.  Did she not always expect it?  Was
+he not a Samana, a man who was at home nowhere, a pilgrim?  And most of
+all, she had felt this the last time they had been together, and she was
+happy, in spite of all the pain of the loss, that she had pulled him so
+affectionately to her heart for this last time, that she had felt one
+more time to be so completely possessed and penetrated by him.
+
+When she received the first news of Siddhartha's disappearance, she went
+to the window, where she held a rare singing bird captive in a golden
+cage.  She opened the door of the cage, took the bird out and let it
+fly.  For a long time, she gazed after it, the flying bird.  From this
+day on, she received no more visitors and kept her house locked.  But
+after some time, she became aware that she was pregnant from the last
+time she was together with Siddhartha.
+
+Siddhartha walked through the forest, was already far from the city, and
+knew nothing but that one thing, that there was no going back for him,
+that this life, as he had lived it for many years until now, was over
+and done away with, and that he had tasted all of it, sucked everything
+out of it until he was disgusted with it.  Dead was the singing bird, he
+had dreamt of.  Dead was the bird in his heart.  Deeply, he had been
+entangled in Sansara, he had sucked up disgust and death from all sides
+into his body, like a sponge sucks up water until it is full.  And full
+he was, full of the feeling of been sick of it, full of misery, full of
+death, there was nothing left in this world which could have attracted
+him, given him joy, given him comfort.
+
+Passionately he wished to know nothing about himself anymore, to have
+rest, to be dead.  If there only was a lightning-bolt to strike him
+dead!  If there only was a tiger a devour him!  If there only was a
+wine, a poison which would numb his senses, bring him forgetfulness and
+sleep, and no awakening from that!  Was there still any kind of filth,
+he had not soiled himself with, a sin or foolish act he had not
+committed, a dreariness of the soul he had not brought upon himself?
+Was it still at all possible to be alive?  Was it possible, to breathe
+in again and again, to breathe out, to feel hunger, to eat again, to
+sleep again, to sleep with a woman again?  Was this cycle not exhausted
+and brought to a conclusion for him?
+
+Siddhartha reached the large river in the forest, the same river over
+which a long time ago, when he had still been a young man and came from
+the town of Gotama, a ferryman had conducted him.  By this river he
+stopped, hesitantly he stood at the bank.  Tiredness and hunger had
+weakened him, and whatever for should he walk on, wherever to, to which
+goal?  No, there were no more goals, there was nothing left but the
+deep, painful yearning to shake off this whole desolate dream, to spit
+out this stale wine, to put an end to this miserable and shameful life.
+
+A hang bent over the bank of the river, a coconut-tree; Siddhartha
+leaned against its trunk with his shoulder, embraced the trunk with one
+arm, and looked down into the green water, which ran and ran under him,
+looked down and found himself to be entirely filled with the wish to
+let go and to drown in these waters.  A frightening emptiness was
+reflected back at him by the water, answering to the terrible emptiness
+in his soul.  Yes, he had reached the end.  There was nothing left for
+him, except to annihilate himself, except to smash the failure into
+which he had shaped his life, to throw it away, before the feet of
+mockingly laughing gods.  This was the great vomiting he had longed for:
+death, the smashing to bits of the form he hated!  Let him be food for
+fishes, this dog Siddhartha, this lunatic, this depraved and rotten
+body, this weakened and abused soul!  Let him be food for fishes and
+crocodiles, let him be chopped to bits by the daemons!
+
+With a distorted face, he stared into the water, saw the reflection of
+his face and spit at it.  In deep tiredness, he took his arm away from
+the trunk of the tree and turned a bit, in order to let himself fall
+straight down, in order to finally drown.  With his eyes closed, he
+slipped towards death.
+
+Then, out of remote areas of his soul, out of past times of his now
+weary life, a sound stirred up.  It was a word, a syllable, which he,
+without thinking, with a slurred voice, spoke to himself, the old word
+which is the beginning and the end of all prayers of the Brahmans, the
+holy "Om", which roughly means "that what is perfect" or "the
+completion".  And in the moment when the sound of "Om" touched
+Siddhartha's ear, his dormant spirit suddenly woke up and realized the
+foolishness of his actions.
+
+Siddhartha was deeply shocked.  So this was how things were with him,
+so doomed was he, so much he had lost his way and was forsaken by all
+knowledge, that he had been able to seek death, that this wish, this
+wish of a child, had been able to grow in him: to find rest by
+annihilating his body!  What all agony of these recent times, all
+sobering realizations, all desperation had not brought about, this was
+brought on by this moment, when the Om entered his consciousness:  he
+became aware of himself in his misery and in his error.
+
+Om! he spoke to himself:  Om!  and again he knew about Brahman, knew
+about the indestructibility of life, knew about all that is divine,
+which he had forgotten.
+
+But this was only a moment, flash.  By the foot of the coconut-tree,
+Siddhartha collapsed, struck down by tiredness, mumbling Om, placed his
+head on the root of the tree and fell into a deep sleep.
+
+Deep was his sleep and without dreams, for a long time he had not known
+such a sleep any more.  When he woke up after many hours, he felt as if
+ten years had passed, he heard the water quietly flowing, did not know
+where he was and who had brought him here, opened his eyes, saw with
+astonishment that there were trees and the sky above him, and he
+remembered where he was and how he got here.  But it took him a long
+while for this, and the past seemed to him as if it had been covered by
+a veil, infinitely distant, infinitely far away, infinitely meaningless.
+He only knew that his previous life (in the first moment when he thought
+about it, this past life seemed to him like a very old, previous
+incarnation, like an early pre-birth of his present self)--that his
+previous life had been abandoned by him, that, full of disgust and
+wretchedness, he had even intended to throw his life away, but that by a
+river, under a coconut-tree, he has come to his senses, the holy word
+Om on his lips, that then he had fallen asleep and had now woken up and
+was looking at the world as a new man.  Quietly, he spoke the word Om to
+himself, speaking which he had fallen asleep, and it seemed to him as if
+his entire long sleep had been nothing but a long meditative recitation
+of Om, a thinking of Om, a submergence and complete entering into Om,
+into the nameless, the perfected.
+
+What a wonderful sleep had this been!  Never before by sleep, he had
+been thus refreshed, thus renewed, thus rejuvenated!  Perhaps, he had
+really died, had drowned and was reborn in a new body?  But no, he knew
+himself, he knew his hand and his feet, knew the place where he lay,
+knew this self in his chest, this Siddhartha, the eccentric, the weird
+one, but this Siddhartha was nevertheless transformed, was renewed,
+was strangely well rested, strangely awake, joyful and curious.
+
+Siddhartha straightened up, then he saw a person sitting opposite to him,
+an unknown man, a monk in a yellow robe with a shaven head, sitting in
+the position of pondering.  He observed the man, who had neither hair
+on his head nor a beard, and he had not observed him for long when he
+recognised this monk as Govinda, the friend of his youth, Govinda who
+had taken his refuge with the exalted Buddha.  Govinda had aged, he too,
+but still his face bore the same features, expressed zeal, faithfulness,
+searching, timidness.  But when Govinda now, sensing his gaze, opened
+his eyes and looked at him, Siddhartha saw that Govinda did not
+recognise him.  Govinda was happy to find him awake; apparently, he had
+been sitting here for a long time and been waiting for him to wake up,
+though he did not know him.
+
+"I have been sleeping," said Siddhartha.  "However did you get here?"
+
+"You have been sleeping," answered Govinda.  "It is not good to be
+sleeping in such places, where snakes often are and the animals of the
+forest have their paths.  I, oh sir, am a follower of the exalted
+Gotama, the Buddha, the Sakyamuni, and have been on a pilgrimage
+together with several of us on this path, when I saw you lying and
+sleeping in a place where it is dangerous to sleep.  Therefore, I sought
+to wake you up, oh sir, and since I saw that your sleep was very deep,
+I stayed behind from my group and sat with you.  And then, so it seems,
+I have fallen asleep myself, I who wanted to guard your sleep.  Badly,
+I have served you, tiredness has overwhelmed me.  But now that you're
+awake, let me go to catch up with my brothers."
+
+"I thank you, Samana, for watching out over my sleep," spoke Siddhartha.
