GOVINDA
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Together with other monks, Govinda used to spend the time of rest between pilgrimages in the pleasure-grove, which the courtesan Kamala had given to the followers of Gotama fift. He heard talk of an old ferryman, who lived one days journey away by the river, and who was regarded as a wise man by many. When Govinda went ba his way, he chose the path to the ferry, eager to see the ferryman. Because, though he had lived his entire life by the rules, though he was also looked upon with veion by the younger monks on at of his age and his modesty, the restlessness and the searg still had not perished from his heart.He came to the river and asked the old man to ferry him over, and when they got off the boat oher side, he said to the old man: "Youre very good to us monks and pilgrims, you have already ferried many of us across the river. Arent you too, ferryman, a searcher for the right path?"
Quoth Siddhartha, smiling from his old eyes: "Do you call yourself a searcher, oh venerable ohough you are already of an old in years and are wearing the robe of Gotamas monks?"
"Its true, Im old," spoke Govinda, "but I havent stopped searg. Never Ill stop searg, this seems to be my destiny. You too, so it seems to me, have been searg. Would you like to tell me something, oh honourable one?"
Quoth Siddhartha: "What should I possibly have to tell you, oh venerable one? Perhaps that youre searg far too much? That in all that searg, you dont find the time for finding?"
"How e?" asked Govinda.
"When someone is searg," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is uo find anything, to let anythier his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searg means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for yoal, there are many things you dont see, which are directly in front of your eyes."
"I dont quite ua," asked Govinda, "what do you mean by this?"
Quoth Siddhartha: "A long time ago, oh venerable one, many years ago, youve once before been at this river and have found a sleeping man by the river, and have sat down with him to guard his sleep. But, oh Govinda, you did nhe sleeping man."
Astonished, as if he had been the object of a magic spell, the monk looked into the ferrymans eyes.
"Are you Siddhartha?" he asked with a timid voice. "I wouldnt have reised you this time as well! From my heart, Im greeting you, Siddhartha; from my heart, Im happy to see you once again! Youve ged a lot, my friend.--And so youve now bee a ferryman?"
In a friendly manner, Siddhartha laughed. "A ferryman, yes. Many people, Govinda, have to ge a lot, have to wear many a robe, I am one of those, my dear. Be wele, Govinda, and spend the night in my hut."
Govinda stayed the night i and slept on the bed which used to be Vasudevas bed. Many questions he posed to the friend of his youth, many things Siddhartha had to tell him from his life.
When in the m the time had e to start the days journey, Govinda said, not without hesitation, these words: "Before Ill tinue on my path, Siddhartha, permit me to ask one more question. Do you have a teag? Do you have a faith, or a knowledge, you follow, which helps you to live and to dht?"
Quoth Siddhartha: "You know, my dear, that I already as a young man, in those days when we lived with the pes in the forest, started to distrust teachers and teags and to turn my back to them. I have stuck with this. heless, I have had many teachers sihen. A beautiful courtesan has been my teacher for a long time, and a rich mert was my teacher, and some gamblers with dice. Once, even a follower of Buddha, travelling on foot, has been my teacher; he sat with me when I had fallen asleep in the forest, on the pilgrimage. Ive also learned from him, Im also grateful to him, very grateful. But most of all, I have learned here from this river and from my predecessor, the ferryman Vasudeva. He was a very simple person, Vasudeva, he was no thinker, but he knew what is necessary just as well as Gotama, he erfect man, a saint."
Govinda said: "Still, oh Siddhartha, you love a bit to mock people, as it seems to me. I believe in you and know that you havent followed a teacher. But havent you found something by yourself, though youve found no teags, you still fouain thoughts, certain insights, which are your own and which help you to live? If you would like to tell me some of these, you would delight my heart."
Quoth Siddhartha: "Ive had thoughts, yes, and insight, again and again. Sometimes, for an hour or for aire day, I have felt knowledge in me, as one would feel life in ones heart. There have been many thoughts, but it would be hard for me to vey them to you. Look, my dear Govinda, this is one of my thoughts, which I have found: wisdom ot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness."
"Are you kidding?" asked Govinda.
"Im not kidding. Im telling you what Ive found. Knowledge be veyed, but not wisdom. It be found, it be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles be performed with it, but it ot be expressed in words and taught. This was what I, even as a young man, sometimes suspected, what has driven me away from the teachers. I have found a thought, Govinda, which youll again regard as a joke or foolishness, but which is my best thought. It says: The opposite of every truth is just as true! Thats like this: any truth only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided. Everything is one-sided which be thought with thoughts and said with words, its all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks pleteness, roundness, oneness. When the exalted Gotama spoke in his teags of the world, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into deception and truth, into suffering and salvation. It ot be done differently, there is no other way for him who wants to teach. But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided. A person or an act is never entirely Sansara or entirely Nirvana, a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful. It does really seem like this, because we are subject to deception, as if time was something real. Time is not real, Govinda, I have experiehis often and often again. And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between the world and the eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between evil and good, is also a deception."
