Latest / Philosophy and Faith / 12 - Govinda - Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Chapter twelve Govinda, together with other monks. Govinda used to
- 0:05Speaker 1: spend the time of rest between pilgrimages in the pleasure
- 0:09Speaker 1: grove which the courtazan Kamala had given to the followers
- 0:12Speaker 1: of Gautama for a gift. He heard talk of an
- 0:16Speaker 1: old ferryman who lived one day's journey away by the river,
- 0:21Speaker 1: and who was regarded as a wise man by many.
- 0:25Speaker 1: When Govinda went back on his way, he chose the
- 0:28Speaker 1: path to the ferry, eager to see the ferryman because
- 0:33Speaker 1: although he had lived his entire life by the rules,
- 0:36Speaker 1: though he was also looked upon with veneration by the
- 0:40Speaker 1: younger monks on account of his age and modesty, the
- 0:43Speaker 1: restlessness and the searching still had not perished from his heart.
- 0:50Speaker 1: He came to the river and asked the old man
- 0:52Speaker 1: to ferry him over, And when they got off the
- 0:54Speaker 1: boat on the other side, he said to the old man,
- 0:58Speaker 1: you're very good to us monks and pilgrims. You've already
- 1:02Speaker 1: ferried many of us across the river, aren't you too, ferryman,
- 1:07Speaker 1: A searcher for the right path, quoth said Arthur, smiling
- 1:12Speaker 1: from his old eyes. Do you call yourself a searcher,
- 1:16Speaker 1: oh venerable one, though you are already old in years
- 1:20Speaker 1: and are wearing the robe of Gautama's monks. It's true,
- 1:25Speaker 1: I'm old, spoke Govinda. But I haven't stopped searching. Never
- 1:31Speaker 1: I'll stop searching. This seems to be my destiny. You too,
- 1:35Speaker 1: so it seems to me have been searching. Would you
- 1:39Speaker 1: like to tell me something, O, honorable one, quote, said Arthur.
- 1:44Speaker 1: What should I possibly have to tell you, oh venerable one,
- 1:48Speaker 1: Perhaps that you're searching far too much, that in all
- 1:52Speaker 1: that searching, you don't find the time for finding. How come,
- 1:58Speaker 1: asked Govinda. When someone is searching, said said Arthur, then
- 2:04Speaker 1: it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes
- 2:07Speaker 1: still see is that which he searches for. That he
- 2:11Speaker 1: is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind,
- 2:16Speaker 1: because he always thinks of nothing but the object of
- 2:19Speaker 1: his search, because he has a goal, because he is
- 2:23Speaker 1: obsessed by the goal. Searching means having a goal, but
- 2:29Speaker 1: finding means being free, being open, having no goal. You,
- 2:37Speaker 1: oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because striving
- 2:42Speaker 1: for your goal, there are many things you don't see
- 2:45Speaker 1: which are directly in front of your eyes. I don't
- 2:49Speaker 1: quite understand yet, said Govinda. What do you mean by this,
- 2:55Speaker 1: quoth said Arthur, A long time ago, oh venerable one,
- 3:00Speaker 1: many years ago, you've once before been at this river
- 3:04Speaker 1: and have found a sleeping man by the river, and
- 3:07Speaker 1: have sat down with him to guard his sleep. But, oh, Govinda,
- 3:13Speaker 1: you did not recognize the sleeping man, Astonished as if
- 3:18Speaker 1: he had been the object of a magic spell. The
- 3:20Speaker 1: monk looked into the ferry man's eyes. Are you, said Arthur,
- 3:27Speaker 1: He asked with a timid voice. I wouldn't have recognized
- 3:31Speaker 1: you this time as well. From my heart, I'm greeting you,
- 3:34Speaker 1: said Arthur. From my heart, I'm happy to see you
- 3:38Speaker 1: once again. You've changed a lot, my friend, and so
- 3:42Speaker 1: you've now become a ferryman in a friendly manner, said Arthur,
- 3:47Speaker 1: laughed a fairy man. Yes, many people, Govinda, have to
- 3:52Speaker 1: change a lot, have to wear many a robe. I
