Part 8

There came a day when young Siddhartha's mind burst forth into rebellion and turned openly against his father. The latter had given him a task, had bidden him gather brushwood. But the boy did not leave the hut; he stood there stubborn and angry, stamped the ground, clenched his fists, and screamed into his father's face with a tremendous outburst of hatred and contempt.

"Go gather your own brushwood!" he foamed. "I am not your servant. I know you won't beat me, you don't dare to; I know you want to punish me constantly and diminish me with your piety and your indulgence. You want me to become like you, just as pious, just as gentle, just as wise! But I, hear me, I would rather become a highwayman and murderer and go to hell, to spite you, than become like you! I hate you, you are not my father, even if you were my mother's lover ten times over!"

Wrath and sorrow overflowed within him, foamed toward his father in a hundred wild and evil words. Then the boy ran off and did not return until late in the evening.

But the next morning he was gone. Also gone was a small basket woven of two-colored bast, in which the ferrymen kept those copper and silver coins they received as ferry fare. Gone too was the boat; Siddhartha saw it lying on the opposite shore. The boy had run away.

"I must follow him," said Siddhartha, who had been trembling with grief since the boy's insults of yesterday. "A child cannot go alone through the forest. He will perish. We must build a raft, Vasudeva, to get across the water."

"We will build a raft," said Vasudeva, "to fetch back our boat, which the boy has stolen. But him you should let run, friend, he is no longer a child, he knows how to help himself. He is seeking the way to the city, and he is right, do not forget that. He is doing what you yourself neglected to do. He is taking care of himself, he is walking his own path. Ah, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you suffer pains that one might laugh at, that you yourself will soon laugh at."

Siddhartha gave no answer. He already held the ax in his hands and began to make a raft of bamboo, and Vasudeva helped him bind the stalks with grass ropes. Then they rowed across, were carried far downstream, and pulled the raft upstream on the opposite shore.

"Why did you bring the ax?" asked Siddhartha.

Vasudeva said: "It might be that the oar of our boat was lost."

But Siddhartha knew what his friend was thinking. He thought the boy would have thrown away or broken the oar, to take revenge and to hinder them from pursuing. And indeed 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 to say: "Do you not see what your son wants to tell you? Do you not see that he does not wish to be pursued?" Yet he did not say this in words. He set about carving a new oar. But Siddhartha took his leave to search for the fugitive. Vasudeva did not hinder him.

When Siddhartha had already been long on his way through the forest, the thought came to him that his searching was futile. Either, so he thought, the boy was long ahead and already arrived in the city, or, if he should still be on the way, he would hide from him, the pursuer. As he thought further, he also found that he himself was not in worry about his son, that deep within he knew he had neither perished nor was in danger in the forest. Yet he ran without rest, no longer to save him, only out of longing, only to perhaps see him once more. And he ran until before the city.

When he came near the city and reached the broad road, he stopped at the entrance of the beautiful pleasure garden that had once belonged to Kamala, where he had first seen her, in the sedan chair. The past rose in his soul; again he saw himself standing there, young, a bearded naked Samana, his hair full of dust. Long stood Siddhartha and looked through the open gate into the garden; monks in yellow robes he saw walking among the beautiful trees.

Long he stood, pondering, seeing images, listening to the story of his life. Long he stood, looked after the monks, and instead of them saw the young Siddhartha, saw the young Kamala walking among the tall trees. Clearly he saw himself, how he was entertained by Kamala, how he received her first kiss, how proudly and contemptuously he looked back upon his Brahminhood, proudly and longingly began his worldly life. He saw Kamaswami, saw the servants, the feasts, the dice players, the musicians, saw Kamala's songbird in its cage, lived all this again, breathed Sansara, was again old and weary, felt again the disgust, felt again the wish to extinguish himself, was healed again at the holy Om.

After he had stood long at the garden gate, Siddhartha saw that the longing was foolish which had driven him to this place, that he could not help his son, that he must not cling to him. Deeply he felt the love for the fugitive in his heart, like a wound, and felt at the same time that the wound was not given to him to dig in it, that it must come to bloom and radiate.

That the wound at this hour did not yet bloom, did not yet radiate, made him sad. In the place of the desired goal that had drawn him here and after the fugitive son, there now stood emptiness. Sadly he sat down, felt something die in his heart, felt emptiness, saw no more joy, no goal. He sat absorbed, and waited. This he had learned at the river, this one thing: to wait, to have patience, to listen. And he sat and listened, in the dust of the road, listened to his heart, how it went weary and sad, waited for a voice. Many an hour he crouched listening, saw no more images, sank into emptiness, let himself sink, without seeing a way. And when he felt the wound burn, he spoke silently the Om, filled himself with Om. The monks in the garden saw him, and since he crouched for many hours, and dust gathered on his gray hair, one came and laid two banana fruits before him. The old man did not see him.

