Siddhartha awakened as if he had been asleep, when he heard Govinda’s words.  For a long tome, he looked into Govinda’s face.  Then he spoke quietly, in a voice without mockery:  “Govinda, my friend, now you have taken this step, now you have chosen this path.  Always, oh Govinda, you’ve been my friend, you’ve always walked one step behind me.  Often I have thought:  Won’t Govinda for once also take a step by himself, without me, out of his own soul?  Behold, now you’ve turned into a man and are choosing your path for yourself.  I wish that you would go it up to its end, oh my friend, that you shall find salvation!”

Govinda, not completely understanding it yet, repeated his question in an impatient tone:  “Speak up, I beg you, my dear!  Tell me, since it could not be any other way, that you also, my learned friend, will take your refuge with the exalted Buddha!”

Siddhartha placed his hand on Govinda’s shoulder:  “You failed to hear my good wish for you, oh Govinda.  I’m repeating it:  I wish that you would go this path up to its end, that you shall find salvation!”

In this moment, Govinda realized that his friend had left him, and he started to weep.

“Siddhartha!” he exclaimed lamentingly.

Siddhartha kindly spoke to him:  “Don’t forget, Govinda, that you are now one of the Samanas of the Buddha!  You have renounced your home and your parents, renounced your birth and possessions, renounced your free will, renounced all friendship.  This is what the teachings require, this is what the exalted one wants.  This is what you wanted for yourself.  Tomorrow, oh Govinda, I’ll leave you.”

For a long time, the friends continued walking in the grove; for a long time, they lay there and found no sleep.  And over and over again, Govinda urged his friend, he should tell him why he would not want to seek refuge in Gotama’s teachings, what fault he would find in these teachings.  But Siddhartha turned him away every time and said:  “Be content, Govinda!  Very good are the teachings of the exalted one, how could I find a fault in them?”

Very early in the morning, a follower of Buddha, one of his oldest monks, went through the garden and called all those to him who had as novices taken their refuge in the teachings, to dress them up in the yellow robe and to instruct them in the first teachings and duties of their position.  Then Govinda broke loose, embraced once again his childhood friend and left with the novices.

But Siddhartha walked through the grove, lost in thought.

Then he happened to meet Gotama, the exalted one, and when he greeted him with respect and the Buddha’s glance was so full of kindness and calm, the young man summoned his courage and asked the venerable one for the permission to talk to him.  Silently the exalted one nodded his approval.

Quoth Siddhartha:  “Yesterday, oh exalted one, I had been privileged to hear your wondrous teachings.  Together with my friend, I had come from afar, to hear your teachings.  And now my friend is going to stay with your people, he has taken his refuge with you.  But I will again start on my pilgrimage.”