- 3:56Speaker 1: am one of those, my dear. Be welcome Govinda, and
- 4:00Speaker 1: spend the night in my hart. Govinda stayed the night
- 4:04Speaker 1: in the hut and slept on the bed which used
- 4:06Speaker 1: to be Vasudeva's bed. Many questions he posed to the
- 4:11Speaker 1: friend of his youth, many things, said Arthur had to
- 4:14Speaker 1: tell him from his life. When in the next morning
- 4:18Speaker 1: the time had come to start the day's journey, Govinda said,
- 4:22Speaker 1: not without hesitation these words before I'll continue my path,
- 4:27Speaker 1: said Arthur. Permit me to ask one more question. Do
- 4:32Speaker 1: you have a teaching? Do you have a faith or
- 4:35Speaker 1: a knowledge you follow which helps you to live and
- 4:38Speaker 1: to do right? Quoth said Arthur. You know, my dear,
- 4:44Speaker 1: that I, already, as a young man, in those days
- 4:47Speaker 1: when we lived with the penitents in the forest, started
- 4:50Speaker 1: to distrust teachers and teachings and to turn my back
- 4:54Speaker 1: to them. I have stuck with this. Nevertheless, I have
- 4:59Speaker 1: had many teachers since then. A beautiful courtesan has been
- 5:04Speaker 1: my teacher for a long time, and a rich merchant
- 5:07Speaker 1: was my teacher. And some gamblers with dice once. Even
- 5:11Speaker 1: a follower of Buddha traveling on foot has been my teacher.
- 5:16Speaker 1: He sat with me while I had fallen asleep in
- 5:19Speaker 1: the forest on the pilgrimage. I've also learned from him.
- 5:24Speaker 1: I'm also grateful to him, very grateful. But most of
- 5:28Speaker 1: all I have learned here from this river and from
- 5:32Speaker 1: my predecessor, the ferryman Vasudeva. He was a very simple person. Vasudiva,
- 5:40Speaker 1: he was no thinker, but he knew what is necessary
- 5:44Speaker 1: just as well as Gautama. He was a perfect man,
- 5:48Speaker 1: a saint. Govinda said, still, oh, Siddhartha, you love a
- 5:54Speaker 1: bit to mock people, as it seems to me. I
- 5:57Speaker 1: believe in you and know that you have followed a teacher.
- 6:01Speaker 1: But haven't you found something by yourself? Though you found
- 6:05Speaker 1: no teachings, you still found certain thoughts, certain insights, which
- 6:10Speaker 1: are your own and which help you to live. If
- 6:13Speaker 1: you would like to tell me some of these, you
- 6:16Speaker 1: would delight my heart, quoth said Arthur. I've had thoughts, yes,
- 6:22Speaker 1: and insight, again and again, sometimes for an hour or
- 6:26Speaker 1: for an entire day. I have felt knowledge in me
- 6:29Speaker 1: as one would feel life in one's heart. There have
- 6:33Speaker 1: been many thoughts, but it would be hard for me
- 6:35Speaker 1: to convey them to you. Look, my dear Govinda, this
- 6:40Speaker 1: is one of my thoughts which I have found. Wisdom
- 6:43Speaker 1: cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries
- 6:48Speaker 1: to pass on to some one always sounds like foolishness.
- 6:53Speaker 1: Are you kidding, asked Govinda. I'm not kidding. I'm telling
- 6:58Speaker 1: you what I've found. Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom.
- 7:04Speaker 1: It can be found, it can be lived, It is
- 7:07Speaker 1: possible to be carried by it. Miracles can be performed
- 7:11Speaker 1: with it. But it cannot be expressed in words and taught.
- 7:17Speaker 1: This was what I, even as a young man, sometimes
- 7:21Speaker 1: suspected what has driven me away from the teachers. I
- 7:25Speaker 1: have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard as
- 7:29Speaker 1: a joke or foolishness, but which is my best thought.
- 7:34Speaker 1: It says, the opposite of every truth is just as true.
- 7:40Speaker 1: That's like this. Every truth can only be expressed and
- 7:44Speaker 1: put into words when it is one sided. Everything is
- 7:48Speaker 1: one sided, which can be thought with thoughts and said
- 7:52Speaker 1: with words. It's all one sided, All just one half.