+"You're friendly, you followers of the exalted one.  Now you may go
+then."
+
+"I'm going, sir.  May you, sir, always be in good health."
+
+"I thank you, Samana."
+
+Govinda made the gesture of a salutation and said:  "Farewell."
+
+"Farewell, Govinda," said Siddhartha.
+
+The monk stopped.
+
+"Permit me to ask, sir, from where do you know my name?"
+
+Now, Siddhartha smiled.
+
+"I know you, oh Govinda, from your father's hut, and from the school
+of the Brahmans, and from the offerings, and from our walk to the
+Samanas, and from that hour when you took your refuge with the exalted
+one in the grove Jetavana."
+
+"You're Siddhartha," Govinda exclaimed loudly.  "Now, I'm recognising
+you, and don't comprehend any more how I couldn't recognise you right
+away.  Be welcome, Siddhartha, my joy is great, to see you again."
+
+"It also gives me joy, to see you again.  You've been the guard of my
+sleep, again I thank you for this, though I wouldn't have required any
+guard.  Where are you going to, oh friend?"
+
+"I'm going nowhere.  We monks are always travelling, whenever it is not
+the rainy season, we always move from one place to another, live
+according to the rules if the teachings passed on to us, accept alms,
+move on.  It is always like this.  But you, Siddhartha, where are you
+going to?"
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "With me too, friend, it is as it is with you.  I'm
+going nowhere.  I'm just travelling.  I'm on a pilgrimage."
+
+Govinda spoke:  "You're saying: you're on a pilgrimage, and I believe in
+you.  But, forgive me, oh Siddhartha, you do not look like a pilgrim.
+You're wearing a rich man's garments, you're wearing the shoes of a
+distinguished gentleman, and your hair, with the fragrance of perfume,
+is not a pilgrim's hair, not the hair of a Samana."
+
+"Right so, my dear, you have observed well, your keen eyes see
+everything.  But I haven't said to you that I was a Samana.  I said:
+I'm on a pilgrimage.  And so it is:  I'm on a pilgrimage."
+
+"You're on a pilgrimage," said Govinda.  "But few would go on a
+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
+possession, 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 feed
+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 I 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 vices, 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 did I hate
+this world of the rich, of those who revel in fine food, of the
+gamblers!  How did I hate myself for staying in this terrible world for
+so long!  How did I hate myself, have deprive, 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.
+
+By this river I want to stay, thought Siddhartha, it is the same which
+I have crossed a long time ago on my way to the childlike people, a
+friendly ferryman had guided me then, he is the one I want to go to,
+starting out from his hut, my path had led me at that time into a new
+life, which had now grown old and is dead--my present path, my present
+new life, shall also take its start there!
+
+Tenderly, he looked into the rushing water, into the transparent green,
+into the crystal lines of its drawing, so rich in secrets.  Bright
+pearls he saw rising from the deep, quiet bubbles of air floating on
+the reflecting surface, the blue of the sky being depicted in it.  With
+a thousand eyes, the river looked at him, with green ones, with white
+ones, with crystal ones, with sky-blue ones.  How did he love this
+water, how did it delight him, how grateful was he to it!  In his heart
+he heard the voice talking, which was newly awaking, and it told him:
+Love this water!  Stay near it!  Learn from it!  Oh yes, he wanted to
+learn from it, he wanted to listen to it.  He who would understand this
+water and its secrets, so it seemed to him, would also understand many
+other things, many secrets, all secrets.
+
+But out of all secrets of the river, he today only saw one, this one
+touched his soul.  He saw: this water ran and ran, incessantly it ran,
+and was nevertheless always there, was always at all times the same
+and yet new in every moment!  Great be he who would grasp this,
+understand this!  He understood and grasped it not, only felt some idea
+of it stirring, a distant memory, divine voices.
+
+Siddhartha rose, the workings of hunger in his body became unbearable.
+In a daze he walked on, up the path by the bank, upriver,
+listened to the current, listened to the rumbling hunger in his body.
+
+When he reached the ferry, the boat was just ready, and the same
+ferryman who had once transported the young Samana across the river,
+stood in the boat, Siddhartha recognised him, he had also aged very
+much.
+
+"Would you like to ferry me over?" he asked.
+
+The ferryman, being astonished to see such an elegant man walking along
+and on foot, took him into his boat and pushed it off the bank.
+
+"It's a beautiful life you have chosen for yourself," the passenger
+spoke.  "It must be beautiful to live by this water every day and to
+cruise on it."
+
+With a smile, the man at the oar moved from side to side:  "It is
+beautiful, sir, it is as you say.  But isn't every life, isn't every
+work beautiful?"
+
+"This may be true.  But I envy you for yours."
+
+"Ah, you would soon stop enjoying it.  This is nothing for people
+wearing fine clothes."
+
+Siddhartha laughed.  "Once before, I have been looked upon today because
+of my clothes, I have been looked upon with distrust.  Wouldn't you,
+ferryman, like to accept these clothes, which are a nuisance to me,
+from me?  For you must know, I have no money to pay your fare."
+
+"You're joking, sir," the ferryman laughed.
+
+"I'm not joking, friend.  Behold, once before you have ferried me across
+this water in your boat for the immaterial reward of a good deed.  Thus,
+do it today as well, and accept my clothes for it."
+
+"And do you, sir, intent to continue travelling without clothes?"
+
+"Ah, most of all I wouldn't want to continue travelling at all.  Most of
+all I would like you, ferryman, to give me an old loincloth and kept me
+with you as your assistant, or rather as your trainee, for I'll have to
+learn first how to handle the boat."
+
+For a long time, the ferryman looked at the stranger, searching.
+
+"Now I recognise you," he finally said.  "At one time, you've slept in
+my hut, this was a long time ago, possibly more than twenty years ago,
+and you've been ferried across the river by me, and we parted like good
+friends.  Haven't you've been a Samana?  I can't think of your name any
+more."
+
+"My name is Siddhartha, and I was a Samana, when you've last seen me."
+
+"So be welcome, Siddhartha.  My name is Vasudeva.  You will, so I hope,
+be my guest today as well and sleep in my hut, and tell me, where you're
+coming from and why these beautiful clothes are such a nuisance to you."
+
+They had reached the middle of the river, and Vasudeva pushed the oar
+with more strength, in order to overcome the current.  He worked calmly,
+his eyes fixed in on the front of the boat, with brawny arms.
+Siddhartha sat and watched him, and remembered, how once before, on that
+last day of his time as a Samana, love for this man had stirred in his
+heart.  Gratefully, he accepted Vasudeva's invitation.  When they had
+reached the bank, he helped him to tie the boat to the stakes; after
+this, the ferryman asked him to enter the hut, offered him bread and
+water, and Siddhartha ate with eager pleasure, and also ate with eager
+pleasure of the mango fruits, Vasudeva offered him.
+
+Afterwards, it was almost the time of the sunset, they sat on a log by
+the bank, and Siddhartha told the ferryman about where he originally
+came from and about his life, as he had seen it before his eyes today,
+in that hour of despair.  Until late at night, lasted his tale.
+
+Vasudeva listened with great attention.  Listening carefully, he let
+everything enter his mind, birthplace and childhood, all that learning,
+all that searching, all joy, all distress.  This was among the
+ferryman's virtues one of the greatest:  like only a few, he knew how
+to listen.  Without him having spoken a word, the speaker sensed how
+Vasudeva let his words enter his mind, quiet, open, waiting, how he
+did not lose a single one, awaited not a single one with impatience,
+did not add his praise or rebuke, was just listening.  Siddhartha felt,
+what a happy fortune it is, to confess to such a listener, to bury in
+his heart his own life, his own search, his own suffering.
+
+But in the end of Siddhartha's tale, when he spoke of the tree by the
+river, and of his deep fall, of the holy Om, and how he had felt such
+a love for the river after his slumber, the ferryman listened with twice
+the attention, entirely and completely absorbed by it, with his eyes
+closed.
+
+But when Siddhartha fell silent, and a long silence had occurred, then
+Vasudeva said:  "It is as I thought.  The river has spoken to you.  It
+is your friend as well, it speaks to you as well.  That is good, that is
+very good.  Stay with me, Siddhartha, my friend.  I used to have a wife,
+her bed was next to mine, but she has died a long time ago, for a long
+time, I have lived alone.  Now, you shall live with me, there is space
+and food for both."