Out of this rigidity awakened him a hand that touched his shoulder. At once he recognized this touch, the tender, bashful one, and came to himself. He rose and greeted Vasudeva, who had followed him. And as he looked into Vasudeva's friendly face, into the small wrinkles filled entirely with smile, into the cheerful eyes, he too smiled. He saw the banana fruits lying before him, picked them up, gave one to the ferryman, ate the other himself. Then he walked silently with Vasudeva back into the forest, returned home to the ferry. Neither spoke of what had happened today, neither named the boy's name, neither spoke of his flight, neither spoke of the wound. In the hut Siddhartha lay down on his bed, and when after a while Vasudeva came to him to offer a bowl of coconut milk, he found him already asleep.

OM

Long still burned the wound. Many a traveler had Siddhartha ferry across the river who had a son or a daughter with him, and none of them did he see without envying him, without thinking: "So many, so many thousands possess this sweetest happiness—why not I? Even evil people, even thieves and robbers have children, and love them, and are loved by them, only I not." So simply, so without understanding did he now think, so like the child-people had he become.

Differently did he now look upon men than before, less wise, less proud, but warmer, but more curious, more involved. When he ferried ordinary travelers, child-people, merchants, warriors, womenfolk, these people did not appear strange to him as once: he understood them, he understood and shared their life led not by thoughts and insights but solely by drives and desires, he felt himself like them. Though he was near perfection, and bore his last wound, yet it seemed to him these child-people were his brothers, their vanities, lusts, and ridiculousness lost the ridiculous for him, became comprehensible, became lovable, became even worthy of reverence for him. The blind love of a mother for her child, the stupid, blind pride of a conceited father for his only little son, the blind, wild striving for adornment and for admiring men's eyes in a young, vain woman, all these drives, all these childishnesses, all these simple, foolish, but enormously strong, strongly living, strongly prevailing drives and lusts were for Siddhartha no longer childishness now, he saw men live for their sake, saw them accomplish the infinite for their sake, make journeys, wage wars, suffer the infinite, endure the infinite, and he could love them for it, he saw the life, the living, the indestructible, the Brahman in each of their passions, each of their deeds. Lovable and admirable were these people in their blind fidelity, their blind strength and tenacity. Nothing was lacking to them, nothing did the knower and thinker have before them except a single small thing, a single tiny little thing: the consciousness, the conscious thought of the unity of all life. And Siddhartha even doubted at many an hour whether this knowledge, this thought was to be valued so very highly, whether it too might not be a childishness of the thinking-men, the thinking-child-people. In all else the world-people were equal to the wise man, were often far superior to him, just as animals in their tenacious, unperturbed doing of the necessary may at moments seem superior to man.

Slowly bloomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realization, the knowledge of what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long seeking was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to be able to think the thought of unity, to feel and inhale the unity, at every moment, in the midst of life. Slowly this bloomed in him, radiated back to him from Vasudeva's old child-face: harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smile, unity.

But the wound still burned, longingly and bitterly Siddhartha thought of his son, tended his love and tenderness in his heart, let the pain eat at him, committed all the follies of love. Of itself this flame did not extinguish.

And one day, when the wound burned fiercely, Siddhartha ferried across the river, hunted by longing, stepped out and was minded to go to the city and seek his son. The river flowed gently and softly, it was in the dry season, but its voice sounded strange: it laughed! It laughed clearly. The river laughed, it laughed bright and clear at the old ferryman. Siddhartha stopped, he bent over the water to hear better, and in the quietly flowing water he saw his face mirrored, and in this mirrored face was something that reminded him, something forgotten, and as he reflected, he found it: this face resembled another that he had once known and loved and also feared. It resembled the face of his father, the Brahmin. And he remembered how in former times, a youth, he had forced his father to let him go to the penitents, how he had taken leave of him, how he had gone and never returned. Had not his father also suffered the same sorrow for him, as he now suffered for his son? Was not his father long since dead, alone, without having seen his son again? Must he himself not expect this same fate? Was it not a comedy, a strange and stupid thing, this repetition, this running in a fateful circle?

The river laughed. Yes, it was so, everything returned that was not suffered and resolved to the end, the same sufferings were always suffered again. But Siddhartha stepped back into the boat and rowed back to the hut, mindful of his father, mindful of his son, mocked by the river, at strife with himself, inclined to despair, and no less inclined to laugh aloud at himself and the whole world. Ah, still the wound did not bloom, still his heart resisted fate, still cheerfulness and victory did not radiate from his suffering. Yet he felt hope, and when he had returned to the hut, he felt an invincible longing to open himself before Vasudeva, to show him everything, to tell him, the master of listening, everything.