- 7:57Speaker 1: All lacks completeness, roundness, oneness. When the exalted Gautamas spoke
- 8:05Speaker 1: in his teachings of the world, he had to divide
- 8:08Speaker 1: it into sansara and nirvana, into deception and truth, into
- 8:14Speaker 1: suffering and salvation. It cannot be done differently. There is
- 8:18Speaker 1: no other way for him who wants to teach, but
- 8:22Speaker 1: the world itself, what exists around us, in inside of us,
- 8:27Speaker 1: is never one sided. A person or an act is
- 8:31Speaker 1: never entirely sansara or entirely nirvana. A person is never
- 8:37Speaker 1: entirely holy or entirely sinful. It does really seem like
- 8:42Speaker 1: this because we are subject to deception, as if time
- 8:47Speaker 1: were something real. Time is not real, Govinda. I have
- 8:51Speaker 1: experienced this often and often again. And if time is
- 8:56Speaker 1: not real, then the gap which seems to be between
- 8:59Speaker 1: the world and the eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between
- 9:04Speaker 1: good and evil is also a deception. How come, asked
- 9:09Speaker 1: Govinda timidly, listen well, my dear, listen well. The sinner
- 9:15Speaker 1: which I am and which you are, is a sinner.
- 9:18Speaker 1: But in times to come he will be Brahma again.
- 9:21Speaker 1: He will reach the nirvana, will be Buddha. And now
- 9:25Speaker 1: see these times to come, our a deception are only
- 9:30Speaker 1: a parable. The sinner is not on his way to
- 9:33Speaker 1: become a Buddha. He is not in the process of developing,
- 9:37Speaker 1: though our capacity for thinking does not know how else
- 9:40Speaker 1: to picture these things. No, within the sinner is now
- 9:45Speaker 1: and to day already the future Buddha. His future is
- 9:49Speaker 1: already all there. You have to worship in him, in you,
- 9:53Speaker 1: in every one, the Buddha which is coming into being
- 9:57Speaker 1: the possible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda,
- 10:03Speaker 1: is not imperfect or on a slow path towards perfection. No,
- 10:08Speaker 1: it is perfect in every moment. All sin already carries
- 10:13Speaker 1: the divine forgiveness in itself. All small children already have
- 10:19Speaker 1: the old person in themselves, All infants already have death,
- 10:25Speaker 1: all dying people the eternal life. It is not possible
- 10:30Speaker 1: for any person to see how far another one has
- 10:33Speaker 1: already progressed on his path. In the robber and the
- 10:37Speaker 1: dice gambler, the Buddha is waiting. In the Brahman, the
- 10:42Speaker 1: robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the possibility
- 10:47Speaker 1: to put time out of existence, to see all life
- 10:51Speaker 1: which was, is and will be, as if it were simultaneous.
- 10:56Speaker 1: And there everything is good, everything is perfect, Every thing
- 11:00Speaker 1: is Brahman. Therefore I see whatever exists as good. Death
- 11:06Speaker 1: is to me like life, sin, like holiness, wisdom, like foolishness.
- 11:13Speaker 1: Everything has to be as it is. Everything only requires
- 11:18Speaker 1: my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement to be
- 11:23Speaker 1: good for me to do nothing but work for my benefit,
- 11:27Speaker 1: to be unable to ever harm me. I have experienced
- 11:32Speaker 1: on my body and on my soul that I needed
- 11:35Speaker 1: sin very much. I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity,
- 11:41Speaker 1: and needed the most shameful despair in order to learn
- 11:45Speaker 1: how to give up all resistance, in order to learn
- 11:48Speaker 1: how to love the world, in order to stop comparing
- 11:52Speaker 1: it to some world I wished I imagined some kind
- 11:57Speaker 1: of perfection I had made up. But to leave it
- 12:00Speaker 1: as it is, and to love it, and to enjoy
- 12:03Speaker 1: being a part of it. These, o Govinda, are some
- 12:08Speaker 1: of the thoughts which have come into my mind, said
- 12:12Speaker 1: Arthur bent Down picked up a stone from the ground
- 12:15Speaker 1: and weighed it in his hand. This, here, he said,
- 12:19Speaker 1: playing with it, is a stone, and will after a
- 12:23Speaker 1: certain time perhaps turn into soil, and will turn from
- 12:27Speaker 1: soil into a plant or an animal or human being.
