Siddhartha learned something new on every step of
his path, for the world was transformed, and his heart
was enchanted. He saw the sun rising over the
mountains with their forests and setting over the
distant beach with its palm-trees. At night,
he saw the stars in the sky in their fixed positions
and the crescent of the moon floating like a boat
in the blue. He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds,
rainbows, rocks, herbs, flowers, stream and river,
the glistening dew in the bushes in the morning, distant
hight mountains which were blue and pale, birds sang
and bees, wind silverishly blew through the rice-field.
All of this, a thousand-fold and colourful, had always
been there, always the sun and the moon had shone,
always rivers had roared and bees had buzzed, but
in former times all of this had been nothing more
to Siddhartha than a fleeting, deceptive veil before
his eyes, looked upon in distrust, destined to be
penetrated and destroyed by thought, since it was
not the essential existence, since this essence lay
beyond, on the other side of, the visible. But
now, his liberated eyes stayed on this side, he saw
and became aware of the visible, sought to be at home
in this world, did not search for the true essence,
did not aim at a world beyond. Beautiful was
this world, looking at it thus, without searching,
thus simply, thus childlike. Beautiful were the
moon and the stars, beautiful was the stream and the
banks, the forest and the rocks, the goat and the
gold-beetle, the flower and the butterfly. Beautiful
and lovely it was, thus to walk through the world,
thus childlike, thus awoken, thus open to what is
near, thus without distrust. Differently the
sun burnt the head, differently the shade of the forest
cooled him down, differently the stream and the cistern,
the pumpkin and the banana tasted. Short were
the days, short the nights, every hour sped swiftly
away like a sail on the sea, and under the sail was
a ship full of treasures, full of joy. Siddhartha
saw a group of apes moving through the high canopy
of the forest, high in the branches, and heard their
savage, greedy song. Siddhartha saw a male sheep
following a female one and mating with her. In
a lake of reeds, he saw the pike hungrily hunting
for its dinner; propelling themselves away from it,
in fear, wiggling and sparkling, the young fish jumped
in droves out of the water; the scent of strength
and passion came forcefully out of the hasty eddies
of the water, which the pike stirred up, impetuously
hunting.
All of this had always existed, and he had not seen
it; he had not been with it. Now he was with
it, he was part of it. Light and shadow ran
through his eyes, stars and moon ran through his heart.
