Where from then, he asked his heart, where from do you have this gaiety? Could it be that it comes from that long and wholesome sleep that did me so much good? Or from the word Om that I spoke? Or could it be because I have escaped, that my flight is completed, that I am at last free again and stand once more under the sky as a child? I have escaped, I have become free, and it is so good! How pure and lovely the air is here, how good to breathe it! There, the place whence I escaped, everything smelt of ointment, of spices, of wine, of excess, of lethargy. How I hated this world of the rich, of the world of luxury, the world of gamblers! How I hated myself for staying so long in this dreadful world! How I hated myself, robbed myself, poisoned and tortured myself, how I made myself old and bad tempered! No, I will never again delude myself, as I so much used to like doing, never again think that Siddhartha is a wise man! But this is something it was right to do, this is something that pleases me, this is something for which I should praise myself, that I have put an end to this self-hatred, to this life of folly and barrenness! I praise you, Siddhartha, after so many years of folly you have once again had an idea, you have done something, you have heard the bird singing in your breast and you have followed him!
Thus he praised himself, had pleasure in himself, listened with curiosity to his stomach, which was rumbling with hunger. In the last few days, he felt, he had tasted pain, he had tasted sorrow, he had tasted them completely and thoroughly, he had eaten them totally to the point of doubt and of death and then he had spat them out. It was good, so. He could have remained much longer with Kamaswami, making money, wasting money, filling his belly and letting his soul go thirsty, he could have lived much longer in this soft, well-cushioned Hell if this had not happened: that moment of perfect doubt and despair, that moment when he was at such an extreme that he hung over the flowing water and was ready to destroy himself. He had felt doubts and the deepest disgust but had not succumbed to them, the bird within him that was his voice and his source of gaiety was still living, and this filled him with joy, this brought him to laughter, this made his face, under his grey hair, beam.
“It is good,” he thought, “to experience everything you need to know yourself. I learned as a child that wealth and worldly pleasures are not good. It is something that I have long known but only now experienced. And now I know it, I know it not only in my thoughts but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach. It is good for me that I know it!”
He thought long about his transformation, he listened to the bird as it sang for joy. Had this bird within him not died, had he not felt its death? No, it was something else within him that had died, something that had long been yearning for death. Was it not this that in his earlier years of fervent penitence he had wanted to kill off? Was it not his Self, his petty, anxious and proud Self, that he had struggled against for so many years that found victory over him again and again, that reappeared each time he killed it off, each time he forbade himself pleasure, each time he was afraid? Was it not this that today had finally found its death, here in the woods by this lovely river? Was it not because of this death that he was now like a child, so full of trust, so without fear, so full of joy?
Siddhartha now also began to understand why his efforts against this Self were in vain when he was a brahmin, when he was a penitent. He had been hindered by too much knowledge, too much of the holy verses, too many rules of sacrifice, too much castigation, too much doing and too much striving! He had been full of pride, he had been always the cleverest, always the keenest, always one step ahead of the others, always the one who knew, the one who was spiritual, always the priest or the wise man. His Self had crept into this priesthood, into this pride, into this spirituality, it sat firmly there and grew while Siddhartha thought he was destroying it with fasting and penitence. Now he could see it, and he saw that the secret voice had been right, that no teacher could ever have removed this Self. That is why he had had to go out into the world, to lose himself in fun and power and women and money, had had to be a businessman, a gambler, a drinker and to be greedy, till the priest and the samana within him were dead. That is why he had had to continue to endure these years of loathsomeness, to bear the disgust, the emptiness, the meaninglessness, of a life that was lost and barren, right till the end, till the bitter doubt, till Siddhartha the sybarite, Siddhartha the greedy, was even ready to die. He did die, a new Siddhartha awoke from that sleep. Even he would grow old, even he would have to die one day, Siddhartha was impermanent, every form was impermanent. But today he was young, he was a child, and the new Siddhartha was full of joy.
These were his thoughts, he listened with a smile to his stomach, listened with gratitude to a buzzing bee. He looked happily into the river as it flowed, water had never been to pleasing to him as this water, he had never been so strongly aware of the beauty of water, of its voice, of what it represents. The river seemed to have something special to say to him, something he still did not know, something still waiting for him. This was the river where Siddhartha had wanted to drown himself, this was the river where the old, tired, doubting Siddhartha today had drowned. But the new Siddhartha felt profound love for this rushing water and he promised himself never again to be so rash in leaving it.
THE FERRYMAN
I would like to remain by this river, thought Siddhartha, it is the same river that I once crossed on my way to the childlike people, that time I was taken across by a friendly ferryman, I would like to go to him. It was from his hut that my way once led out into a new life, a life which now has become old and dead - I hope the way I am now on, the new life that I have begun, take its starting point from there!
He looked tenderly into the flowing water, into that transparent green, into the crystal lines of its drawing that was so full of secrets. He saw pearls of light rising from its depths, peaceful bubbles of air floating on its surface, the blue of the sky reflected there. With its thousand eyes the river looked back at him, eyes of green, eyes of white, eyes of crystal, eyes of Heavenly blue. How he loved this water, how it delighted him, how he was grateful to it! In his heart he heard the newly-woken voice speak, and it said to him, “Love this water! Stay beside it! Learn from it!” Oh yes, he did want to learn from it, he did want to listen to it. Whoever understood this water and its secrets, it seemed to him, would also have understanding of many other things, many secrets, all secrets.
Of the river’s secrets, however, he saw today just one, and it was understood by his soul. He saw: this water flowed and flowed, it never ceased to flow but was nonetheless always there, it was always and for all time the same, yet each glance at it showed something new! Whoever could grasp this would understand it! He understood but could not grasp it, he felt no more than the rising of some vague notion, a distant memory, voices of gods.