Siddhartha: A Poem of India

by Hermann Hesse

He no longer looked on people in the way he had done, less clever, less proud, but with more warmth, more curiosity, more concerned. When he carried people who were normal - child-people, businessmen, soldiers, women - these people did not seem as alien to him as they had done previously: he understood them, he shared the life they led, a life which was not directed by thoughts and insights but solely by drives and wishes, he felt he was the same as they were. He was now near liberation, though he still suffered from the wound which was still fresh. These people seemed to him nonetheless to be his brothers, these childlike people, with all their vanities, their greed and their ridiculousness, no longer seemed ridiculous, they had become understandable, become deserving of love, even, it seemed to him, become venerable. The blind love of a mother for her child, the stupid blind pride of an over-proud father for his only little son, the vanity of a young woman who has a blind wild wish for more jewelry and for admiration in the eyes of men, all these drives, all this childishness, all these simple drives and greeds which were so foolish but so monstrously strong, strong for life, strong enough to make themselves felt. For Siddhartha now, these drives and greeds were no longer childish, he saw how they gave people life, he saw how people could achieve the infinite, how they could go on journeys, wage war, bear infinite sorrows, and he was able to love them for it, he saw life, he saw the living, he saw the indestructible, he saw Brahman in all their sorrows and all their actions. These people had a faith that was blind, blind was their strength and their tenderness, and that made them deserving of both love and of admiration. There was nothing they lacked, there was no way that the wise man, the thinking man, was ahead of them except for one detail, one single tiny detail: consciousness, conscious awareness of the unity of all life. And Siddhartha was often in doubt as to whether he should value this knowledge, these thoughts, so highly, whether he would not also like to be as childlike as the thought-people the childlike thought-people. In all other respects the people of the world were the equals of the wise, in many respects far superior, just like animals that do what they have to do with harshness and without error, animals that can seem at many times superior to man.

The realisation, the knowledge of what wisdom actually is, and of what it was that he had been seeking for so long, was slow to blossom, slow to ripen in Siddhartha. It was nothing more than the readiness of the soul, a capability, a secret talent, to think the thought of the one at every moment, in the middle of life to feel the one, the ability to breathe the one. This was slow to blossom in him, it shone on him back from the child-like face of Vasudeva: harmony, knowledge of eternal perfection, the world, a smile, the one.

The wound, however, still burned. Siddhartha yearned bitterly for his son, he nurtured his love and tenderness in his heart, he allowed the pain to consume him, he went through all the follies of love. This was a flame that would not die away by itself.

One day, when the wound was burning fiercely, Siddhartha, impelled by the yearning for his son, crossed the river, disembarked and wanted to go to the city to seek him out. The river flowed with gentle smoothness, it was the dry time of year, but his voice sounded odd: it was the voice of laughter. It was clearly the voice of laughter. The river was laughing, laughing brightly and clearly at the aged ferryman. Siddhartha stopped and bent towards the water in order to hear it better, and in the smoothly flowing water he saw the reflection of his own face, and this reflection seemed to remind him of something, something forgotten, and as he thought about it he found it: this face was the same as another face he had once known and loved and feared. It was the same face as his father’s, the face of the brahmin. And he remembered how, long ago as a young man, he had forced his father to let him go and join the penitents, how he had taken his leave of him, how he had left and never gone back. Had his father not suffered the same grief as he now suffered for his own son? Was his father not now long dead, dying alone without ever having seen his son again? Would he not now have to expect the same fate for himself? Was it not a comedy, something peculiar and stupid, this repetition, this running round in circles that would lead only to his fate.

The river was laughing. It was true, everything came back to you that had not been endured to the end and resolved, the same pains would be suffered again and again. But Siddhartha got back into the boat and went back to the hut, thinking of his father, thinking of his son, laughed at by the river, in dispute with himself, inclined to doubt and no less inclined to join in with the laughter at himself and at the whole world. But the wound had still not matured into blossom, his heart still struggled against his fate, there was still no merriment, no victory, shining from his suffering. He nonetheless felt hope, and when he had arrived back at the hut he felt a wish that he could not overcome to open himself to Vasudeva, to show him all, him the master of listening, to tell him everything.

Vasudeva sat in the hut weaving a basket. He no longer went out on the boat, his eyes were becoming weak, and not only his eyes; his arms and his hands were becoming weak too. It was only his joy and the cheerful benevolence shown in his face that remained unchanged and flourishing.

Siddhartha sat down by the old man and slowly began to speak. He told him of things they had never before discussed, of his journey to the city, of his burning wound, of his envy when he saw a happy father, of his awareness of the folly of such wishes and his unsuccessful struggle against them. He told him all, he was able to tell him all, even the most painful, all could be said, all could be shown, all could he relate. He displayed his wound to him, even told him of his attempt to flee that very day, how he had crossed the river, fleeing like a child and wishing to walk to the city, how the river had laughed at him.

He spoke long, Vasudeva listened with a quiet expression on his face, Siddhartha felt that Vasudeva listened more closely than he ever had before, he felt how his pain, his anxieties flowed over to him, how his secret hopes flowed over to him, how he came across to meet him. To tell this listener about his wounds was the same a bathing them in the river till they became cool and became one with the river. As he continued to speak, continued to acknowledge his faults, continued to make his confession, Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no longer a human being, that was listening to him, that Vasudeva as he sat motionless and listening was drawing in his confession like a tree draws up rainwater, that Vasudeva as he sat motionless was the river himself, that he was God himself, that he was the eternal himself. And as Siddhartha ceased thinking about himself and his wounds awareness of Vasudeva’s changed nature took possession of him, the more he received it and penetrated it, the less wonderful it became and he saw that all was as it should be, all was natural, he saw that Vasudeva had long been in this state, he had almost always been in this state, he saw that only he had not quite understood this, he saw that he himself was hardly separate from him. He perceived that he now saw the aged Vasudeva in the way that people see the gods, and that this was not something that could last; he began, in his heart, to take his leave of Vasudeva. And as he saw these things he continued to speak.

When he had finally finished speaking Vasudeva raised his eyes, friendly but grown somewhat weak, to Siddhartha. He said nothing, but in silence he remained cheerful and shone his love, his understanding, and his wisdom onto him. He took Siddhartha’s hand, led him out to their seat at the riverside, sat down with him, and smiled down at the water.

“You heard him laughing,” he said. “But you did not hear everything. Let us listen, you will hear more.”