+
+"I thank you," said Siddhartha, "I thank you and accept.  And I also
+thank you for this, Vasudeva, for listening to me so well!  These people
+are rare who know how to listen.  And I did not meet a single one who
+knew it as well as you did.  I will also learn in this respect from
+you."
+
+"You will learn it," spoke Vasudeva, "but not from me.  The river has
+taught me to listen, from it you will learn it as well.  It knows
+everything, the river, everything can be learned from it.  See, you've
+already learned this from the water too, that it is good to strive
+downwards, to sink, to seek depth.  The rich and elegant Siddhartha is
+becoming an oarsman's servant, the learned Brahman Siddhartha becomes a
+ferryman: this has also been told to you by the river.  You'll learn
+that other thing from it as well."
+
+Quoth Siddhartha after a long pause:  "What other thing, Vasudeva?"
+
+Vasudeva rose.  "It is late," he said, "let's go to sleep.  I can't
+tell you that other thing, oh friend.  You'll learn it, or perhaps you
+know it already.  See, I'm no learned man, I have no special skill in
+speaking, I also have no special skill in thinking.  All I'm able to do
+is to listen and to be godly, I have learned nothing else.  If I was
+able to say and teach it, I might be a wise man, but like this I am only
+a ferryman, and it is my task to ferry people across the river.  I have
+transported many, thousands; and to all of them, my river has been
+nothing but an obstacle on their travels.  They travelled to seek money
+and business, and for weddings, and on pilgrimages, and the river was
+obstructing their path, and the ferryman's job was to get them quickly
+across that obstacle.  But for some among thousands, a few, four or
+five, the river has stopped being an obstacle, they have heard its
+voice, they have listened to it, and the river has become sacred to
+them, as it has become sacred to me.  Let's rest now, Siddhartha."
+
+Siddhartha stayed with the ferryman and learned to operate the boat, and
+when there was nothing to do at the ferry, he worked with Vasudeva in
+the rice-field, gathered wood, plucked the fruit off the banana-trees.
+He learned to build an oar, and learned to mend the boat, and to weave
+baskets, and was joyful because of everything he learned, and the days
+and months passed quickly.  But more than Vasudeva could teach him, he
+was taught by the river.  Incessantly, he learned from it.  Most of all,
+he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart,
+with a waiting, opened soul, without passion, without a wish, without
+judgement, without an opinion.
+
+In a friendly manner, he lived side by side with Vasudeva, and
+occasionally they exchanged some words, few and at length thought about
+words.  Vasudeva was no friend of words; rarely, Siddhartha succeeded
+in persuading him to speak.
+
+"Did you," so he asked him at one time, "did you too learn that secret
+from the river: that there is no time?"
+
+Vasudeva's face was filled with a bright smile.
+
+"Yes, Siddhartha," he spoke.  "It is this what you mean, isn't it: that
+the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the
+waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains,
+everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not
+the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future?"
+
+"This it is," said Siddhartha.  "And when I had learned it, I looked at
+my life, and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was only
+separated from the man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by a
+shadow, not by something real.  Also, Siddhartha's previous births were
+no past, and his death and his return to Brahma was no future.  Nothing
+was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is
+present."
+
+Siddhartha spoke with ecstasy; deeply, this enlightenment had delighted
+him.  Oh, was not all suffering time, were not all forms of tormenting
+oneself and being afraid time, was not everything hard, everything
+hostile in the world gone and overcome as soon as one had overcome time,
+as soon as time would have been put out of existence by one's thoughts?
+In ecstatic delight, he had spoken, but Vasudeva smiled at him brightly
+and nodded in confirmation; silently he nodded, brushed his hand over
+Siddhartha's shoulder, turned back to his work.
+
+And once again, when the river had just increased its flow in the rainy
+season and made a powerful noise, then said Siddhartha:  "Isn't it so,
+oh friend, the river has many voices, very many voices?  Hasn't it the
+voice of a king, and of a warrior, and of a bull, and of a bird of the
+night, and of a woman giving birth, and of a sighing man, and a thousand
+other voices more?"
+
+"So it is," Vasudeva nodded, "all voices of the creatures are in its
+voice."
+
+"And do you know," Siddhartha continued, "what word it speaks, when you
+succeed in hearing all of its ten thousand voices at once?"
+
+Happily, Vasudeva's face was smiling, he bent over to Siddhartha and
+spoke the holy Om into his ear.  And this had been the very thing which
+Siddhartha had also been hearing.
+
+And time after time, his smile became more similar to the ferryman's,
+became almost just as bright, almost just as throughly glowing with
+bliss, just as shining out of thousand small wrinkles, just as alike to
+a child's, just as alike to an old man's.  Many travellers, seeing the
+two ferrymen, thought they were brothers.  Often, they sat in the
+evening together by the bank on the log, said nothing and both listened
+to the water, which was no water to them, but the voice of life, the
+voice of what exists, of what is eternally taking shape.  And it
+happened from time to time that both, when listening to the river,
+thought of the same things, of a conversation from the day before
+yesterday, of one of their travellers, the face and fate of whom had
+occupied their thoughts, of death, of their childhood, and that they
+both in the same moment, when the river had been saying something good
+to them, looked at each other, both thinking precisely the same thing,
+both delighted about the same answer to the same question.
+
+There was something about this ferry and the two ferrymen which was
+transmitted to others, which many of the travellers felt.  It happened
+occasionally that a traveller, after having looked at the face of one of
+the ferrymen, started to tell the story of his life, told about pains,
+confessed evil things, asked for comfort and advice.  It happened
+occasionally that someone asked for permission to stay for a night with
+them to listen to the river.  It also happened that curious people came,
+who had been told that there were two wise men, or sorcerers, or holy
+men living by that ferry.  The curious people asked many questions, but
+they got no answers, and they found neither sorcerers nor wise men, they
+only found two friendly little old men, who seemed to be mute and to
+have become a bit strange and gaga.  And the curious people laughed and
+were discussing how foolishly and gullibly the common people were
+spreading such empty rumours.
+
+The years passed by, and nobody counted them.  Then, at one time, monks
+came by on a pilgrimage, followers of Gotama, the Buddha, who were
+asking to be ferried across the river, and by them the ferrymen were
+told that they were most hurriedly walking back to their great
+teacher, for the news had spread the exalted one was deadly sick and
+would soon die his last human death, in order to become one with the
+salvation.  It was not long, until a new flock of monks came along on
+their pilgrimage, and another one, and the monks as well as most of the
+other travellers and people walking through the land spoke of nothing
+else than of Gotama and his impending death.  And as people are flocking
+from everywhere and from all sides, when they are going to war or to the
+coronation of a king, and are gathering like ants in droves, thus they
+flocked, like being drawn on by a magic spell, to where the great Buddha
+was awaiting his death, where the huge event was to take place and the
+great perfected one of an era was to become one with the glory.
+
+Often, Siddhartha thought in those days of the dying wise man, the
+great teacher, whose voice had admonished nations and had awoken
+hundreds of thousands, whose voice he had also once heard, whose holy
+face he had also once seen with respect.  Kindly, he thought of him, saw
+his path to perfection before his eyes, and remembered with a smile
+those words which he had once, as a young man, said to him, the exalted
+one.  They had been, so it seemed to him, proud and precocious words;
+with a smile, he remembered them.  For a long time he knew that there
+was nothing standing between Gotama and him any more, though he was
+still unable to accept his teachings.  No, there was no teaching a
+truly searching person, someone who truly wanted to find, could accept.
+But he who had found, he could approve of any teachings, every path,
+every goal, there was nothing standing between him and all the other
+thousand any more who lived in that what is eternal, who breathed what
+is divine.
+
+On one of these days, when so many went on a pilgrimage to the dying
+Buddha, Kamala also went to him, who used to be the most beautiful of
+the courtesans.  A long time ago, she had retired from her previous
+life, had given her garden to the monks of Gotama as a gift, had taken
+her refuge in the teachings, was among the friends and benefactors of
+the pilgrims.  Together with Siddhartha the boy, her son, she had gone
+on her way due to the news of the near death of Gotama, in simple
+clothes, on foot.  With her little son, she was travelling by the river;
+but the boy had soon grown tired, desired to go back home, desired to
+rest, desired to eat, became disobedient and started whining.