Vasudeva sat in the hut and wove at a basket. He no longer rowed the ferryboat, his eyes were beginning to grow weak, and not only his eyes; also his arms and hands. Unchanged and blooming was only the joy and the cheerful goodwill of his face.

Siddhartha sat down by the old man, slowly he began to speak. Of what they had never spoken, of that he now told, of his walk to the city, then, of the burning wound, of his envy at the sight of happy fathers, of his knowledge of the folly of such wishes, of his vain struggle against them. All he reported, all could he say, even the most painful, all could be said, all could be shown, all could he tell. He showed his wound, told also of his flight today, how he had crossed the water, childish fugitive, minded to wander to the city, how the river had laughed.

While he spoke, long spoke, while Vasudeva listened with quiet face, Siddhartha felt this listening of Vasudeva stronger than he had ever felt it, he sensed how his pains, his anxieties flowed over, how his secret hope flowed over, came back to him from the other side. To show this listener his wound was the same as to bathe it in the river, until it grew cool and became one with the river. While he still spoke, still confessed and revealed, Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no longer a man who listened to him, that this motionlessly listening one drew his confession into himself like a tree the rain, that this motionless one was the river itself, that he was God himself, that he was the Eternal itself. And while Siddhartha ceased to think of himself and his wound, this realization of the changed being of Vasudeva took possession of him, and the more he felt it and penetrated into it, the less strange it became, the more he saw that all was in order and natural, that Vasudeva had long been, almost always been so, that only he himself had not quite recognized it, yes, that he himself was now scarcely different from him. He felt that he now saw the old Vasudeva as the people see the gods, and that this could not last; he began in his heart to take leave of Vasudeva. Even as he did so, he spoke on.

When he had finished speaking, Vasudeva raised his friendly, somewhat weakened gaze upon him, spoke not, radiated to him in silence love and cheerfulness, understanding and knowledge. He took Siddhartha's hand, led him to the seat on the shore, sat down with him, smiled at the river.

"You have heard it laugh," he said. "But you have not heard everything. Let us listen, you will hear more."

They listened. Gently sounded the many-voiced song of the river. Siddhartha looked into the water, and in the flowing water images appeared to him: his father appeared, lonely, mourning for the son; he himself appeared, lonely, also he bound by the bonds of longing to the distant son; his son appeared, lonely also he, the boy, storming greedily on the burning path of his young desires, each directed at his goal, each obsessed by the goal, each suffering. The river sang with a voice of suffering, longingly it sang, longingly it flowed toward its goal, plaintive sounded its voice.

"Do you hear?" asked Vasudeva's silent gaze. Siddhartha nodded.

"Listen better!" whispered Vasudeva.

Siddhartha strove to hear better. The image of the father, his own image, the image of the son flowed into one another, also Kamala's image appeared and dissolved, and the image of Govinda, and other images, and flowed into one another, all became the river, all strove as river toward the goal, longingly, desirously, suffering, and the river's voice sounded full of longing, full of burning woe, full of insatiable desire. Toward the goal strove the river, Siddhartha saw it hasten, the river, which consisted of him and his own and of all men he had ever seen, all the waves and waters hastened, suffering, toward goals, many goals, the waterfall, the lake, the rapids, the sea, and all goals were reached, and each was followed by a new, and from the water came vapor and rose to heaven, became rain and plunged from heaven, became spring, became brook, became river, strove anew, flowed anew. But the longing voice had changed. Still it sounded, sorrowful, seeking, but other voices joined it, voices of joy and of sorrow, good and evil voices, laughing and mourning, a hundred voices, a thousand voices.

Siddhartha listened. He was now wholly listener, wholly immersed in hearing, wholly empty, wholly absorbing, he felt that he had now learned listening to the end. Often already he had heard all this, these many voices in the river, today it sounded new. Already he could not distinguish the many voices, not joyful from weeping, not childlike from manly, they all belonged together, lament of longing and laughter of the knower, cry of anger and moan of the dying, all was one, all was interwoven and linked, a thousandfold entangled. And all together, all voices, all goals, all longing, all suffering, all pleasure, all good and evil, all together was the world. All together was the river of happening, was the music of life. And when Siddhartha attentively listened to this river, this thousand-voiced song, when he listened to neither the suffering nor the laughter, when he bound his soul to no voice and entered into it with his ego, but heard all, the whole, perceived the unity, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was Om: the perfection.

"Do you hear," asked Vasudeva's gaze again.

