The businessman delegated the writing of important letters and contracts to him, and formed the habit of seeking his advice on all important decisions. He saw quickly that Siddhartha knew little about rice and wool, about shipping and commerce, but he saw that what he did brought good luck, he saw that Siddhartha knew far more than he about peace and equanimity, about the art of listening, and saw his acumen in understanding strangers. “This brahmin,” he said to a friend, “is not a proper businessman and he never will be, his soul never goes into affairs with any passion. But he has the secret of people to whom success comes of itself. Maybe it is because he was born under a good star, maybe it is magic, and maybe it is something he learned when he lived with the samanas. He only ever seems to be playing at business, business never seems to penetrate him, never to be his master, he never fears failure and he is never bothered by making a loss.”
The friend advised the businessman, “Give him a third of the profit of all the business he does for you, and let him bear the same proportion of the losses when they happen. That will make him more enthusiastic.”
Kamaswami followed this advice. But Siddhartha seemed little bothered by it. If he made a profit he accepted it with indifference; if he made a loss he would laugh and say, “Oh look, that did not go well!”
It did indeed seem that he was indifferent to affairs of business. One day he went out to a village to buy up a large harvest of rice, but when he arrived the rice had already been sold to another handler. Siddhartha nonetheless remained for several days in the village, making the farmers his guests, giving copper coins to their children, attended a wedding ceremony, and came back from his journey entirely happy and content. Kamaswami accused him of squandering time and money by not having come straight back. Siddhartha answered, “Do not tell me off, my friend! Nothing has ever been achieved by telling anyone off. If I have caused you to make a loss just let me bear it. I am very satisfied with this journey. I met many new people, a brahmin is now my friend, children played on my knees, farmers showed me their fields, no-one treated me there like a businessman.”
“That sounds all very nice,” exclaimed Kamaswami grudgingly, “but I should have thought that a businessman is what you actually are! Or did you go out there just for your own pleasure?”
“Certainly,” laughed Siddhartha, “certainly it was for my own pleasure that I went there. Why else would I have gone there? I have met new people, seen new places, enjoyed trust and friendliness, found friendship. Listen my friend, if I were Kamaswami I would have hurried back as soon as I saw that my attempt to purchase was in vain, I would have been full of annoyance, and in that case then time and money really would have gone to waste. As it is I have spent several days well, I have learned things, I have enjoyed the company of friends, I have done no harm to myself or anyone else either by getting cross or by being in too much of a hurry. And if I ever go there again, to buy a harvest in advance for instance or for any other reason, I will have a friendly welcome from cheerful people, and I will congratulate myself for not having been rushed or bad tempered this time. So leave things well enough alone, my friend, don’t harm yourself by telling me off! If the day ever comes when you see that Siddhartha has brought you any harm then just say the word and Siddhartha will go on his way. But till then let us just be content with each other as we are.”
The businessman tried to persuade Siddhartha by saying he was eating his, Kamaswami’s, bread, but this too was in vain. It was his own bread that he ate, or rather both of them ate the bread of others, the bread of everyone. Siddhartha never had an ear for Kamaswami’s worries, and Kamaswami made many worries for himself. If a deal was in process that might go badly, if goods dispatched seemed to have been lost, if a debtor seemed unable to pay, Kamaswami was never able to convince his co-worker that it would be of any use to speak words of anger or concern, to furrow one’s brow, to lose any sleep. One time when Kamaswami reproached Siddhartha the claim that everything he knew he had learned from him, Siddhartha replied, “Don’t be so ridiculous! What I have learnt from you is the price of a basket of fish and how much interest you can exact for money you lend. Those things are your kind of knowledge. You have never taught me to think, my dear Kamaswami, it might be better if you wanted to learn thinking from me.”
It was true that Siddhartha’s heart was not in business. Business was good for him to obtain money for Kamala, and he obtained much more than he needed. Moreover, Siddhartha was only concerned with people. Their business, craft, worries, pleasures and follies had earlier been as strange and distant as the moon, but now he took an interest in them. He had no difficulty in talking with everyone, to live with everyone, to learn from everyone, but the easier this was the more he became aware that there was something that separated him from them, and that was because he had been a samana. He saw how people lived their lives in a way that was like children or animals, something he both loved and despised. He saw their strivings, saw their sufferings and saw them turn grey about things that seemed to him not worth that price, about money, about petty pleasures, matters of petty honour, he saw them shouting and insulting each other, he saw them lamenting for pains which a samana would merely smile at, and for losses which a samana does not feel.
He was open to everything that these people brought him. The businessman was welcome who brought canvas for him to buy, the debtor was welcome who came asking for a loan, the beggar was welcome who spent an hour to tell him the story of his poverty but who was not half as poor as any samana. He behaved toward the rich foreign businessman in the same way as to the servant who shaved him or the street seller, and would allow him to cheat him of a few petty coins when he bought bananas. When Kamaswami came to him to lament his troubles or to accuse him of having handled a deal badly he listened to him with cheerful interest, wondered about him, tried to understand him, acknowledged that he was right on some small points when he had to, and then he would turn away to the next person who wanted his attention. And there were many who did want it, many who came to do business with him, many who came to cheat him, many who came to obtain information from him, many who wanted his pity, many who wanted his advice. He gave advice, he showed pity, he gave advice, he allowed himself to be cheated, slightly, and all this game, and all the passion with which all these people played it, occupied his thoughts just as much as, at one time, thoughts about the gods and about Brahman.
From time to time he would feel, deep in his breast, a faint and tender voice that gently admonished, gently complained, so gentle he was hardly aware of it. Then he would become aware for an hour of what an odd life he was leading, that he was doing all these things just as a game, that although he was cheerful and felt moments of pleasure his real life was flowing past without touching him. He played with his business affairs and the people he came into contact with in the same way as a sportsman plays with his ball, he watched them and found fun in so doing; in his heart, in the source of his being, he was not present. There was a place where that source flowed, but how far that place was from him, flowing and flowing out of sight, no longer had anything to do with his life. And there were times when he was alarmed at thoughts of this sort, and he wished he too could be granted a passion for all the childish to activity of the day, to take part in it with his heart, truly to live, truly to do, truly to enjoy life instead of just standing at one side of it as an onlooker. But he always went back to the beautiful Kamala, learned the art of love, practised the cult of lust by which, more than anywhere else, giving and taking become the same thing, he talked with her, learned from her, gave her his advice, accepted her advice. She understood him better than Govinda once had, she was more like him than Govinda had been.