"How e?" asked Govinda timidly.
"Listen well, my dear, listen well! The sinner, which I am and which you are, is a sinner, but in times to e he will be Brahma again, he will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha--and now see: these "times to e" are a deception, are only a parable! The sinner is not on his way to bee a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these things. No, within the sinner is now and today already the future Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in you, in everyohe Buddha which is ing into being, the possible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfe: no, it is perfe every moment, all sin already carries the divine fiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is not possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the possibility to put time out of existeo see all life which was, is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my sent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my be, to be uo ever harm me. I have experieny body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and he most shameful despair, in orde藏书网r to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop paring it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfe I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.--These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have e into my mind."
Siddhartha bent down, picked up a stone from the ground, and weighed it in his hand.
"This here," he said playing with it, "is a stone, and will, after a certain time, perhaps turn into soil, and will turn from soil into a plant or animal or human being. In the past, I would have said: This stone is just a sto is worthless, it belongs to the world of the Maja; but because it might be able to bee also a human being and a spirit in the cycle of transformations, therefore I also grant it importahus, I would perhaps have thought in the past. But today I think: this stone is a sto is also animal, it is also god, it is also Buddha, I do not vee and love it because it could turn into this or that, but rather because it is already and always everything-- and it is this very fact, that it is a stohat it appears to me now and today as a stohis is why I love it and see worth and purpose in each of its veins and cavities, in the yellow, in the gray, in the hardness, in the sound it makes when I knock at it, in the dryness or wetness of its surface. There are stones which feel like oil or soap, and others like leaves, others like sand, and every one is special and prays the Om in its own way, eae is Brahman, but simultaneously and just as much it is a stone, is oily or juicy, and this is this very fact which I like and regard as wonderful and worthy of worship.--But let me speak no more of this. The words are not good for the secret meaning, everything always bees a bit different, as soon as it is put into words, gets distorted a bit, a bit silly--yes, and this is alsood, and I like it a lot, I also very much agree with this, that this what is one mans treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolisho another person."
Govinda listened silently.
"Why have you told me this about the stone?" he asked hesitantly after a pause.
"I did it without any specifitention. Or perhaps what I meant was, that love this very stone, and the river, and all these things we are looking at and from which we learn. I love a stone, Govinda, and also a tree or a piece of bark. This are things, and things be loved. But I ot love words. Therefore, teags are no good for me, they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no edges, no smell, no taste, they have nothing but words. Perhaps it are these which keep you from finding peace, perhaps it are the many words. Because salvation and virtue as well, Sansara and Nirvana as well, are mere words, Govinda. There is no thing which would be Nirvana; there is just the word Nirvana."
Quoth Govinda: "Not just a word, my friend, is Nirvana. It is a thought."
Siddhartha tinued: "A thought, it might be so. I must fess to you, my dear: I dont differentiate much between thoughts and words. To be ho, I also have no high opinion of thoughts. I have a better opinion of things. Here on this ferry-boat, for instance, a man has been my predecessor and teacher, a holy man, who has for many years simply believed in the river, nothing else. He had noticed that the rivers spoke to him, he learned from it, it educated and taught him, the river seemed to be a god to him, for many years he did not know that every wind, every cloud, every bird, every beetle was just as divine and knows just as mud teach just as much as the worshipped river. But when this holy ma into the forests, he knew everything, knew more than you and me, without teachers, without books, only because he had believed in the river."
Govinda said: "But is that what you call `things, actually something real, something which has existence? Isnt it just a deception of the Maja, just an image and illusion? Your stone, your tree, your river-- are they actually a reality?"
"This too," spoke Siddhartha, "I do not care very much about. Let the things be illusions or not, after all I would then also be an illusion, and thus they are always like me. This is what makes them so dear and worthy of veion for me: they are like me. Therefore, I love them. And this is now a teag you will laugh about: love, oh Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all. To thhly uand the world, to explain it, to despise it, may be the thing great thinkers do. But Im only ied in being able to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it ao be able to look upon it and me and all beings with love and admiration and great respect."
"This I uand," spoke Govinda. "But this very thing was discovered by the exalted oo be a deception. He ands benevolence, clemency, sympathy, tolerance, but not love; he forbade us to tie our heart in love to earthly things."
"I know it," said Siddhartha; his smile shone golden. "I know it, Govinda. And behold, with this we are right in the middle of the thicket of opinions, in the dispute about words. For I ot deny, my words of love are in a tradi, a seeming tradi with Gotamas words. For this very reason, I distrust in words so much, for I know, this tradi is a deception. I know that I am in agreement with Gotama. How should he not know love, he, who has discovered all elements of humaen their transitoriness, in their meaninglessness, a loved people thus much, to use a long, laborious life only to help them, to teach them! Even with him, even with yreat teacher, I prefer the thing over the words, place more importan his acts and life than on his speeches, more on the gestures of his hand than his opinions. Not in his speeot in his thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his as, in his life."