Brightly shone Vasudeva's smile, above all the wrinkles of his old countenance it hovered luminous, as above all the voices of the river hovered the Om. Brightly shone his smile, as he looked at the friend, and brightly now also on Siddhartha's face shone the same smile. His wound bloomed, his suffering radiated, his ego had flowed into the unity.

In this hour Siddhartha ceased to struggle with fate, ceased to suffer. On his face bloomed the cheerfulness of knowledge, which no will opposes any longer, which knows perfection, which is at one with the river of happening, with the stream of life, full of compassion, full of shared joy, given over to the flowing, belonging to the unity.

When Vasudeva rose from the seat on the shore, when he looked into Siddhartha's eyes and saw the cheerfulness of knowledge radiate therein, he touched his shoulder lightly with his hand, in his careful and tender way, and said: "I have waited for this hour, dear one. Now it has come, let me go. Long have I waited for this hour, long have I been the ferryman Vasudeva. Now it is enough. Farewell, hut, farewell, river, farewell, Siddhartha!"

Siddhartha bowed deeply before the departing one.

"I knew it," he said softly. "Will you go into the forests?"

"I go into the forests, I go into the unity," spoke Vasudeva, radiant.

Radiant he went away; Siddhartha watched him. With deep joy, with deep earnestness he watched him, saw his steps full of peace, saw his head full of glory, saw his figure full of light.

GOVINDA

With other monks Govinda once stayed during a retreat in the pleasure grove which the courtesan Kamala had given to the disciples of Gotama. He heard speak of an old ferryman who lived a day's journey from the grove at the river, and who by many was held for a wise man. As Govinda went on his way, he chose the path to the ferry, eager to see this ferryman. For though he had lived by the rule all his life, and was regarded by the younger monks of his age with reverence for his modesty, yet in his heart the unrest and the seeking had not died out.

He came to the river, he asked the old man for passage, and as they stepped out of the boat on the other side, he said to the old man: "Much good you do us monks and pilgrims, many of us you have already ferried across. Are you not also, ferryman, a seeker after the right path?"

Spoke Siddhartha, smiling out of the old eyes: "Do you call yourself a seeker, o venerable one, and yet are already advanced in years, and wear the robe of Gotama's monks?"

"Truly I am old," spoke Govinda, "but I have not ceased to seek. Never will I cease to seek, this seems my destiny. Also you, so it seems to me, have sought. Will you say me a word, honored one?"

Spoke Siddhartha: "What should I, venerable one, have to say to you? Perhaps this, that you seek too much? That you do not come to finding because of seeking?"

"How so?" asked Govinda.

"When someone seeks," said Siddhartha, "it easily happens that his eye sees only the thing he seeks, that he can find nothing, can let nothing into himself, because he thinks only ever of the sought, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Seeking means: having a goal. Finding, however, means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, venerable one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for, striving after your goal, you see not much that stands close before your eyes."

"I still do not quite understand," begged Govinda, "what do you mean?"

Spoke Siddhartha: "Once, o venerable one, some years ago, you were already at this river, and found a sleeper by the river, and sat down by him to guard his sleep. But recognized, o Govinda, you did not the sleeper."

Astonished, like one bewitched, the monk looked into the ferryman's eyes.

"Are you Siddhartha?" he asked with timid voice. "I would not have recognized you this time either! Heartily I greet you, Siddhartha, heartily I rejoice to see you again! You have changed much, friend.--And now you have become a ferryman?"

Siddhartha laughed friendlily. "A ferryman, yes. Some, Govinda, must change much, must wear all kinds of garments, of those I am one, dear one. Be welcome, Govinda, and stay the night in my hut."

Govinda stayed the night in the hut and slept on the bed that had once been Vasudeva's bed. Many questions he put to the friend of his youth, much had Siddhartha to tell him from his life.

When on the next morning it was time to set out on the day's walk, then Govinda said, not without hesitation, the words: "Before I continue my way, Siddhartha, permit me one more question. Have you a teaching? Have you a faith, or a knowledge that you follow, that helps you live and do right?"

Spoke Siddhartha: "You know, dear one, that already as a young man, then, when we lived with the penitents in the forest, I came to distrust the teachings and teachers and turn my back on them. I have remained so. Yet since then I have had many teachers. A beautiful courtesan was long my teacher, and a rich merchant was my teacher, and some dice players. Once also a wandering disciple of Buddha was my teacher; he sat by me when I had fallen asleep in the forest, on the pilgrimage. Also from him I learned, also to him I am grateful, 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 man, Vasudeva, he was no thinker, but he knew the necessary as well as Gotama, he was a perfected one, a saint."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”