Latest / Wisdom of the Ages Library / 11 - Om - Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Transcript
- Chapter eleven Olm. For a long time, the wound continued to burn. Many A traveler said, Arthur had to ferry across the river who was accompanied by a son or a daughter, And he saw none of them without envying him, without thinking, so many, so many thousands possessed the sweetest of good fortunes. Why don't I even bad people, even thieves and robbers, have children and love them, and are being loved by them, all except for me? Thus simply, thus, without reason, he now thought, Thus similar to the childlike people, he had become differently than before. He now looked upon people less smart, less proud, but instead warmer, more curious, more involved. When he ferried travelers of the ordinary kind, childlike people, business men, warriors, women, these people did not seem alien to him as they used to. He understood them, He understood and shared their life, which was not guided by thoughts and insight, but solely by urges and wishes. He felt like them. Though he was near perfection and was bearing his final wound, it seemed to him as if those childlike people were his brothers. Their vanities, desires for possession, and ridiculous aspects were no longer ridiculous to him, became understandable, became lovable, and even became worthy of veneration to him. The blind love of a mother for her child, the stupid, blind pride of a conceited father for his only son, the blind, wild desire of a young, vain woman for jewelry and admiring glances from men. All of these urge. All of this childish stuff, all of these simple, foolish, but immensely strong, strongly living, strongly prevailing urges and desires, were now no childish notions for said Arthur any more. He saw people living for their sake, saw them achieving infinitely much for their sake, traveling, conducting wars, suffering infinitely much, bearing infinitely much, and he could love them for it. He saw life, that what is alive, the indestructible, the brahmin. In each of their passions, each of their acts worthy of love and admiration. Were these people in their blind loyalty, their blind strength and tenacity, They lacked nothing. There was nothing. The knowledgeable one, the thinker, had put himself above them, except for one thing, a single, tiny, small thing, the consciousness, the conscious thought of the oneness of all life and said Arthur, even doubted in many an hour whether this knowledge, this thought, was to be valued thus highly, whether it might also perhaps be a childish idea of the thinking people, of the thinking and childlike people. In all other respects, the worldly people were of equal rank to the wise men were often far superior to them, just as animals too, can after in some moments, seemed to be superior to humans in their tough, unrelenting performance of what is necessary. Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in said Arthur. The realization, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability a secret art to think every moment while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness. Slowly this blossomed in him was shining back at him from Vasadeva's old childlike face, harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling oneness. But the wound still burned longingly and bitterly. Siddarthur thought of his son, nurtured his love and tenderness in his heart, allowed the pain to gnaw at him. Committed all foolish acts of love, not by itself, this flame would go out. And one day, when the wound burned violently, sid Arthur ferried across the river, driven by a yearning, got off the boat and was willing to go to the city and to look for his The river flowed softly and quietly. It was the dry season, but its voice sounded strange. It laughed, It laughed clearly. The river laughed. It laughed brightly and clearly. At the old ferryman. Saddarthurs stopped. He bent over the water in order to hear even better, and he saw his face reflected in the quietly moving waters. And in this reflected face there was something which reminded him, something he had forgotten. And as he thought about it, he found it. His face resembled another face which he used to know and love and also fear. It resembled his father's face, the Brahmin, And he remembered how he, a long time ago, as a young man, had forced his father to let him go to the penitents, how he had bade his farewell to him, how he had gone and had never come back. Had his father not also suffered the same pain for him, which he now suffered for his son. Had his father not long since died alone without having seen his son again, did he not have to expect the same fate for himself? Was it not a comedy, a strange and stupid matter, this repetition, this running around in a fateful circle. The river laughed. Yes, so it was everything came back which had not been suffered and solved up to its end. The same pain was suffered over and over again. But said Arthur went back into the boat and ferried back to the hut, thinking of his father, thinking of his son, laughed at by the river, at odds with himself tending towards despair, and not less tending towards laughing along but himself and the entire world. Alas the wound was not blossoming again, his heart was still fighting his fate. Cheerfulness and victory were not yet shining from his suffering. Nevertheless, he felt hope, and once he had returned to the hut, he felt an undefeatable desire to open up to Vasudeva, to show him everything. The master of listening to say everything, Vasudeva was sitting in the hut and weaving a basket. He no longer used the ferry boat. His eyes were starting to get weak, and not just his eyes, his arms and hands as well, unchanging and flourishing. Was only the joy and the cheerful benevolence of his face. Sir Arthur sat down next to the old man. Slowly he started talking what they had never talked about. He now told him him of his walk to the city at that time, of the burning wound, of his envy at the sight of happy fathers, of his knowledge of the foolishness of such wishes, of his futile fight against them. He reported everything he was able to say, everything, even the most embarrassing parts. Everything could be said, everything shown. Everything he could tell, he presented his wound. Also told how he fled today, how he ferried across the water, a childlike runaway, willing to walk to the city, How the river had laughed while he spoke, spoke for a long time while Vasudeva was listening with a quiet face. Vasudeva's listening