“Yes,” said Siddhartha, “there are some things that I have thought from time to time, and some things that I have seen. There have been times when, for one hour or for one day, I have felt there is knowledge within me, just as it is possible to feel life in one’s heart. I have had many such thoughts, but I would find it very hard to tell you about them. Govinda, listen, here is one of the thoughts that I have found: wisdom cannot be taught. If a wise man tries to teach wisdom it will always sound like folly.”
“Are you joking now?” Govinda asked.
“I am not joking. I am saying what I have found. Knowledge can be taught, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it can be what carries you, it can work wonders, but it cannot be spoken and it cannot be taught. This is what I had already begun to suspect when I was young, this is what drove me away from the teachers. I have found a thought, Govinda, a thought that you will again suppose is folly or a joke, but it is the best thought I have. It reads: For every truth, the opposite is equally true! This means that a truth that is one-sided can only ever be spoken, it is encased in words. All that is thought with thoughts and can be spoken in words will be one-sided, all will be half, all will be lacking in wholeness, in roundness, in unity. When the noble Gotama spoke of the world in his teachings he had to divide it into sansara and nirvana, into delusion and truth, into suffering and liberation. He who wishes to be a teacher has no choice in the matter, there is no other path for him to follow. The world itself, though, that which exists around us and within us, is never one sided. It is never a person, never an act, never the whole of sansara and never the whole of nirvana, and a person is never entirely holy and never entirely sinful. It does seem so because we are subjected to delusion and believe that time is something real. Time is not real, Govinda, that is something I have experienced many times. And if time is not real then the gap that seems to lie between the world and eternity, between suffering and being blessed, between evil and good, is also just delusion.”
“How do you mean that?” asked Govinda, with some anxiety.
“Listen, my friend, listen well. The sinner, such as me, such as you, is a sinner, but he will one day become once more Brahma, he will one day achieve nirvana, will become a buddha - but now think of this: this ‘one day’ is delusion, it is only a comparison! The sinner is not on his way to becoming a buddha, he is not engrossed in any kind of development, even though it is not possible for our thought to imagine these things in any other way. No, the prospective buddha is already within the sinner, now and today, his future is all already there, within him, within you, within everyone is that which will be, that which is possible, that which is the hidden buddha to be honoured. The world, Govinda my friend, is not imperfect, nor is it trapped on a weary road to perfection: no, it has perfection in every glance of the eye, every sin contains mercy within it, every little child has the old man within it, every suckling has death within it, every dying man has eternal life within him. No man is able to see how far he has progressed along his path by looking at others, within the thief and within the gambler the buddha is waiting, within the brahmin the thief is waiting. In deep meditation it is possible to remove time and to see all that has been, all that is and all that will be in one moment, and in that moment all is good, all is perfect, all is Brahman. That is why it appears to me that all that is good, death appears to me as the same as life, sin appears to me the same as holiness, wisdom appears to me the same as folly, everything has to be thus, nothing needs anything more than my agreement, more than my will, my loving involvement, and so, for me, it is good, it can only advance me and can never harm me. I have learned through experience that I needed to sin, body and soul, I needed lust, I strove for more possessions, I was vain, and I needed only the slightest doubt to teach me to give up struggling against these things, to learn to love the world, to stop comparing it with any kind of imaginary world I might have wished for or any kind of perfection I might have invented, I learned to leave the world as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it. These, Govinda, are some of the thoughts that have come into my mind.”
Siddhartha reached down and picked up a stone from the ground, then he weighed it in his hand. “This,” he said playfully, “is a stone, and after a certain time it might become soil, and then the soil might become a plant or an animal or a person. But earlier I would have said: this stone is just a stone, it is worthless, it belongs to the world of maya; but through the circle of metamorphoses it might become a person or a spirit, and that is why I attribute value to it. That is what I might have thought earlier. But now I think: this stone is a stone, it is also an animal, it is also a god, it is also a buddha, I do not venerate it, I do not love it because it might one day become this or that but because it has always been everything and always will be - and that is exactly why I love it, for being a stone, because it appears to me as a stone and always will do, that is why I see value and meaning in each of its veins and each of its hollows, in the yellow, in the grey, in its hardness, in the sound it makes when I tap it, in the dryness or the wetness of its surface. There are some stones that feel like oil or soap, others feel like leaves, others like sand, and each of them is unique and each of them prays to Om in its own way, each of them is Brahman but at the same time each of them is a stone, all the more is it a stone, it is oily or juicy, and that is what appeals to me, that is what seems so wonderful to me and so worthy of worship. But do not let continue talking about this. Words are not good for the invisible spirit, it always instantly becomes a little different when spoken about, a little false, a little foolish - and even that is something very good and something I like very much, something I fully consent to, that which one man sees as valuable wisdom will always seem to another to be folly.”
Govinda listened in silence.
After a pause he asked, hesitantly, “Why did you tell me all that about the stone?”
“It just happened. I did not plan it. Or perhaps I meant to say that I love this stone, and the river, and all these things we think about and from which we can learn. I am capable of loving a stone, Govinda, and also a tree or a piece of bark. Those are things, and it is possible to love things. But it is not possible to love words. That is why teachings are not for me, they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no edges, no smell, no taste, they have nothing but words. Maybe that is what is preventing you from finding peace, maybe it is all those words. As even redemption and virtue, even sansara and nirvana are nothing but words, Govinda. There is nothing for nirvana to be; there is only the word, ‘nirvana’.”
Govinda said, “Nirvana is not merely a word, my friend. It is a thought.”