- 12:32Speaker 1: In the past, I would have said, this stone is
- 12:35Speaker 1: just a stone, it is worthless. It belongs to the
- 12:39Speaker 1: world of the Maya. But because it might be able
- 12:42Speaker 1: to become also a human being and a spirit in
- 12:46Speaker 1: the cycle of transformations, therefore I also grant it importance.
- 12:52Speaker 1: Thus I would perhaps have thought in the past. But
- 12:55Speaker 1: to day I think this stone is a stone, it
- 13:00Speaker 1: is also animal, It is also God. It is also, Buddha,
- 13:05Speaker 1: I do not venerate and love it because it could
- 13:08Speaker 1: turn into this or that, but rather because it is
- 13:11Speaker 1: already and always everything. And it is this very fact
- 13:16Speaker 1: that it is a stone, that it appears to me
- 13:19Speaker 1: now and today as a stone. This is why I
- 13:23Speaker 1: love it and see worth and purpose in each of
- 13:26Speaker 1: its veins and cavities, in the yellow, in the gray,
- 13:30Speaker 1: in the hardness, in the sound it makes when I
- 13:33Speaker 1: knock at it, in the dryness or wetness of its surface.
- 13:38Speaker 1: There are stones which feel like oil or soap, and
- 13:41Speaker 1: others like leaves, others like sand. And everyone is special,
- 13:47Speaker 1: and praise the Olm in its own way. Each one
- 13:50Speaker 1: is Brahman. But simultaneously and just as much it is
- 13:55Speaker 1: a stone, it is oily or juicy. And this is
- 13:59Speaker 1: this very fact which I like and regard as wonderful
- 14:03Speaker 1: and worthy of worship. But let me speak no more
- 14:07Speaker 1: of this. The words are not good for the secret meaning.
- 14:11Speaker 1: Everything always becomes a bit different as soon as it
- 14:14Speaker 1: is put into words, gets distorted, a bit, a bit silly. Yes,
- 14:19Speaker 1: And this is also very good, and I like it
- 14:22Speaker 1: a lot. I also very much agree with this that
- 14:26Speaker 1: this what is one man's treasure and wisdom always sounds
- 14:30Speaker 1: like foolishness to another person. Govinda listened silently. Why have
- 14:36Speaker 1: you told me this about the stone, he asked hesitantly,
- 14:40Speaker 1: after a pause. I did it without a specific intention.
- 14:45Speaker 1: Or perhaps what I meant was that love this very
- 14:49Speaker 1: stone and the river and all these things we are
- 14:51Speaker 1: looking at and from and which we can learn. I
- 14:55Speaker 1: can love a stone, Govinda, and also a tree or
- 14:58Speaker 1: a piece of bark. These are things, and things can
- 15:02Speaker 1: be loved. But I cannot love words. Therefore teachings are
- 15:06Speaker 1: no good for me. They have no hardness, no softness,
- 15:11Speaker 1: no colors, no edges, no smell, no taste. They have
- 15:14Speaker 1: nothing but words. Perhaps it is these which keep you
- 15:19Speaker 1: from finding peace. Perhaps it is the many words, because
- 15:24Speaker 1: salvation and virtue, as well sansara and nirvana as well
- 15:29Speaker 1: are mere words, Govinda. There is no thing which would
- 15:33Speaker 1: be nirvana. There is just the word nirvana, quoth Govinda.
