“You are wise, oh Samana.”, the venerable
one spoke.
“You know how to talk wisely, my friend.
Be aware of too much wisdom!”
The Buddha turned away, and his glance and half of
a smile remained forever etched in Siddhartha’s
memory.
I have never before seen a person glance and smile,
sit and walk this way, he thought; truly, I wish to
be able to glance and smile, sit and walk this way,
too, thus free, thus venerable, thus concealed, thus
open, thus child-like and mysterious. Truly,
only a person who has succeeded in reaching the innermost
part of his self would glance and walk this way.
Well so, I also will seek to reach the innermost part
of my self.
I saw a man, Siddhartha thought, a single man, before
whom I would have to lower my glance. I do not
want to lower my glance before any other, not before
any other. No teachings will entice me any more,
since this man’s teachings have not enticed
me.
I am deprived by the Buddha, thought Siddhartha, I
am deprived, and even more he has given to me.
He has deprived me of my friend, the one who had
believed in me and now believes in him, who had been
my shadow and is now Gotama’s shadow.
But he has given me Siddhartha, myself.
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!”