For a long time, the two old men said nothing. Then spoke Govinda, while bowing for a farewell: "I thank you, Siddhartha, for telling me some of your thoughts. They are partially strahoughts, not all have been instantly uandable to me. This being as it may, I thank you, and I wish you to have calm days."
(But secretly he thought to himself: This Siddhartha is a bizarre person, he expresses bizarre thoughts, his teags sound foolish. So differently sound the exalted ones pure teags, clearer, purer, more prehensible, nothing strange, foolish, or silly is tained in them. But different from his thoughts seemed to me Siddharthas hands a, his eyes, his forehead, his breath, his smile, his greeting, his walk. Never again, after our exalted Gotama has bee oh the Nirvana, never sihen have I met a person of whom I felt: this is a holy man! Only him, this Siddhartha, I have found to be like this. May his teags be strange, may his words sound foolish; out of his gaze and his hand, his skin and his hair, out of every part of him shines a purity, shines a ess, shines a cheerfulness and mildness and holiness, which I have seen in no other person sihe final death of our exalted teacher.)
As Govinda thought like this, and there was a fli his heart, he once again bowed to Siddhartha, drawn by love. Deeply he bowed to him who was calmly sitting.
"Siddhartha," he spoke, "we have bee old men. It is unlikely for one of us to see the ain in this ination. I see, beloved, that you have found peace. I fess that I havent found it. Tell me, oh honourable one, one more wive me something on my way which I grasp, which I uand! Give me something to be with me on my path. It it often hard, my path, often dark, Siddhartha."
Siddhartha said nothing and looked at him with the ever unged, quiet smile. Govinda stared at his face, with fear, with yearning, suffering, and <q>?９9ｌiｂ.</q>the eternal search was visible in his look, eternal not-finding.
Siddhartha saw it and smiled.
"Bent down to me!" he whispered quietly in Govindas ear. "Bend down to me! Like this, even closer! Very close! Kiss my forehead, <u></u>Govinda!"
But while Govinda with astonishment, a drawn by great love and expectation, obeyed his words, bent down closely to him and touched his forehead with his lips, something miraculous happeo him. While his thoughts were still dwelling on Siddharthas wondrous words, while he was still struggling in vain and with reluce to think away time, to imagine Nirvana and Sansara as one, while even a certain pt for the words of his friend was fighting in him against an immense love and veion, this happeo him:
He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha, instead he saw oth藏书网er faces, many, a long sequence, a flowing river of faces, of hundreds, of thousands, which all came and disappeared, a all seemed to be there simultaneously, which all stantly ged and rehemselves, and which were still all Siddhartha. He saw the face of a fish, a carp, with an infinitely painfully opened mouth, the face of a dying fish, with fading eyes--he saw the face of a new-born child, red and full of wrinkles, distorted fr--he saw the face of a murderer, he saw him plunging a ko the body of another person--he saw, in the same sed, this criminal in bondage, kneeling and his head being chopped off by the executioner with one blow of his sword--he saw the bodies of men and women, naked in positions and cramps of frenzied love--he saw corpses stretched out, motionless, cold, void-- he saw the heads of animals, of boars, of crocodiles, of elephants, of bulls, of birds--he saw gods, saw Krishna, saw Agni--he saw all of these figures and faces in a thousaionships with one another, eae helping the other, loving it, hating it, destroying it, giving re-birth to it, eae was a will to die, a passionately painful fession of transitoriness, a none of them died, eae only transformed, was always re-born, received evermore a new face, without any time having passed between the one and the other face--and all of these figures and faces rested, flowed, geed themselves, floated along and merged with each other, and they were all stantly covered by something thin, without individuality of its own, but yet existing, like a thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, a shell or mold or mask of water, and this mask was smiling, and this mask was Siddharthas smiling face, which he, Govinda, in this very same moment touched with his lips. And, Govinda saw it like this, this smile of the mask, this smile of oneness above the flowing forms, this smile of simultaneousness above the thousand births ahs, this smile of Siddhartha recisely the same, recisely of the same kind as the quiet, delicate, imperable, perhaps benevolent, perhaps mog, wise, thousand-fold smile of Gotama, the Buddha, as he had seen it himself with great respect a huimes. Like this, Govinda khe perfected ones are smiling.
Not knowing any more whether time existed, whether the vision had lasted a sed or a hundred years, not knowing any more whether there existed a Siddhartha, a Gotama, a me and a you, feeling in his innermost self as if he had been wounded by a divine arrow, the injury of which tasted sweet, being ented and dissolved in his innermost self, Govinda still stood for a little while bent over Siddharthas quiet face, which he had just kissed, which had just been the se of all maions, all transformations, all existehe face was unged, after us surface the depth of the thousandfoldness had closed up again, he smiled silently, smiled quietly and softly, perhaps very benevolently, perhaps very mogly, precisely as he used to smile, the exalted one.
Deeply, Govinda bowed; tears he knew nothing of, ran down his old face; like a fire burnt the feeling of the most intimate love, the humblest veion in his heart. Deeply, he bowed, toug the ground, before him who was sitting motionlessly, whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to him in his life.
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