- 15:40Speaker 1: Not just a word, my friend, is nirvana. It is
- 15:43Speaker 1: a thought. Sid Arthur continued, per thought. It might be so,
- 15:49Speaker 1: I must confess to you, my dear, I don't differentiate
- 15:52Speaker 1: much between thoughts and words. To be honest, I also
- 15:56Speaker 1: have no high opinion of thoughts. I have a better
- 15:59Speaker 1: opinion of things here on this ferryboat. For instance, a
- 16:03Speaker 1: man has been my predecessor and teacher, a holy man
- 16:07Speaker 1: who has for many years simply believed in the river,
- 16:10Speaker 1: nothing else. He had noticed that the river spoke to him,
- 16:15Speaker 1: He learned from it, It educated and taught him. The
- 16:18Speaker 1: river seemed to be a god to him. For many
- 16:22Speaker 1: years he did not know that every wind, every cloud,
- 16:26Speaker 1: every bird, every beetle was just as divine and knows
- 16:30Speaker 1: just as much and can teach just as much as
- 16:34Speaker 1: the worshiped a river. But when this holy man went
- 16:38Speaker 1: into the forests, he knew everything, knew more than you
- 16:43Speaker 1: and me, without teachers, without books, only because he had
- 16:48Speaker 1: believed in the river. Govinda said, but is that which
- 16:53Speaker 1: you call things actually something real, something which has existence?
- 16:58Speaker 1: Isn't it just a to say option of the maya
- 17:01Speaker 1: just an image and illusion? Your stone, your tree, your river?
- 17:06Speaker 1: Are they actually a reality? This too, spoke said Arthur.
- 17:11Speaker 1: I do not care very much about let the things
- 17:14Speaker 1: be illusions or not. After all, I would then also
- 17:18Speaker 1: be an illusion. And thus they are always like me.
- 17:22Speaker 1: This is what makes them so dear and worthy of
- 17:25Speaker 1: veneration for me, they are like me. Therefore I can
- 17:29Speaker 1: love them. And this is now a teaching. You will
- 17:32Speaker 1: laugh about love, oh, Govinda, seems to me the most
- 17:36Speaker 1: important thing of all to thoroughly understand the world, to
- 17:41Speaker 1: explain it, to despise it. Maybe the thing great thinkers do.
- 17:46Speaker 1: But I'm only interested in being able to love the world,
- 17:50Speaker 1: not to despise it, not to hate it, and me
- 17:53Speaker 1: to be able to look upon it and me and
- 17:56Speaker 1: all beings with love and admiration and great respect. This
- 18:01Speaker 1: I understand, spoke Govinda. But this very thing was discovered
- 18:06Speaker 1: by the Exalted One to be a deception. He commands benevolence, clemency, sympathy, tolerance,
- 18:13Speaker 1: but not love. He forbade us to tie our heart
- 18:17Speaker 1: in love to earthly things. I know it, said said Arthur.
- 18:22Speaker 1: His smile shone golden. I know it, Govinda. And behold
- 18:28Speaker 1: with this, we are right in the middle of the
- 18:30Speaker 1: thicket of opinions, in the dispute about words. For I
- 18:35Speaker 1: cannot deny my words of love are in a contradiction,
- 18:38Speaker 1: a seeming contradiction, with Gatarma's words. For this very reason
- 18:44Speaker 1: I distrust in words so much, for I know This
- 18:47Speaker 1: contradiction is a deception. I know that I am in
- 18:51Speaker 1: agreement with Gattarma. How should he not know love? He
- 18:55Speaker 1: who has discovered all elements of human existence in their
- 18:59Speaker 1: train ansatoriness, in their meaninglessness, and yet loved people thus
- 19:05Speaker 1: much to use a long laborious life only to help
- 19:09Speaker 1: them to teach them. Even with him, even with your
- 19:13Speaker 1: great teacher, I prefer the thing over the words. Place
- 19:18Speaker 1: more importance on his acts and life than on his speeches,
- 19:23Speaker 1: more on the gestures of his hand than his opinions,
- 19:27Speaker 1: not his speech, not in his thoughts. I see his
- 19:30Speaker 1: greatness only in his actions, in his life. For a
- 19:36Speaker 1: long time, the two old men said nothing. Then spoke Govinda,
- 19:40Speaker 1: while bowing for a farewell, I thank you, sir Arthur,
- 19:44Speaker 1: for telling me some of your thoughts. They are partially
- 19:48Speaker 1: strange thoughts, not all have been instantly understandable to me.
- 19:53Speaker 1: This being as it may, I thank you and wish
- 19:56Speaker 1: you to have calm days. But he thought to himself,
- 20:01Speaker 1: this Siddartha is a bizarre person. He expresses bizarre thoughts.
