“Siddhartha will do what his father will tell
him to do.”
The first light of day shone into the room.
The Brahman saw that Siddhartha was trembling softly
in his knees. In Siddhartha’s face he
saw no trembling, his eyes were fixed on a distant
spot. Then his father realized that even now
Siddhartha no longer dwelt with him in his home, that
he had already left him.
The Father touched Siddhartha’s shoulder.
“You will,” he spoke, “go into the
forest and be a Samana. When you’ll have
found blissfulness in the forest, then come back and
teach me to be blissful. If you’ll find
disappointment, then return and let us once again
make offerings to the gods together. Go now and
kiss your mother, tell her where you are going to.
But for me it is time to go to the river and to perform
the first ablution.”
He took his hand from the shoulder of his son and
went outside. Siddhartha wavered to the side,
as he tried to walk. He put his limbs back under
control, bowed to his father, and went to his mother
to do as his father had said.
As he slowly left on stiff legs in the first light
of day the still quiet town, a shadow rose near the
last hut, who had crouched there, and joined the pilgrim—Govinda.
“You have come,” said Siddhartha and smiled.
“I have come,” said Govinda.
In the evening of this day they caught up with the
ascetics, the skinny Samanas, and offered them their
companionship and—obedience. They
were accepted.
Siddhartha gave his garments to a poor Brahman in
the street. He wore nothing more than the loincloth
and the earth-coloured, unsown cloak. He ate
only once a day, and never something cooked.
He fasted for fifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight
days. The flesh waned from his thighs and cheeks.
Feverish dreams flickered from his enlarged eyes,
long nails grew slowly on his parched fingers and a
dry, shaggy beard grew on his chin. His glance
turned to icy when he encountered women; his mouth
twitched with contempt, when he walked through a city
of nicely dressed people. He saw merchants trading,
princes hunting, mourners wailing for their dead,
whores offering themselves, physicians trying to help
the sick, priests determining the most suitable day
for seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their
children—and all of this was not worthy
of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank,
it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful
and joyful and beautiful, and it all was just concealed
putrefaction. The world tasted bitter.
Life was torture.
A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal:
to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing,
empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. Dead
to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility
with an emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish
thoughts, that was his goal. Once all of my
self was overcome and had died, once every desire
and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate
part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being,
which is no longer my self, the great secret.