gave Siddartha a stronger sensation than ever before. He sensed how his pain, his fears flowed over to him, secret hope flowed over came back at him from his counterpart. To show his wound to this listener was the same as bathing it in the river until it had cooled and become one with the river. While he was still speaking, still admitting and confessing, Siddarthur felt more and more that this was no longer Vasadeva, no longer a human being who was listening to him, That this motionless listener was absorbing his confession into himself like a tree the rain. That this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God himself, that he was the eternal itself. And while Siddarthur stopped thinking of himself and his wound, this realization of Vasudeva's changed character took possession of him, and the more he felt it and entered into it, the less wondrous it became. The more he realized that everything was in order and natural, that Vasudeva had already been like this for a long time, almost forever, that only he had not quite recognized it. Yes, that he himself had almost reached the same state. He felt that he was now seeing old Wassudeva as the people see the gods, and that this could not last. In his heart, he started bidding his farewell to Vasudeva. Through all this he talked incessantly. When he had finished talking, Vasudeva turned his friendly eyes, which had grown slightly weak, at him, said nothing. Let his silent love and cheerfulness, understanding and knowledge shine at him. He took Sir Arthur's hand, led him to the seat of the bank, sat down with him, smiled at the river. You've heard it, laugh, he said, But you haven't heard everything. Let's listen, you'll hear more. They listened softly sounded the river singing in many voices. Sad Arthur looked into the river, and images appeared to him in the moving water. His father appeared lonely, mourning for his son. He himself appeared lonely, he also being tied with the bondage of yearning to his distant son. His son appeared lonely as well. The boy greedily rushing along the burning course of his young wishes, each one heading for his goal, each one obsessed by the goal, each one suffering. The river sang with a voice of suffering longingly. It sang longingly. It flowed towards its goal lamentingly. Its voice sang, Do you hear Vasudiva's mute gaze asked, Saddarthur nodded, listen better, Vasudiva whispered. Sadd Arthur made an effort to listen better. The image of his father, his own image, the image of his son merged. Kamala's image also appeared and was dispersed, and the image of Govinda, and other images, and they merged with each other, turned all into the river headed, all being the river for the goal, longing, desiring, suffering, and the river's voice sounded full of yearning, full of burning woe, full of unsatisfiable desire for the goal. The river was heading. Sad Darthur saw it, hurrying, the river which consisted of him and his loved ones, and of all people he had ever seen. All of these waves and waters were hurrying, suffering towards goals, many goals, the waterfall, the lake, the rapids, the sea, and all goals were reached, and every goal was followed by a new one. And the water turned into vapor and rose to the sky, turned into rain and poured down from the sky, turned into a souce, a stream, a river headed forward once again, flowed on once again, but the longing voice had changed. It still resounded full of suffering, searching. But other voices joined it, voices of joy and of suffering, good and bad, voices, laughing and sad ones, A hundred voices, a thousand voices, sadartha listened. He was now nothing but a listener, completely concentrated on listening, completely empty. He felt that he had now finished learning to listen. Often before he had heard all this, these many voices in the river. Today it sounded new. Already he could no longer tell the many voices apart, not the happy ones from the weeping ones, not the ones of children from those of men. They all belonged together, the lamentation of yearning and the laughter of the knowledgeable one, the scream of rage and the moaning of the dying ones. Everything was one. Everything was intertwined and connected, entangled a thousand times, and everything altogether all voices, all goals, all yearning, all suffering, all pleasure, all that was good and evil. All of this together was the world. All of it together was the flow of events, was the music of life. And when Sir Arthur was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering, nor the laughter. When he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and submerged his self into it. But when he heard them all perceived the whole, the oneness. Then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was om the perfection. Do you hear Vasudeva's gaze, asked again, brightly, Vasudeva's smile was shining, floating radiantly over all the wrinkles of his old face, as the olm was floating in the air, above all the voices of the river. Brightly, his smile was shining when he looked at his friend, and brightly the same smile was now starting to shine on Siddarthur's face as well. His wound blossomed, his suffering was shining, his self had flown into the oneness. In this hour, Sir Arthur stopped fighting his fate, stopped suffering. On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a knowledge which is no longer opposed by any will, which knows perfection, which is in agreement with the flow of events, with the current of life, full of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure of others devoted to the floe belonging to the oneness. When Vasudeva rose from the seat by the bank, when he looked into Sir Arthur's eyes and saw the cheerfulness of the knowledge shining in them, he softly touched his shoulder with his hand in his careful and tender manner, and said, I have been waiting for this hour, my dear, and now that it has come, let me leave. For a long time. I've been waiting for this hour for a long time. I've been Vasudiva the fairy man. Now it's enough. Farewell, Haut, farewell, river, farewell, said Arthur. Said Arthur made a deep bow before him, who bid his farewell. I've known it, he said quietly, you'll go into the forests. I am going into the forests. I am going into the oneness, spoke Vasudiva, with a bright smile. With a bright smile, he left. Said Arthur. Watched him leaving with deep joy, with great solemnity. He watched him leave, saw his steps full of peace, saw his head full of luster, saw his body full of light. End of Chapter eleven.