- 20:07Speaker 1: His teachings sound foolish. How differently sound the Exalted One's
- 20:12Speaker 1: pure teachings clearer purer, more comprehensible, nothing strange, foolish or
- 20:19Speaker 1: silly as contained in them. But different from his thoughts
- 20:24Speaker 1: seemed to me, said Arthur's hands and feet, his eyes,
- 20:28Speaker 1: his forehead, his breath, his smile, his greeting, his walk.
- 20:33Speaker 1: Never again, after our Exalted Gautama has become one with
- 20:37Speaker 1: the Nirvana, Never since then have I met a person
- 20:41Speaker 1: of whom I felt this is a holy man. Only him,
- 20:46Speaker 1: this Siddartha, I have found to be like this. May
- 20:50Speaker 1: his teachings be strange, May his words sound foolish. Out
- 20:55Speaker 1: of his gaze and his hand, his skin, and his hair,
- 20:59Speaker 1: out of every part of him shines a purity, shines,
- 21:03Speaker 1: a calmness, shines a cheerfulness and mildness and holiness, which
- 21:09Speaker 1: I have seen in no other person since the final
- 21:11Speaker 1: death of our exalted teacher. As Govinda thought like this,
- 21:17Speaker 1: and there was a conflict in his heart, he once
- 21:20Speaker 1: again bowed to said Arthur. Drawn by love deeply, he
- 21:25Speaker 1: bowed to him, who was calmly sitting, said Arthur. He spoke,
- 21:31Speaker 1: we have become old men. It is unlikely for one
- 21:36Speaker 1: of us to see the other again in this incarnation.
- 21:40Speaker 1: I see, beloved, that you have found peace. I confess
- 21:45Speaker 1: that I haven't found it. Tell me, oh, honorable, one
- 21:49Speaker 1: one more word. Give me something on my way which
- 21:53Speaker 1: I can grasp, which I can understand. Give me something
- 21:57Speaker 1: to be with me on my path. It is often hard,
- 22:01Speaker 1: my path, often dark, said Arthur. Sir Arthur said nothing
- 22:06Speaker 1: and looked at him with the ever unchanged quiet smile.
- 22:11Speaker 1: Govinda stared at his face with fear, with yearning, suffering,
- 22:17Speaker 1: and the eternal search was visible in his look, eternal
- 22:21Speaker 1: not finding. Sir Arthur saw it and smiled. Bend down
- 22:28Speaker 1: to me, he whispered quietly in Govinda's ear. Bend down
- 22:33Speaker 1: to me like this, even closer, very closer, kiss my forehead, Govinda.
- 22:40Speaker 1: But while Govinda, with astonishment and yet drawn by great
- 22:44Speaker 1: love and expectation, obeyed his words, bent down closely to
- 22:49Speaker 1: him and touched his forehead with his lips. Something miraculous
- 22:54Speaker 1: happened to him while his thoughts were still dwelling on,
- 22:58Speaker 1: said Arthur's wondrous word words, while he was still struggling
- 23:02Speaker 1: in vain and with reluctance to think away, time to
- 23:07Speaker 1: ignore Nirvana and Sansara as one while even a certain
- 23:11Speaker 1: contempt for the words of his friend was fighting in
- 23:14Speaker 1: him against an immense love and veneration. This happened to him.
- 23:21Speaker 1: He no longer saw the face of his friend, said Arthur.
- 23:25Speaker 1: Instead he saw other faces, many a long sequence, a
- 23:31Speaker 1: flowing river of faces, of hundreds of thousands, which all
- 23:36Speaker 1: came and disappeared, and yet all seemed to be there simultaneously,
- 23:42Speaker 1: which all constantly changed and renewed themselves, and which was
- 23:46Speaker 1: still all, said Arthur. He saw the face of a fish,
- 23:51Speaker 1: a carp with infinitely painful opened mouth, the face of
- 23:57Speaker 1: a dying fish with fading eyes. He saw the face
- 24:00Speaker 1: of a newborn child, red and full of wrinkles, distorted
- 24:05Speaker 1: from crying. He saw the face of a murderer. He
- 24:09Speaker 1: saw him plunging a knife into the body of another person.
