"You will fall asleep, Siddhartha."
"I will not fall asleep."
"You will die, Siddhartha."
"I will die."
"And would you rather die than do as your father tells you?"
"Siddhartha has always done as his father has told him."
"So will you give up this idea?"
"Siddhartha will do as his father says."
The first rays of daylight fell into the room. The brahmin saw that Siddhartha's knees were trembling slightly. He saw no tremble in Siddhartha's face, his eyes fixed on the far distance. Then his father realised that Siddhartha was no longer with him in his native country, that he had already left him.
His father touched Siddhartha's shoulder.
"You will go into the woods and become a samana," he said. "If you find holiness in the woods come and teach me about holiness. If you find disappointment come back and we can make sacrifices to the gods together again. Now go and kiss your mother, tell her where you're going. For me, it is time now to go down to the river and start the first washing of the day."
He took his hand off his son's shoulder and went out. Siddhartha staggered to one side as he tried to walk. He forced his limbs to do as he wanted, bowed to his father and went to his mother to do as his father had told him.
The town, in the light of early morning, was still quiet as Siddhartha walked out of it, moving slowly on his stiff legs. As he passed the last hut a shadow rose from where it had been crouching and approached the pilgrim—Govinda.
"You have come," said Siddhartha with a smile.
"I have come," said Govinda.
ji
AMONG THE SAMANAS
T
hey reached the samanas that evening, the emaciated samanas, and offered them their company and their obedience. They were accepted.
Siddhartha had given his coat to a poor brahmin on the way there. All he wore now were his loin cloth and an earth coloured, untailored cloak. He ate just once a day and never had cooked food. He fasted for fifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight days. The flesh disappeared from his limbs and his cheeks. Feverish dreams flickered from his bulging eyes, the nails grew long on his dessicated fingers, a dry, unkempt beard. When he encountered a woman his eyes became icy; his mouth twitched with contempt when he entered a town and saw the people in their fine clothes. He saw businessmen doing business, he saw noblemen go hunting, he saw the bereaved grieving for their dead, whores offering their bodies, doctors taking care of the sick, priests saying when to sow crops, lovers loving, mothers feeding their babies—and none of this was worth a glance from him, all was lies, everything stank, everything stank of lies, everything made a pretence of good sense and happiness and beauty, all was in decay and none could see it. The world tasted bitter. Life was a torment.
Siddhartha had but one objective: to empty himself, to empty himself of thirst, of desire, of dreams, empty himself of joy and sorrow. To die away from himself, to no longer be himself, to find peace by emptying his own heart, to stand open to the miracle by alienating his own thoughts, that was his objective. Once the whole of his self had been overcome and destroyed, once every need and every drive of his heart was silent, that was when the ultimate had to wake, the deepest part of his being, that which is no longer the self, the great secret.
Siddhartha stood silent in the vertical glare of the Sun, aglow with pain, aglow with thirst, and he stood there till he no longer felt pain nor thirst. He stood silent in the time of rains with the water flowing from his hair onto his icy cold shoulders, over his icy cold hips and legs, and the penitent remained standing there till his shoulders and his legs no longer felt icy cold, till they became silent, till they were at peace. He crouched silent in the thorny bushes, blood dropping from his burning skin, pus dropping from his wounds, and Siddhartha remained rigid, remained motionless, till the blood no longer flowed, till the thorns no longer pierced his skin, till nothing more burned him.
Siddhartha sat up straight and learned to control his breath, learned to need little air, learned to stop his breath. He learned, starting with his breath, to still the beats of his heart, learned to reduce the beats of his heart till they became fewer and then till there were almost none.
Siddhartha was taught by the eldest of the samanas, he trained in losing the self, he trained in contemplation, learned new samana rules. A heron flew out of the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha took the heron into his soul, he flew over the woods and mountains, he was a heron, he ate fish, he hungered as a heron hungers, he spoke the heron language, he died the death of a heron. A dead jackal lay on the sand by the water, and Siddhartha's soul slipped into the corpse, he was entirely a jackal, he lay on the shore, he bloated with gas, he stank, he decayed, he was torn apart by hyenas, he lost his skin to the vultures, he became a skeleton, became dust, blew in the wind that crossed the meadows. And Siddhartha's soul came back to him, died, decayed, crumbled, it had tasted the dark inebriation of the circle of life, again endured thirst like the hunter in the wasteland where the circle of life might be left behind, where cause and effect ended, where eternity without pain began. He brought death to his senses, brought death to his memory, slipped out of his own self and into a thousand alien forms, he was an animal, was carrion, was stone, was wood, was water, and each time found himself ever more aware, light of sun or moon, became again himself, swang in the circle, felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt the thirst anew.
Among the samanas Siddhartha learned many things, he learned many ways to leave his self behind. He learned the way of self-alienation by pain, by voluntary suffering and how to overcome pain, hunger, thirst, fatigue. He travelled on the way of self-alienation by meditation, by removing from his thoughts any sense that he was perceiving what presented itself to him. This he learned, and he learned many other ways to travel, he left his self behind a thousand times, he persisted in the not-self for hours, for days. But although these ways led him away from his self they always, at the end, led him back to it. Siddhartha fled from his self a thousand times, spent time in nothingness, in the animal, in a stone, but he was never able to prevent his return, the hour of his return was not avoidable, and he would find himself, once again, in the light of the sun or the moon, in shade or in rain, and Siddhartha and his self were there once again, once again the suffering of the circle of life was placed upon him.
At his side lived Govinda, his shadow, travelling the same road, undergoing the same trials. They seldom spoke to each other, only when it was needed for their service and their exercises. At times they would go together to the villages in order to beg for food for themselves and their teachers.
"What do you think, Govinda," Siddhartha once asked him as they were on their way to beg. "Do you think we have made any progress? Have we reached any of our targets?"
Govinda answered, "We have learned things, and we continue to learn. You will be a great samana, Siddhartha. You have learned every exercise very quickly, and the old samanas have been amazed at you. One day, Siddhartha, you will be a holy man."
Siddhartha said, "That is not how I see it, my friend. All that I have learned so far I could have learned much faster and much easier in any bar where the whores are, my friend, among all the cheats and the gamblers."
Govinda said, "That is what you say, my friend, but you know that Siddhartha is not some cattle driver, and that a samana is not some drunkard. The drunk can numb his senses, he can find escape and rest for a short time, but then he comes back from his stupor and finds that all is as it was before. He makes himself no wiser, he has gathered no knowledge any sort, he has climbed not one step higher."
Siddhartha smiled and said, "I don't know, I've never been a drunkard. But I do know that in all my exercises and contemplations I have only ever found a brief respite from suffering, and remained just as far away from wisdom and liberation as a child in its mother's womb. I do know that, Govinda, I do know that."
Another time, when Siddhartha and Govinda came out of the woods together and down to the