Siddhartha | Page 6

short numbing of the
senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short
numbing is what the driver of an ox-cart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of
rice-wine or fermented coconut-milk. Then he won't feel his self any more, then he won't
feel the pains of life any more, then he finds a short numbing of the senses. When he falls
asleep over his bowl of rice-wine, he'll find the same what Siddhartha and Govinda find
when they escape their bodies through long exercises, staying in the non-self. This is how
it is, oh Govinda."
Quoth Govinda: "You say so, oh friend, and yet you know that Siddhartha is no driver of
an ox-cart and a Samana is no drunkard. It's true that a drinker numbs his senses, it's true
that he briefly escapes and rests, but he'll return from the delusion, finds everything to be

unchanged, has not become wiser, has gathered no enlightenment,--has not risen several
steps."
And Siddhartha spoke with a smile: "I do not know, I've never been a drunkard. But that I,
Siddhartha, find only a short numbing of the senses in my exercises and meditations and
that I am just as far removed from wisdom, from salvation, as a child in the mother's
womb, this I know, oh Govinda, this I know."
And once again, another time, when Siddhartha left the forest together with Govinda, to
beg for some food in the village for their brothers and teachers, Siddhartha began to
speak and said: "What now, oh Govinda, might we be on the right path? Might we get
closer to enlightenment? Might we get closer to salvation? Or do we perhaps live in a
circle-- we, who have thought we were escaping the cycle?"
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