- 24:13Speaker 1: He saw in the same second this criminal in bondage,
- 24:18Speaker 1: kneeling and his head being chopped off by the executioner
- 24:21Speaker 1: with one blow of his sword. He saw the bodies
- 24:25Speaker 1: of men and women naked in positions and cramps of
- 24:29Speaker 1: frenzied love. He saw corpses stretched out, motionless, cold void.
- 24:37Speaker 1: He saw the heads of animals, of bores, of crocodiles,
- 24:40Speaker 1: of elephants, of bulls of birds, He saw gods, he
- 24:44Speaker 1: saw Krishna, he saw Ugny. He saw all of these
- 24:49Speaker 1: figures and faces in a thousand relationships with one another,
- 24:52Speaker 1: each one helping the other, loving it, hating it, destroying it,
- 24:58Speaker 1: giving rebirth to it. Each one was a will to die,
- 25:03Speaker 1: a passionate, painful confession of transitoriness. And yet none of
- 25:09Speaker 1: them died. Each one only transformed, was always reborne, received
- 25:17Speaker 1: evermore a new face, without any time having passed between
- 25:22Speaker 1: the wine and the other face. And all of these
- 25:25Speaker 1: figures and faces rested, flowed, generated themselves, floated along and
- 25:31Speaker 1: merged with each other, and they were all constantly covered
- 25:35Speaker 1: by something thin, without individuality of its own, but yet existing,
- 25:41Speaker 1: like a thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin,
- 25:45Speaker 1: a shell or mold, or mask of water. And this
- 25:49Speaker 1: mask was smiling, And this mask was saird Arthur's smiling face,
- 25:54Speaker 1: which he Govinda, in this very same moment touched with
- 25:58Speaker 1: his lips. And Govinda saw it like this, this smile
- 26:05Speaker 1: of the mask, this smile of oneness, above the flowing forms,
- 26:10Speaker 1: this smile of simultaneousness, above the thousand births and deaths,
- 26:16Speaker 1: the smile of Siddartha was precisely the same, was precisely
- 26:21Speaker 1: of the same kind as the quiet, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps benevolent,
- 26:26Speaker 1: perhaps mocking wise, thousandfold smile of Gattama, the Buddha, as
- 26:33Speaker 1: he had seen it himself with great respect a hundred
- 26:36Speaker 1: times like this, Govinda knew, the perfected ones are smiling,
- 26:42Speaker 1: not knowing any more whether the time existed, whether the
- 26:45Speaker 1: vision had lasted a second or a hundred years, not
- 26:49Speaker 1: knowing any more whether there existed a Siddhartha, a Gattama Ami,
- 26:53Speaker 1: and a you. Feeling in his innermost self, as if
- 26:58Speaker 1: he had been wounded by a divine arrow, the injury
- 27:01Speaker 1: of which tasted sweet, Being enchanted and dissolved in his
- 27:06Speaker 1: innermost self, Govinda stood still for a little while, bent
- 27:11Speaker 1: over said Arthur's quiet face, which he had just kissed,
- 27:15Speaker 1: which had just been the scene of all manifestations, all transformations,
- 27:21Speaker 1: all existence. The face was unchanged, after under its surface
- 27:27Speaker 1: the depth of the thousandfoldness had closed up again. He
- 27:31Speaker 1: smiled sweetly, smiled quietly and softly, perhaps benevolently, perhaps very mockingly,
- 27:40Speaker 1: precisely as he used to smile the exalted one. Deeply.
- 27:45Speaker 1: Govinda bowed. Tears he knew nothing of ran down his
- 27:50Speaker 1: old face like a fire burnt, the feeling of the
- 27:53Speaker 1: most intimate love, the humblest veneration in his heart. Deeply
- 27:59Speaker 1: he bowed, touching the ground before him, who was sitting motionlessly,
- 28:06Speaker 1: whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved
- 28:10Speaker 1: in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy
- 28:14Speaker 1: to him in his life. End of Chapter twelve and
- 28:21Speaker 1: end of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse