Quoth Govinda:  “We have learned a lot, Siddhartha, there is still much to learn.  We are not going around in circles, we are moving up, the circle is a spiral, we have already ascended many a level.”

Siddhartha answered:  “How old, would you think, is our oldest Samana, our venerable teacher?”

Quoth Govinda:  “Our oldest one might be about sixty years of age.”

And Siddhartha:  “He has lived for sixty years and has not reached the nirvana.  He’ll turn seventy and eighty, and you and me, we will grow just as old and will do our exercises, and will fast, and will meditate.  But we will not reach the nirvana, he won’t and we won’t.  Oh Govinda, I believe out of all the Samanas out there, perhaps not a single one, not a single one, will reach the nirvana.  We find comfort, we find numbness, we learn feats, to deceive others.  But the most important thing, the path of paths, we will not find.”

“If you only,” spoke Govinda, “wouldn’t speak such terrible words, Siddhartha!  How could it be that among so many learned men, among so many Brahmans, among so many austere and venerable Samanas, among so many who are searching, so many who are eagerly trying, so many holy men, no one will find the path of paths?”

But Siddhartha said in a voice which contained just as much sadness as mockery, with a quiet, a slightly sad, a slightly mocking voice:  “Soon, Govinda, your friend will leave the path of the Samanas, he has walked along your side for so long.  I’m suffering of thirst, oh Govinda, and on this long path of a Samana, my thirst has remained as strong as ever.  I always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions.  I have asked the Brahmans, year after year, and I have asked the holy Vedas, year after year, and I have asked the devote Samanas, year after year.  Perhaps, oh Govinda, it had been just as well, had been just as smart and just as profitable, if I had asked the hornbill-bird or the chimpanzee.  It took me a long time and am not finished learning this yet, oh Govinda:  that there is nothing to be learned!  There is indeed no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as `learning’.  There is, oh my friend, just one knowledge, this is everywhere, this is Atman, this is within me and within you and within every creature.  And so I’m starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the desire to know it, than learning.”

At this, Govinda stopped on the path, rose his hands, and spoke:  “If you, Siddhartha, only would not bother your friend with this kind of talk!  Truly, you words stir up fear in my heart.  And just consider:  what would become of the sanctity of prayer, what of the venerability of the Brahmans’ caste, what of the holiness of the Samanas, if it was as you say, if there was no learning?!  What, oh Siddhartha, what would then become of all of this what is holy, what is precious, what is venerable on earth?!”