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 this 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, businessmen, 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, 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 anymore. 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 Brahman. 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 Siddhartha 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, seem to be superior to humans
in their tough, unrelenting performance of what is necessary. Slowly blossomed, slowly
ripened in sid 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. Siddartha 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,
Siddartha 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 fairyman. Sad Arthur 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 Brahman,
And he remembered how he, a long time ago, as a young man,
had forced his father to let him go to the penitence, how he
had bad his furwell 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
Vasadeva, 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, said Arthur. Sat
down next to the old man. Slowly he started talking what they had never
talked about. He now told 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 run away, 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. Vasadeva's listening gave
Sidartha 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, SidD Arthur 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 sid
Arthur stopped thinking of himself and his wound, this realization of Vasadeva'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 realize 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 Vasudeva 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 sad 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,
said 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 Thasudeva's mute gaze asked Siddartha nodded,
listen better. Thasudeva whispered. Sidarthur 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. Sidarthur
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 source 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, Sadarthur 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 said 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 hisself
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 OM 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
sid Arthur's face as well. His wound blossomed, his suffering was shining.
His self had flown into the oneness. In this hour, sid 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 a current of life,
full of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure
of others, devoted to the flow, belonging to the oneness. When Vasudeva
rose from the seat by the bank, when he looked into sird 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've
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 fairyman. Now it's
enough. Farewell, heart, farewell, river, farewell, said Arthur.
Sid 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 weness, spoke Vasudiva
with a bright smile. With a bright smile, he left. Sid 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.