+
+Kamala often had to take a rest with him, he was accustomed to having
+his way against her, she had to feed him, had to comfort him, had to
+scold him.  He did not comprehend why he had to go on this exhausting
+and sad pilgrimage with his mother, to an unknown place, to a stranger,
+who was holy and about to die.  So what if he died, how did this concern
+the boy?
+
+The pilgrims were getting close to Vasudeva's ferry, when little
+Siddhartha once again forced his mother to rest.  She, Kamala herself,
+had also become tired, and while the boy was chewing a banana, she
+crouched down on the ground, closed her eyes a bit, and rested.  But
+suddenly, she uttered a wailing scream, the boy looked at her in fear
+and saw her face having grown pale from horror; and from under her
+dress, a small, black snake fled, by which Kamala had been bitten.
+
+Hurriedly, they now both ran along the path, in order to reach people,
+and got near to the ferry, there Kamala collapsed, and was not able to
+go any further.  But the boy started crying miserably, only interrupting
+it to kiss and hug his mother, and she also joined his loud screams for
+help, until the sound reached Vasudeva's ears, who stood at the ferry.
+Quickly, he came walking, took the woman on his arms, carried her into
+the boat, the boy ran along, and soon they all reached the hut, were
+Siddhartha stood by the stove and was just lighting the fire.  He looked
+up and first saw the boy's face, which wondrously reminded him of
+something, like a warning to remember something he had forgotten.  Then
+he saw Kamala, whom he instantly recognised, though she lay unconscious
+in the ferryman's arms, and now he knew that it was his own son, whose
+face had been such a warning reminder to him, and the heart stirred in
+his chest.
+
+Kamala's wound was washed, but had already turned black and her body was
+swollen, she was made to drink a healing potion.  Her consciousness
+returned, she lay on Siddhartha's bed in the hut and bent over her stood
+Siddhartha, who used to love her so much.  It seemed like a dream to
+her; with a smile, she looked at her friend's face; just slowly she,
+realized her situation, remembered the bite, called timidly for the boy.
+
+"He's with you, don't worry," said Siddhartha.
+
+Kamala looked into his eyes.  She spoke with a heavy tongue, paralysed
+by the poison.  "You've become old, my dear," she said, "you've become
+gray.  But you are like the young Samana, who at one time came without
+clothes, with dusty feet, to me into the garden.  You are much more like
+him, than you were like him at that time when you had left me and
+Kamaswami.  In the eyes, you're like him, Siddhartha.  Alas, I have also
+grown old, old--could you still recognise me?"
+
+Siddhartha smiled:  "Instantly, I recognised you, Kamala, my dear."
+
+Kamala pointed to her boy and said:  "Did you recognise him as well?
+He is your son."
+
+Her eyes became confused and fell shut.  The boy wept, Siddhartha took
+him on his knees, let him weep, petted his hair, and at the sight of
+the child's face, a Brahman prayer came to his mind, which he had
+learned a long time ago, when he had been a little boy himself.  Slowly,
+with a singing voice, he started to speak; from his past and childhood,
+the words came flowing to him.  And with that singsong, the boy became
+calm, was only now and then uttering a sob and fell asleep.  Siddhartha
+placed him on Vasudeva's bed.  Vasudeva stood by the stove and cooked
+rice.  Siddhartha gave him a look, which he returned with a smile.
+
+"She'll die," Siddhartha said quietly.
+
+Vasudeva nodded; over his friendly face ran the light of the stove's
+fire.
+
+Once again, Kamala returned to consciousness.  Pain distorted her face,
+Siddhartha's eyes read the suffering on her mouth, on her pale cheeks.
+Quietly, he read it, attentively, waiting, his mind becoming one with
+her suffering.  Kamala felt it, her gaze sought his eyes.
+
+Looking at him, she said:  "Now I see that your eyes have changed as
+well.  They've become completely different.  By what do I still
+recognise that you're Siddhartha?  It's you, and it's not you."
+
+Siddhartha said nothing, quietly his eyes looked at hers.
+
+"You have achieved it?" she asked.  "You have found peace?"
+
+He smiled and placed his hand on hers.
+
+"I'm seeing it," she said, "I'm seeing it.  I too will find peace."
+
+"You have found it," Siddhartha spoke in a whisper.
+
+Kamala never stopped looking into his eyes.  She thought about her
+pilgrimage to Gotama, which wanted to take, in order to see the face of
+the perfected one, to breathe his peace, and she thought that she had
+now found him in his place, and that it was good, just as good, as if
+she had seen the other one.  She wanted to tell this to him, but the
+tongue no longer obeyed her will.  Without speaking, she looked at him,
+and he saw the life fading from her eyes.  When the final pain filled
+her eyes and made them grow dim, when the final shiver ran through her
+limbs, his finger closed her eyelids.
+
+For a long time, he sat and looked at her peacefully dead face.  For a
+long time, he observed her mouth, her old, tired mouth, with those lips,
+which had become thin, and he remembered, that he used to, in the spring
+of his years, compare this mouth with a freshly cracked fig.  For a long
+time, he sat, read in the pale face, in the tired wrinkles, filled
+himself with this sight, saw his own face lying in the same manner,
+just as white, just as quenched out, and saw at the same time his face
+and hers being young, with red lips, with fiery eyes, and the feeling of
+this both being present and at the same time real, the feeling of
+eternity, completely filled every aspect of his being.  Deeply he felt,
+more deeply than ever before, in this hour, the indestructibility of
+every life, the eternity of every moment.
+
+When he rose, Vasudeva had prepared rice for him.  But Siddhartha did
+not eat.  In the stable, where their goat stood, the two old men
+prepared beds of straw for themselves, and Vasudeva lay himself down
+to sleep.  But Siddhartha went outside and sat this night before the
+hut, listening to the river, surrounded by the past, touched and
+encircled by all times of his life at the same time.  But occasionally,
+he rose, stepped to the door of the hut and listened, whether the boy
+was sleeping.
+
+Early in the morning, even before the sun could be seen, Vasudeva came
+out of the stable and walked over to his friend.
+
+"You haven't slept," he said.
+
+"No, Vasudeva.  I sat here, I was listening to the river.  A lot it has
+told me, deeply it has filled me with the healing thought, with the
+thought of oneness."
+
+"You've experienced suffering, Siddhartha, but I see: no sadness has
+entered your heart."
+
+"No, my dear, how should I be sad?  I, who have been rich and happy,
+have become even richer and happier now.  My son has been given to me."
+
+"Your son shall be welcome to me as well.  But now, Siddhartha, let's
+get to work, there is much to be done.  Kamala has died on the same bed,
+on which my wife had died a long time ago.  Let us also build Kamala's
+funeral pile on the same hill on which I had then built my wife's
+funeral pile."
+
+While the boy was still asleep, they built the funeral pile.
+
+Timid and weeping, the boy had attended his mother's funeral; gloomy
+and shy, he had listened to Siddhartha, who greeted him as his son and
+welcomed him at his place in Vasudeva's hut.  Pale, he sat for many
+days by the hill of the dead, did not want to eat, gave no open look,
+did not open his heart, met his fate with resistance and denial.
+
+Siddhartha spared him and let him do as he pleased, he honoured his
+mourning.  Siddhartha understood that his son did not know him, that
+he could not love him like a father.  Slowly, he also saw and understood
+that the eleven-year-old was a pampered boy, a mother's boy, and that he
+had grown up in the habits of rich people, accustomed to finer food, to
+a soft bed, accustomed to giving orders to servants.  Siddhartha
+understood that the mourning, pampered child could not suddenly and
+willingly be content with a life among strangers and in poverty.  He did
+not force him, he did many a chore for him, always picked the best piece
+of the meal for him.  Slowly, he hoped to win him over, by friendly
+patience.
+
+Rich and happy, he had called himself, when the boy had come to him.
+Since time had passed on in the meantime, and the boy remained a
+stranger and in a gloomy disposition, since he displayed a proud and
+stubbornly disobedient heart, did not want to do any work, did not pay
+his respect to the old men, stole from Vasudeva's fruit-trees, then
+Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him
+happiness and peace, but suffering and worry.  But he loved him, and he
+preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and joy
+without the boy.  Since young Siddhartha was in the hut, the old men had
+split the work.  Vasudeva had again taken on the job of the ferryman all
+by himself, and Siddhartha, in order to be with his son, did the work in
+the hut and the field.
+
+For a long time, for long months, Siddhartha waited for his son to
+understand him, to accept his love, to perhaps reciprocate it.  For
+long months, Vasudeva waited, watching, waited and said nothing.  One
+day, when Siddhartha the younger had once again tormented his father
+very much with spite and an unsteadiness in his wishes and had broken
+both of his rice-bowls, Vasudeva took in the evening his friend aside
+and talked to him.
+
+"Pardon me." he said, "from a friendly heart, I'm talking to you.  I'm
+seeing that you are tormenting yourself, I'm seeing that you're in grief.
+Your son, my dear, is worrying you, and he is also worrying me.  That
+young bird is accustomed to a different life, to a different nest.  He
+has not, like you, ran away from riches and the city, being disgusted
+and fed up with it; against his will, he had to leave all this behind.
+I asked the river, oh friend, many times I have asked it.  But the river
+laughs, it laughs at me, it laughs at you and me, and is shaking with
+laughter at out foolishness.  Water wants to join water, youth wants to
+join youth, your son is not in the place where he can prosper.  You too
+should ask the river; you too should listen to it!"
+
+Troubled, Siddhartha looked into his friendly face, in the many wrinkles
+of which there was incessant cheerfulness.
+
+"How could I part with him?" he said quietly, ashamed.  "Give me some
+more time, my dear!  See, I'm fighting for him, I'm seeking to win his
+heart, with love and with friendly patience I intent to capture it.
+One day, the river shall also talk to him, he also is called upon."
+
+Vasudeva's smile flourished more warmly.  "Oh yes, he too is called
+upon, he too is of the eternal life.  But do we, you and me, know what
+he is called upon to do, what path to take, what actions to perform,
+what pain to endure?  Not a small one, his pain will be; after all, his
+heart is proud and hard, people like this have to suffer a lot, err a
+lot, do much injustice, burden themselves with much sin.  Tell me, my
+dear: you're not taking control of your son's upbringing?  You don't
+force him?  You don't beat him?  You don't punish him?"
+
+"No, Vasudeva, I don't do anything of this."
+
+"I knew it.  You don't force him, don't beat him, don't give him orders,
+because you know that 'soft' is stronger than 'hard', Water stronger
+than rocks, love stronger than force.  Very good, I praise you.  But
+aren't you mistaken in thinking that you wouldn't force him, wouldn't
+punish him?  Don't you shackle him with your love?  Don't you make him
+feel inferior every day, and don't you make it even harder on him with
+your kindness and patience?  Don't you force him, the arrogant and
+pampered boy, to live in a hut with two old banana-eaters, to whom even
+rice is a delicacy, whose thoughts can't be his, whose hearts are old
+and quiet and beats in a different pace than his?  Isn't forced, isn't
+he punished by all this?"
+
+Troubled, Siddhartha looked to the ground.  Quietly, he asked:  "What
+do you think should I do?"
+
+Quoth Vasudeva:  "Bring him into the city, bring him into his mother's
+house, there'll still be servants around, give him to them.  And when
+there aren't any around any more, bring him to a teacher, not for the
+teachings' sake, but so that he shall be among other boys, and among
+girls, and in the world which is his own.  Have you never thought of
+this?"
+
+"You're seeing into my heart," Siddhartha spoke sadly.  "Often, I have
+thought of this.  But look, how shall I put him, who had no tender heart
+anyhow, into this world?  Won't he become exuberant, won't he lose
+himself to pleasure and power, won't he repeat all of his father's
+mistakes, won't he perhaps get entirely lost in Sansara?"
+
+Brightly, the ferryman's smile lit up; softly, he touched Siddhartha's
+arm and said:  "Ask the river about it, my friend!  Hear it laugh about
+it!  Would you actually believe that you had committed your foolish acts
+in order to spare your son from committing them too?  And could you in
+any way protect your son from Sansara?  How could you?  By means of
+teachings, prayer, admonition?  My dear, have you entirely forgotten
+that story, that story containing so many lessons, that story about
+Siddhartha, a Brahman's son, which you once told me here on this very
+spot?  Who has kept the Samana Siddhartha safe from Sansara, from sin,
+from greed, from foolishness?  Were his father's religious devotion, his
+teachers warnings, his own knowledge, his own search able to keep him
+safe?  Which father, which teacher had been able to protect him from
+living his life for himself, from soiling himself with life, from
+burdening himself with guilt, from drinking the bitter drink for
+himself, from finding his path for himself?  Would you think, my dear,
+anybody might perhaps be spared from taking this path?  That perhaps
+your little son would be spared, because you love him, because you would
+like to keep him from suffering and pain and disappointment?  But even
+if you would die ten times for him, you would not be able to take the
+slightest part of his destiny upon yourself."
+
+Never before, Vasudeva had spoken so many words.  Kindly, Siddhartha
+thanked him, went troubled into the hut, could not sleep for a long
+time.  Vasudeva had told him nothing, he had not already thought and
+known for himself.  But this was a knowledge he could not act upon,
+stronger than the knowledge was his love for the boy, stronger was his
+tenderness, his fear to lose him.  Had he ever lost his heart so much
+to something, had he ever loved any person thus, thus blindly, thus
+sufferingly, thus unsuccessfully, and yet thus happily?
+
+Siddhartha could not heed his friend's advice, he could not give up the
+boy.  He let the boy give him orders, he let him disregard him.  He
+said nothing and waited; daily, he began the mute struggle of
+friendliness, the silent war of patience.  Vasudeva also said nothing
+and waited, friendly, knowing, patient.  They were both masters of
+patience.
+
+At one time, when the boy's face reminded him very much of Kamala,
+Siddhartha suddenly had to think of a line which Kamala a long time
+ago, in the days of their youth, had once said to him.  "You cannot
+love," she had said to him, and he had agreed with her and had compared
+himself with a star, while comparing the childlike people with falling
+leaves, and nevertheless he had also sensed an accusation in that line.
+Indeed, he had never been able to lose or devote himself completely to
+another person, to forget himself, to commit foolish acts for the love
+of another person; never he had been able to do this, and this was, as
+it had seemed to him at that time, the great distinction which set him
+apart from the childlike people.  But now, since his son was here, now
+he, Siddhartha, had also become completely a childlike person, suffering
+for the sake of another person, loving another person, lost to a love,
+having become a fool on account of love.  Now he too felt, late, once
+in his lifetime, this strongest and strangest of all passions, suffered
+from it, suffered miserably, and was nevertheless in bliss, was
+nevertheless renewed in one respect, enriched by one thing.
+
+He did sense very well that this love, this blind love for his son, was
+a passion, something very human, that it was Sansara, a murky source,
+dark waters.  Nevertheless, he felt at the same time, it was not
+worthless, it was necessary, came from the essence of his own being.
+This pleasure also had to be atoned for, this pain also had to be
+endured, these foolish acts also had to be committed.
+
+Through all this, the son let him commit his foolish acts, let him
+court for his affection, let him humiliate himself every day by giving
+in to his moods.  This father had nothing which would have delighted
+him and nothing which he would have feared.  He was a good man, this
+father, a good, kind, soft man, perhaps a very devout man, perhaps a
+saint, all these there no attributes which could win the boy over.  He
+was bored by this father, who kept him prisoner here in this miserable
+hut of his, he was bored by him, and for him to answer every naughtiness
+with a smile, every insult with friendliness, every viciousness with
+kindness, this very thing was the hated trick of this old sneak.  Much
+more the boy would have liked it if he had been threatened by him, if he
+had been abused by him.
+
+A day came, when what young Siddhartha had on his mind came bursting
+forth, and he openly turned against his father.  The latter had given
+him a task, he had told him to gather brushwood.  But the boy did not
+leave the hut, in stubborn disobedience and rage he stayed where he was,
+thumped on the ground with his feet, clenched his fists, and screamed in
+a powerful outburst his hatred and contempt into his father's face.
+
+"Get the brushwood for yourself!" he shouted foaming at the mouth, "I'm
+not your servant.  I do know, that you won't hit me, you don't dare; I
+do know, that you constantly want to punish me and put me down with
+your religious devotion and your indulgence.  You want me to become like
+you, just as devout, just as soft, just as wise!  But I, listen up, just
+to make you suffer, I rather want to become a highway-robber and
+murderer, and go to hell, than to become like you!  I hate you, you're
+not my father, and if you've ten times been my mother's fornicator!"
+
+Rage and grief boiled over in him, foamed at the father in a hundred
+savage and evil words.  Then the boy ran away and only returned late at
+night.
+
+But the next morning, he had disappeared.  What had also disappeared was
+a small basket, woven out of bast of two colours, in which the ferrymen
+kept those copper and silver coins which they received as a fare.
+The boat had also disappeared, Siddhartha saw it lying by the opposite
+bank.  The boy had ran away.
+
+"I must follow him," said Siddhartha, who had been shivering with grief
+since those ranting speeches, the boy had made yesterday.  "A child
+can't go through the forest all alone.  He'll perish.  We must build a
+raft, Vasudeva, to get over the water."
+
+"We will build a raft," said Vasudeva, "to get our boat back, which the
+boy has taken away.  But him, you shall let run along, my friend, he is
+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 tied 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 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 runaway 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.
+
+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 bed 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 want 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 (?? über) 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 to
+say everything, even the most embarrassing parts, everything could be
+said, everything shown, everything he could tell.  He presented his
+wound, also told how he fled today, how he ferried across the water,
+a childish run-away, willing to walk to the city, how the river had
+laughed.
+
+While he spoke, spoke for a long time, while Vasudeva was listening
+with a quiet face, Vasudeva's listening gave Siddhartha a stronger
+sensation than ever before, he sensed how his pain, his fears flowed
+over to him, how his secret hope flowed over, came back at him from
+his counterpart.  To show his wound to this listener was the same as
+bathing it in the river, until it had cooled and become one with the
+river.  While he was still speaking, still admitting and confessing,
+Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no
+longer a human being, who was listening to him, that this motionless
+listener was absorbing his confession into himself like a tree the rain,
+that this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God himself,
+that he was the eternal itself.  And while Siddhartha stopped thinking
+of himself and his wound, this realisation of Vasudeva's changed
+character took possession of him, and the more he felt it and entered
+into it, the less wondrous it became, the more he realised that
+everything was in order and natural, that Vasudeva had already been like
+this for a long time, almost forever, that only he had not quite
+recognised it, yes, that he himself had almost reached the same state.
+He felt, that he was now seeing old Vasudeva as the people see the
+gods, and that this could not last; in his heart, he started bidding his
+farewell to Vasudeva.  Thorough all this, he talked incessantly.
+
+When he had finished talking, Vasudeva turned his friendly eyes, which
+had grown slightly weak, at him, said nothing, let his silent love and
+cheerfulness, understanding and knowledge, shine at him.  He took
+Siddhartha's hand, led him to the seat by the bank, sat down with him,
+smiled at the river.
+
+"You've heard it laugh," he said.  "But you haven't heard everything.
+Let's listen, you'll hear more."
+
+They listened.  Softly sounded the river, singing in many voices.
+Siddhartha looked into the water, and images appeared to him in the
+moving water: his father appeared, lonely, mourning for his son; he
+himself appeared, lonely, he also being tied with the bondage of
+yearning to his distant son; his son appeared, lonely as well, the boy,
+greedily rushing along the burning course of his young wishes, each
+one heading for his goal, each one obsessed by the goal, each one
+suffering.  The river sang with a voice of suffering, longingly it sang,
+longingly, it flowed towards its goal, lamentingly its voice sang.
+
+"Do you hear?" Vasudeva's mute gaze asked.  Siddhartha nodded.
+
+"Listen better!" Vasudeva whispered.
+
+Siddhartha made an effort to listen better.  The image of his father,
+his own image, the image of his son merged, Kamala's image also appeared
+and was dispersed, and the image of Govinda, and other images, and they
+merged with each other, turned all into the river, headed all, being the
+river, for the goal, longing, desiring, suffering, and the river's voice
+sounded full of yearning, full of burning woe, full of unsatisfiable
+desire.  For the goal, the river was heading, Siddhartha saw it
+hurrying, the river, which consisted of him and his loved ones and of
+all people, he had ever seen, all of these waves and waters were
+hurrying, suffering, towards goals, many goals, the waterfall, the lake,
+the rapids, the sea, and all goals were reached, and every goal was
+followed by a new one, and the water turned into vapour and rose to the
+sky, turned into rain and poured down from the sky, turned into a
+source, a stream, a river, headed forward once again, flowed on once
+again.  But the longing voice had changed.  It still resounded, full of
+suffering, searching, but other voices joined it, voices of joy and of
+suffering, good and bad voices, laughing and sad ones, a hundred voices,
+a thousand voices.
+
+Siddhartha listened.  He was now nothing but a listener, completely
+concentrated on listening, completely empty, he felt, that he had now
+finished learning to listen.  Often before, he had heard all this, these
+many voices in the river, today it sounded new.  Already, he could no
+longer tell the many voices apart, not the happy ones from the weeping
+ones, not the ones of children from those of men, they all belonged
+together, the lamentation of yearning and the laughter of the
+knowledgeable one, the scream of rage and the moaning of the dying ones,
+everything was one, everything was intertwined and connected, entangled
+a thousand times.  And everything together, all voices, all goals, all
+yearning, all suffering, all pleasure, all that was good and evil, all
+of this together was the world.  All of it together was the flow of
+events, was the music of life.  And when Siddhartha was listening
+attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he
+neither listened to the suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie
+his soul to any particular voice and submerged his self into it, but
+when he heard them all, perceived the whole, the oneness, then the great
+song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was Om:
+the perfection.
+
+"Do you hear," Vasudeva's gaze asked again.
+
+Brightly, Vasudeva's smile was shining, floating radiantly over all the
+wrinkles of his old face, as the Om was floating in the air over all the
+voices of the river.  Brightly his smile was shining, when he looked at
+his friend, and brightly the same smile was now starting to shine on
+Siddhartha's face as well.  His wound blossomed, his suffering was
+shining, his self had flown into the oneness.
+
+In this hour, Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate, stopped suffering.
+On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a knowledge, which is no
+longer opposed by any will, which knows perfection, which is in
+agreement with the flow of events, with the current of life, full of
+sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure of
+others, devoted to the flow, belonging to the oneness.
+
+When Vasudeva rose from the seat by the bank, when he looked into
+Siddhartha's eyes and saw the cheerfulness of the knowledge shining
+in them, he softly touched his shoulder with his hand, in this careful
+and tender manner, and said:  "I've been waiting for this hour, my dear.
+Now that it has come, let me leave.  For a long time, I've been waiting
+for this hour; for a long time, I've been Vasudeva the ferryman.  Now
+it's enough.  Farewell, hut, farewell, river, farewell, Siddhartha!"
+
+Siddhartha made a deep bow before him who bid his farewell.
+
+"I've known it," he said quietly.  "You'll go into the forests?"
+
+"I'm going into the forests, I'm going into the oneness," spoke Vasudeva
+with a bright smile.
+
+With a bright smile, he left; Siddhartha watched him leaving.  With deep
+joy, with deep solemnity he watched him leave, saw his steps full of
+peace, saw his head full of lustre, saw his body full of light.
+
+Together with other monks, Govinda used to spend the time of rest
+between pilgrimages in the pleasure-grove, which the courtesan Kamala
+had given to the followers of Gotama for a gift.  He heard talk of an
+old ferryman, who lived one day's journey away by the river, and
+who was regarded as a wise man by many.  When Govinda went back on his
+way, he chose the path to the ferry, eager to see the ferryman.
+Because, though he had lived his entire life by the rules, though he was
+also looked upon with veneration by the younger monks on account of his
+age and his modesty, the restlessness and the searching still had not
+perished from his heart.
+
+He came to the river and asked the old man to ferry him over, and when
+they got off the boat on the other side, he said to the old man:
+"You're very good to us monks and pilgrims, you have already ferried
+many of us across the river.  Aren't you too, ferryman, a searcher for
+the right path?"
+
+Quoth Siddhartha, smiling from his old eyes:  "Do you call yourself a
+searcher, oh venerable one, though you are already of an old in years
+and are wearing the robe of Gotama's monks?"
+
+"It's true, I'm old," spoke Govinda, "but I haven't stopped searching.
+Never I'll stop searching, this seems to be my destiny.  You too, so it
+seems to me, have been searching.  Would you like to tell me something,
+oh honourable one?"
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "What should I possibly have to tell you, oh
+venerable one?  Perhaps that you're searching far too much?  That in all
+that searching, you don't find the time for finding?"
+
+"How come?" asked Govinda.
+
+"When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily
+happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches
+for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind,
+because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search,
+because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal.  Searching
+means: having a goal.  But finding means: being free, being open, having
+no goal.  You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because,
+striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are
+directly in front of your eyes."
+
+"I don't quite understand yet," asked Govinda, "what do you mean by
+this?"
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "A long time ago, oh venerable one, many years ago,
+you've once before been at this river and have found a sleeping man by
+the river, and have sat down with him to guard his sleep.  But, oh
+Govinda, you did not recognise the sleeping man."
+
+Astonished, as if he had been the object of a magic spell, the monk
+looked into the ferryman's eyes.
+
+"Are you Siddhartha?" he asked with a timid voice.  "I wouldn't have
+recognised you this time as well!  From my heart, I'm greeting you,
+Siddhartha; from my heart, I'm happy to see you once again!  You've
+changed a lot, my friend.--And so you've now become a ferryman?"
+
+In a friendly manner, Siddhartha laughed.  "A ferryman, yes.  Many
+people, Govinda, have to change a lot, have to wear many a robe, I am
+one of those, my dear.  Be welcome, Govinda, and spend the night in my
+hut."
+
+Govinda stayed the night in the hut and slept on the bed which used to
+be Vasudeva's bed.  Many questions he posed to the friend of his youth,
+many things Siddhartha had to tell him from his life.
+
+When in the next morning the time had come to start the day's journey,
+Govinda said, not without hesitation, these words:  "Before I'll
+continue on my path, Siddhartha, permit me to ask one more question.
+Do you have a teaching?  Do you have a faith, or a knowledge, you
+follow, which helps you to live and to do right?"
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "You know, my dear, that I already as a young man, in
+those days when we lived with the penitents in the forest, started to
+distrust teachers and teachings and to turn my back to them.  I have
+stuck with this.  Nevertheless, I have had many teachers since then.  A
+beautiful courtesan has been my teacher for a long time, and a rich
+merchant was my teacher, and some gamblers with dice.  Once, even a
+follower of Buddha, travelling on foot, has been my teacher; he sat with
+me when I had fallen asleep in the forest, on the pilgrimage.  I've also
+learned from him, I'm also grateful to him, very grateful.  But most of
+all, I have learned here from this river and from my predecessor, the
+ferryman Vasudeva.  He was a very simple person, Vasudeva, he was no
+thinker, but he knew what is necessary just as well as Gotama, he was a
+perfect man, a saint."
+
+Govinda said:  "Still, oh Siddhartha, you love a bit to mock people, as
+it seems to me.  I believe in you and know that you haven't followed a
+teacher.  But haven't you found something by yourself, though you've
+found no teachings, you still found certain thoughts, certain insights,
+which are your own and which help you to live?  If you would like to
+tell me some of these, you would delight my heart."
+
+Quoth Siddhartha:  "I've had thoughts, yes, and insight, again and
+again.  Sometimes, for an hour or for an entire day, I have felt
+knowledge in me, as one would feel life in one's heart.  There have
+been many thoughts, but it would be hard for me to convey them to you.
+Look, my dear Govinda, this is one of my thoughts, which I have found:
+wisdom cannot be passed on.  Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on
+to someone always sounds like foolishness."
+
+"Are you kidding?" asked Govinda.
+
+"I'm not kidding.  I'm telling you what I've found.  Knowledge can be
+conveyed, but not wisdom.  It can be found, it can be lived, it is
+possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it
+cannot be expressed in words and taught.  This was what I, even as a
+young man, sometimes suspected, what has driven me away from the
+teachers.  I have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard as
+a joke or foolishness, but which is my best thought.  It says:  The
+opposite of every truth is just as true!  That's like this: any truth
+can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided.
+Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with
+words, it's all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness,
+roundness, oneness.  When the exalted Gotama spoke in his teachings of
+the world, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into deception
+and truth, into suffering and salvation.  It cannot be done differently,
+there is no other way for him who wants to teach.  But the world itself,
+what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided.  A person or
+an act is never entirely Sansara or entirely Nirvana, a person is never
+entirely holy or entirely sinful.  It does really seem like this,
+because we are subject to deception, as if time was something real.
+Time is not real, Govinda, I have experienced this often and often
+again.  And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between
+the world and the eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between
+evil and good, is also a deception."
+
+"How come?" asked Govinda timidly.
+
+"Listen well, my dear, listen well!  The sinner, which I am and which
+you are, is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he
+will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha--and now see: these 'times to
+come' are a deception, are only a parable!  The sinner is not on his
+way to become a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though
+our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these
+things.  No, within the sinner is now and today already the future
+Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in
+you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible,
+the hidden Buddha.  The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or
+on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment,
+all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small
+children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already
+have death, all dying people the eternal life.  It is not possible for
+any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his
+path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the
+Brahman, the robber is waiting.  In deep meditation, there is the
+possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was,
+is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is
+good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman.  Therefore, I see
+whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness,
+wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only
+requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be
+good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever
+harm me.  I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin
+very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed
+the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all
+resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop
+comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection
+I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy
+being a part of it.--These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which
+have come into my mind."
+
+Siddhartha bent down, picked up a stone from the ground, and weighed it
+in his hand.
+
+"This here," he said playing with it, "is a stone, and will, after a
+certain time, perhaps turn into soil, and will turn from soil into a
+plant or animal or human being.  In the past, I would have said:  This
+stone is just a stone, it is worthless, it belongs to the world of the
+Maja; but because it might be able to become also a human being and a
+spirit in the cycle of transformations, therefore I also grant it
+importance.  Thus, I would perhaps have thought in the past.  But today
+I think: this stone is a stone, it is also animal, it is also god, it is
+also Buddha, I do not venerate and love it because it could turn into
+this or that, but rather because it is already and always everything--
+and it is this very fact, that it is a stone, that it appears to me now
+and today as a stone, this is why I love it and see worth and purpose in
+each of its veins and cavities, in the yellow, in the gray, in the
+hardness, in the sound it makes when I knock at it, in the dryness or
+wetness of its surface.  There are stones which feel like oil or soap,
+and others like leaves, others like sand, and every one is special and
+prays the Om in its own way, each one is Brahman, but simultaneously and
+just as much it is a stone, is oily or juicy, and this is this very fact
+which I like and regard as wonderful and worthy of worship.--But let me
+speak no more of this.  The words are not good for the secret meaning,
+everything always becomes a bit different, as soon as it is put into
+words, gets distorted a bit, a bit silly--yes, and this is also very
+good, and I like it a lot, I also very much agree with this, that this
+what is one man's treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to
+another person."
+
+Govinda listened silently.
+
+"Why have you told me this about the stone?" he asked hesitantly after
+a pause.
+
+"I did it without any specific intention.  Or perhaps what I meant was,
+that love this very stone, and the river, and all these things we are
+looking at and from which we can learn.  I can love a stone, Govinda,
+and also a tree or a piece of bark.  This are things, and things can be
+loved.  But I cannot love words.  Therefore, teachings are no good for
+me, they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no edges, no smell,
+no taste, they have nothing but words.  Perhaps it are these which keep
+you from finding peace, perhaps it are the many words.  Because
+salvation and virtue as well, Sansara and Nirvana as well, are mere
+words, Govinda.  There is no thing which would be Nirvana; there is just
+the word Nirvana."
+
+Quoth Govinda:  "Not just a word, my friend, is Nirvana.  It is a
+thought."
