Siddhartha: A Poem of India

by Hermann Hesse

They listened. The song of the river, sung in his many voices, was sweet. Siddhartha looked into the water, pictures appeared to him in the water as it flowed: his father appeared to him, alone and in mourning for his son; he appeared to himself, alone and he, too, was bound in the fetters of longing for his son; his son appeared to him, also alone, as the lad hurried greedily along the burning road of his youthful desire. Each of them was directed to his aim, each of them obsessed with his aim, each of them suffering. The river sang with a voice of sorrow, with yearning it sang, with yearning it flowed towards its aim, its voice was one of lament.

Without speaking, Vasudeva looked at Siddhartha, and his look asked, “Do you hear?” Siddhartha nodded.

“Hear better,” Vasudeva whispered.

Siddhartha strained to hear better. The image of his father, the image of himself, the image of his son flowed in and out of each other, the image of Kamala also appeared and flowed away, the image of Govinda and other images appeared, flowed in and out of each other, each became a part of the river, each of them, as a part of the river, strove to reach its aim, yearning, greedy, suffering, and the voice of the river was full of yearning, full of burning pain, full of insatiable desire. The river strove to reach its aim, Siddhartha saw it rushing, the river that was made up of him and of those who belonged to him and all the people he had ever seen, all the waves and all the water rushed in sorrow to their aim, to their many aims, to the waterfall, to the lake, to the rapids, to the sea, and all the aims were achieved, and each one was followed by another, and water became steam and rose up to the sky, it became rain and poured from the sky, it became a spring, became a stream, became a river, striving for the new, flowing into the new. But the voice of yearning had changed. It could still be heard, full of sorrow, full of searching, but other voices came to keep it company, voices of joy and of sorrow, good voices and bad voices, laughing and mourning, a hundred voices, a thousand voices.

Siddhartha listened. By now he was nothing but listener, engrossed in listening, quite empty, sucking in, he felt he had now fully learned how to listen. He had heard all these things many times before, all these voices in the river, but today it sounded new. He could no longer distinguish these countless voices, not the gay from the plangent, not the childish from the manly, they all belonged together, lamentations of yearning, laughter of the wise man, the shout of anger and the groans of the dying, all was as one, all was interwoven and conjoined, interwoven in a thousand places. And all of this together, all the voices, all the aims, all the yearning, all the sorrows, all the joys, all the good and all the bad, all of this together was the world. All of this together was the events that happened, flowing like the river, all of this was the music of life. And when Siddhartha listened carefully to this flow, to this river with its thousand voices, when he listened not to the sorrow or the laughter, when he bound his soul not with any one of those voices and went into it with his Self, but when he heard everything, the whole, when he perceived the unity of the whole, that was when the great song of a thousand voices was made up of a single word, the word Om: Perfection.

Once more, Vasudeva’s glance asked, “Do you hear?”

Vasudeva’s smile shone brightly, all round Vasudeva’s face with all its wrinkles there was a glow of brightness, just as, over and around all the voices of the river, there was the Om. His smile shone brightly as he looked at his friend, also now, on Siddhartha’s face, the same smile began to glow brightly. His wounds blossomed, his sorrow glowed, his Self had flowed into the unity.

It was at that moment that Siddhartha stopped struggling against his fate, stopped suffering. On his face there blossomed the gaiety of knowledge when there is no longer any will standing against it, the knowledge known by liberation, the knowledge that is in agreement with the flow of events, with the river of life with all its shared sorrows, with all its shared joys, surrendering to the flow, belonging to the unity.

Vasudeva stood up from where he had been sitting on the bank of the river, he looked in Siddhartha’s eyes and saw the gaiety of wisdom shining there, he put his hand lightly in his careful and gentle way on Siddhartha’s shoulder and he said, “I have been waiting for this moment, my friend. Now that it has come let me take my leave of you. I have been waiting long for this moment, long have I been Vasudeva the ferryman. It is now enough. Farewell hut, farewell river, farewell Siddhartha!”

Siddhartha bowed deeply to Vasudeva as he took his leave.