When Siddhartha left the grove, where
the Buddha, the perfected one, stayed behind, where
Govinda stayed behind, then he felt that in this grove
his past life also stayed behind and parted from him.
He pondered about this sensation, which filled him
completely, as he was slowly walking along.
He pondered deeply, like diving into a deep water he
let himself sink down to the ground of the sensation,
down to the place where the causes lie, because to
identify the causes, so it seemed to him, is the very
essence of thinking, and by this alone sensations turn
into realizations and are not lost, but become entities
and start to emit like rays of light what is inside
of them.
Slowly walking along, Siddhartha pondered.
He realized that he was no youth any more, but had
turned into a man. He realized that one thing
had left him, as a snake is left by its old skin, that
one thing no longer existed in him, which had accompanied
him throughout his youth and used to be a part of
him: the wish to have teachers and to listen to
teachings. He had also left the last teacher
who had appeared on his path, even him, the highest
and wisest teacher, the most holy one, Buddha, he
had left him, had to part with him, was not able to
accept his teachings.
Slower, he walked along in his thoughts
and asked himself: “But what is this,
what you have sought to learn from teachings and from
teachers, and what they, who have taught you much,
were still unable to teach you?” And he found:
“It was the self, the purpose and essence of
which I sought to learn. It was the self, I
wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome.
But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive
it, could only flee from it, only hide from it.
Truly, no thing in this world has kept my thoughts
thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery
of me being alive, of me being one and being separated
and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha!
And there is no thing in this world I know less about
than about me, about Siddhartha!”
Having been pondering while slowly
walking along, he now stopped as these thoughts caught
hold of him, and right away another thought sprang
forth from these, a new thought, which was: “That
I know nothing about myself, that Siddhartha has remained
thus alien and unknown to me, stems from one cause,
a single cause: I was afraid of myself, I was
fleeing from myself! I searched Atman, I searched
Brahman, I was willing to to dissect my self and peel
off all of its layers, to find the core of all peels
in its unknown interior, the Atman, life, the divine
part, the ultimate part. But I have lost myself
in the process.”
Siddhartha opened his eyes and looked
around, a smile filled his face and a feeling of awakening
from long dreams flowed through him from his head
down to his toes. And it was not long before
he walked again, walked quickly like a man who knows
what he has got to do.
“Oh,” he thought, taking
a deep breath, “now I would not let Siddhartha
escape from me again! No longer, I want to begin
my thoughts and my life with Atman and with the suffering
of the world. I do not want to kill and dissect
myself any longer, to find a secret behind the ruins.
Neither Yoga-Veda shall teach me any more, nor Atharva-Veda,
nor the ascetics, nor any kind of teachings.
I want to learn from myself, want to be my student,
want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha.”
He looked around, as if he was seeing
the world for the first time. Beautiful was the
world, colourful was the world, strange and mysterious
was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow,
here was green, the sky and the river flowed, the
forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it was
beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and
in its midst was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one,
on the path to himself. All of this, all this
yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha
for the first time through the eyes, was no longer
a spell of Mara, was no longer the veil of Maya, was
no longer a pointless and coincidental diversity of
mere appearances, despicable to the deeply thinking
Brahman, who scorns diversity, who seeks unity.
Blue was blue, river was river, and if also in the
blue and the river, in Siddhartha, the singular and
divine lived hidden, so it was still that very divinity’s
way and purpose, to be here yellow, here blue, there
sky, there forest, and here Siddhartha. The
purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere
behind the things, they were in them, in everything.
“How deaf and stupid have I
been!” he thought, walking swiftly along.
“When someone reads a text, wants to discover
its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters
and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless
hull, but he will read them, he will study and love
them, letter by letter. But I, who wanted to
read the book of the world and the book of my own
being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated
before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called
the visible world a deception, called my eyes and
my tongue coincidental and worthless forms without
substance. No, this is over, I have awakened,
I have indeed awakened and have not been born before
this very day.”
In thinking this thoughts, Siddhartha
stopped once again, suddenly, as if there was a snake
lying in front of him on the path.
Because suddenly, he had also become
aware of this: He, who was indeed like someone
who had just woken up or like a new-born baby, he had
to start his life anew and start again at the very
beginning. When he had left in this very morning
from the grove Jetavana, the grove of that exalted
one, already awakening, already on the path towards
himself, he he had every intention, regarded as natural
and took for granted, that he, after years as an ascetic,
would return to his home and his father. But
now, only in this moment, when he stopped as if a snake
was lying on his path, he also awoke to this realization:
“But I am no longer the one I was, I am no
ascetic any more, I am not a priest any more, I am
no Brahman any more. Whatever should I do at
home and at my father’s place? Study?
Make offerings? Practise meditation? But
all this is over, all of this is no longer alongside
my path.”
Motionless, Siddhartha remained standing
there, and for the time of one moment and breath,
his heart felt cold, he felt a cold in his chest,
as a small animal, a bird or a rabbit, would when seeing
how alone he was. For many years, he had been
without home and had felt nothing. Now, he felt
it. Still, even in the deepest meditation, he
had been his father’s son, had been a Brahman,
of a high caste, a cleric. Now, he was nothing
but Siddhartha, the awoken one, nothing else was left.
Deeply, he inhaled, and for a moment, he felt cold
and shivered. Nobody was thus alone as he was.
There was no nobleman who did not belong to the noblemen,
no worker that did not belong to the workers, and
found refuge with them, shared their life, spoke their
language. No Brahman, who would not be regarded
as Brahmáns and lived with them, no ascetic who
would not find his refuge in the caste of the Samanas,
and even the most forlorn hermit in the forest was
not just one and alone, he was also surrounded by
a place he belonged to, he also belonged to a caste,
in which he was at home. Govinda had become a
monk, and a thousand monks were his brothers, wore
the same robe as he, believed in his faith, spoke
his language. But he, Siddhartha, where did
he belong to? With whom would he share his life?
Whose language would he speak?
Out of this moment, when the world
melted away all around him, when he stood alone like
a star in the sky, out of this moment of a cold and
despair, Siddhartha emerged, more a self than before,
more firmly concentrated. He felt: This
had been the last tremor of the awakening, the last
struggle of this birth. And it was not long until
he walked again in long strides, started to proceed
swiftly and impatiently, heading no longer for home,
no longer to his father, no longer back.