+
+Siddhartha continued:  "A thought, it might be so.  I must confess to
+you, my dear: I don't differentiate much between thoughts and words.
+To be honest, I also have no high opinion of thoughts.  I have a better
+opinion of things.  Here on this ferry-boat, for instance, a man has
+been my predecessor and teacher, a holy man, who has for many years
+simply believed in the river, nothing else.  He had noticed that the
+river's spoke to him, he learned from it, it educated and taught him,
+the river seemed to be a god to him, for many years he did not know that
+every wind, every cloud, every bird, every beetle was just as divine and
+knows just as much and can teach just as much as the worshipped river.
+But when this holy man went into the forests, he knew everything, knew
+more than you and me, without teachers, without books, only because he
+had believed in the river."
+
+Govinda said:  "But is that what you call `things', actually something
+real, something which has existence?  Isn't it just a deception of the
+Maja, just an image and illusion?  Your stone, your tree, your river--
+are they actually a reality?"
+
+"This too," spoke Siddhartha, "I do not care very much about.  Let the
+things be illusions or not, after all I would then also be an illusion,
+and thus they are always like me.  This is what makes them so dear and
+worthy of veneration for me: they are like me.  Therefore, I can love
+them.  And this is now a teaching you will laugh about: love, oh
+Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all.  To
+thoroughly understand the world, to explain it, to despise it, may be
+the thing great thinkers do.  But I'm only interested in being able to
+love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it and me, to be able to
+look upon it and me and all beings with love and admiration and great
+respect."
+
+"This I understand," spoke Govinda.  "But this very thing was discovered
+by the exalted one to be a deception.  He commands benevolence,
+clemency, sympathy, tolerance, but not love; he forbade us to tie our
+heart in love to earthly things."
+
+"I know it," said Siddhartha; his smile shone golden.  "I know it,
+Govinda.  And behold, with this we are right in the middle of the
+thicket of opinions, in the dispute about words.  For I cannot deny, my
+words of love are in a contradiction, a seeming contradiction with
+Gotama's words.  For this very reason, I distrust in words so much, for
+I know, this contradiction is a deception.  I know that I am in
+agreement with Gotama.  How should he not know love, he, who has
+discovered all elements of human existence in their transitoriness, in
+their meaninglessness, and yet loved people thus much, to use a long,
+laborious life only to help them, to teach them!  Even with him, even
+with your great teacher, I prefer the thing over the words, place more
+importance on his acts and life than on his speeches, more on the
+gestures of his hand than his opinions.  Not in his speech, not in his
+thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life."
+
+For a long time, the two old men said nothing.  Then spoke Govinda,
+while bowing for a farewell:  "I thank you, Siddhartha, for telling me
+some of your thoughts.  They are partially strange thoughts, not all
+have been instantly understandable to me.  This being as it may, I thank
+you, and I wish you to have calm days."
+
+(But secretly he thought to himself:  This Siddhartha is a bizarre
+person, he expresses bizarre thoughts, his teachings sound foolish.
+So differently sound the exalted one's pure teachings, clearer, purer,
+more comprehensible, nothing strange, foolish, or silly is contained in
+them.  But different from his thoughts seemed to me Siddhartha's hands
+and feet, his eyes, his forehead, his breath, his smile, his greeting,
+his walk.  Never again, after our exalted Gotama has become one with the
+Nirvana, never since then have I met a person of whom I felt: this is a
+holy man!  Only him, this Siddhartha, I have found to be like this.  May
+his teachings be strange, may his words sound foolish; out of his gaze
+and his hand, his skin and his hair, out of every part of him shines a
+purity, shines a calmness, shines a cheerfulness and mildness and
+holiness, which I have seen in no other person since the final death of
+our exalted teacher.)
+
+As Govinda thought like this, and there was a conflict in his heart, he
+once again bowed to Siddhartha, drawn by love.  Deeply he bowed to him
+who was calmly sitting.
+
+"Siddhartha," he spoke, "we have become old men.  It is unlikely for
+one of us to see the other again in this incarnation.  I see, beloved,
+that you have found peace.  I confess that I haven't found it.  Tell me,
+oh honourable one, one more word, give me something on my way which I
+can grasp, which I can understand!  Give me something to be with me on
+my path.  It is often hard, my path, often dark, Siddhartha."
+
+Siddhartha said nothing and looked at him with the ever unchanged,
+quiet smile.  Govinda stared at his face, with fear, with yearning,
+suffering, and the eternal search was visible in his look, eternal
+not-finding.
+
+Siddhartha saw it and smiled.
+
+"Bend down to me!" he whispered quietly in Govinda's ear.  "Bend down to
+me!  Like this, even closer!  Very close!  Kiss my forehead, Govinda!"
+
+But while Govinda with astonishment, and yet drawn by great love and
+expectation, obeyed his words, bent down closely to him and touched his
+forehead with his lips, something miraculous happened to him.  While his
+thoughts were still dwelling on Siddhartha's wondrous words, while he
+was still struggling in vain and with reluctance to think away time, to
+imagine Nirvana and Sansara as one, while even a certain contempt for
+the words of his friend was fighting in him against an immense love and
+veneration, this happened to him:
+
+He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha, instead he saw
+other faces, many, a long sequence, a flowing river of faces, of
+hundreds, of thousands, which all came and disappeared, and yet all
+seemed to be there simultaneously, which all constantly changed and
+renewed themselves, and which were still all Siddhartha.  He saw the
+face of a fish, a carp, with an infinitely painfully opened mouth, the
+face of a dying fish, with fading eyes--he saw the face of a new-born
+child, red and full of wrinkles, distorted from crying--he saw the face
+of a murderer, he saw him plunging a knife into the body of another
+person--he saw, in the same second, this criminal in bondage, kneeling
+and his head being chopped off by the executioner with one blow of his
+sword--he saw the bodies of men and women, naked in positions and cramps
+of frenzied love--he saw corpses stretched out, motionless, cold, void--
+he saw the heads of animals, of boars, of crocodiles, of elephants, of
+bulls, of birds--he saw gods, saw Krishna, saw Agni--he saw all of these
+figures and faces in a thousand relationships with one another, each one
+helping the other, loving it, hating it, destroying it, giving re-birth
+to it, each one was a will to die, a passionately painful confession of
+transitoriness, and yet none of them died, each one only transformed,
+was always re-born, received evermore a new face, without any time
+having passed between the one and the other face--and all of these
+figures and faces rested, flowed, generated themselves, floated along
+and merged with each other, and they were all constantly covered by
+something thin, without individuality of its own, but yet existing, like
+a thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, a shell or mold or mask of
+water, and this mask was smiling, and this mask was Siddhartha's smiling
+face, which he, Govinda, in this very same moment touched with his lips.
+And, Govinda saw it like this, this smile of the mask, this smile of
+oneness above the flowing forms, this smile of simultaneousness above
+the thousand births and deaths, this smile of Siddhartha was precisely
+the same, was precisely of the same kind as the quiet, delicate,
+impenetrable, perhaps benevolent, perhaps mocking, wise, thousand-fold
+smile of Gotama, the Buddha, as he had seen it himself with great
+respect a hundred times.  Like this, Govinda knew, the perfected ones
+are smiling.
+
+Not knowing any more whether time existed, whether the vision had lasted
+a second or a hundred years, not knowing any more whether there existed
+a Siddhartha, a Gotama, a me and a you, feeling in his innermost self
+as if he had been wounded by a divine arrow, the injury of which tasted
+sweet, being enchanted and dissolved in his innermost self, Govinda
+still stood for a little while bent over Siddhartha's quiet face, which
+he had just kissed, which had just been the scene of all manifestations,
+all transformations, all existence.  The face was unchanged, after under
+its surface the depth of the thousandfoldness had closed up again, he
+smiled silently, smiled quietly and softly, perhaps very benevolently,
+perhaps very mockingly, precisely as he used to smile, the exalted one.
+
+Deeply, Govinda bowed; tears he knew nothing of, ran down his old face;
+like a fire burnt the feeling of the most intimate love, the humblest
+veneration in his heart.  Deeply, he bowed, touching the ground, before
+him who was sitting motionlessly, whose smile reminded him of everything
+he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to
+him in his life.