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Chapter eleven Olm. For a long
time, the wound continued to burn.

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Many A traveler said, Arthur had
to ferry across the river who was accompanied

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by a son or a daughter,
and he saw none of them without envying

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him, without thinking, so many, so many thousands possessed this sweetest of

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good fortunes. Why don't I even
bad people, even thieves and robbers,

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have children and love them, and
are being loved by them, all except

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for me? Thus simply, thus, without reason, he now thought,

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Thus similar to the childlike people,
he had become differently than before. He

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now looked upon people less smart,
less proud, but instead warmer, more

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curious, more involved. When he
ferried travelers of the ordinary kind, childlike

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people, businessmen, warriors, women, these people did not seem alien to

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him as they used to. He
understood them, He understood and shared their

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life, which was not guided by
thoughts and insight, but solely by urges

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and wishes. He felt like them. Though he was near perfection and was

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bearing his final wound, it seemed
to him as if those childlike people were

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his brothers. Their vanities, desires
for possession, and ridiculous aspects were no

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longer ridiculous to him, became understandable, became lovable, and even became worthy

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of veneration to him. The blind
love of a mother for her child,

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the stupid, blind pride of a
conceited father for his only son, the

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blind, wild desire of a young, vain woman for jewelry, and admiring

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glances from men. All of these, all of this childish stuff, all

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of these simple, foolish, but
immensely strong, strongly living, strongly prevailing

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urges and desires, were now no
childish notions for said Arthur anymore. He

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saw people living for their sake,
saw them achieving infinitely much for their sake,

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traveling, conducting wars, suffering infinitely
much, bearing infinitely much, and

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he could love them for it.
He saw life, that what is alive,

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the indestructible, the Brahman. In
each of their passions, each of

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their acts worthy of love and admiration. Were these people in their blind loyalty,

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their blind strength and tenacity, They
lacked nothing. There was nothing.

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The knowledgeable one, the thinker,
had put himself above them, except for

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one thing, a single, tiny, small thing, the consciousness, the

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conscious thought of the oneness of all
life and Siddhartha even doubted in many an

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hour whether this knowledge, this thought
was to be valued thus highly, whether

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it might also perhaps be a childish
idea of the thinking people, of the

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thinking and childlike people. In all
other respects, the worldly people were of

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equal rank to the wise men were
often far superior to them, just as

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animals too, can after in some
moments, seem to be superior to humans

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in their tough, unrelenting performance of
what is necessary. Slowly blossomed, slowly

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ripened in sid Arthur. The realization
the knowledge what wisdom actually was, what

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the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of

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the soul, an ability a secret
art to think every moment while living his

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life, the thought of oneness,
to be able to feel and inhale the

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oneness. Slowly this blossomed in him
was shining back at him from Vasadeva's old

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childlike face, harmony, knowledge of
the eternal perfection of the world, smiling

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oneness. But the wound still burned
longingly and bitterly. Siddartha thought of his

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son, nurtured his love and tenderness
in his heart, allowed the pain to

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gnaw at him. Committed all foolish
acts of love, not by itself,

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this flame would go out. And
one day, when the wound burned violently,

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Siddartha ferried across the river, driven
by a yearning, got off the

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boat and was willing to go to
the city and to look for his The

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river flowed softly and quietly. It
was the dry season, but its voice

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sounded strange. It laughed, It
laughed clearly. The river laughed. It

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laughed brightly and clearly at the old
fairyman. Sad Arthur stopped. He bent

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over the water in order to hear
even better, and he saw his face

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reflected in the quietly moving waters.
And in this reflected face there was something

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which reminded him, something he had
forgotten. And as he thought about it,

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he found it. His face resembled
another face which he used to know

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and love and also fear. It
resembled his father's face, the Brahman,

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And he remembered how he, a
long time ago, as a young man,

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had forced his father to let him
go to the penitence, how he

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had bad his furwell to him,
how he had gone and had never come

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back. Had his father not also
suffered the same pain for him, which

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he now suffered for his son.
Had his father not long since died alone

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without having seen his son again,
did he not have to expect the same

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fate for himself? Was it not
a comedy, a strange and stupid matter,

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this repetition, this running around in
a fateful circle. The river laughed.

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Yes, so it was everything came
back which had not been suffered and

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solved up to its end. The
same pain was suffered over and over again.

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But said Arthur went back into the
boat and ferried back to the hut,

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thinking of his father, thinking of
his son, laughed at by the

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river, at odds with himself tending
towards despair, and not less tending towards

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laughing along but himself and the entire
world. Alas the wound was not blossoming

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again, his heart was still fighting
his fate. Cheerfulness and victory were not

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yet shining from his suffering. Nevertheless, he felt hope, and once he

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had returned to the hut, he
felt an undefeatable desire to open up to

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Vasadeva, to show him everything.
The master of listening to say everything,

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Vasudeva was sitting in the hut and
weaving a basket. He no longer used

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the ferry boat. His eyes were
starting to get weak, and not just

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his eyes, his arms and hands
as well, unchanging and flourishing. Was

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only the joy and the cheerful benevolence
of his face, said Arthur. Sat

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down next to the old man.
Slowly he started talking what they had never

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talked about. He now told of
his walk to the city at that time,

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of the burning wound, of his
envy at the sight of happy fathers,

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of his knowledge of the foolishness of
such wishes, of his futile fight

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against them. He reported everything he
was able to say, everything, even

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the most embarrassing parts. Everything could
be said, everything shown. Everything he

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could tell, he presented his wound. Also told how he fled today,

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how he ferried across the water,
a childlike run away, willing to walk

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to the city, How the river
had laughed while he spoke, spoke for

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a long time while Vasudeva was listening
with a quiet face. Vasadeva's listening gave

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Sidartha a stronger sensation than ever before. He sensed how his pain, his

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fears flowed over to him, secret
hope flowed over came back at him from

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his counterpart to show his wound to
this listener was the same as bathing it

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in the river until it had cooled
and become one with the river. While

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he was still speaking, still admitting
and confessing, SidD Arthur felt more and

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more that this was no longer Vasadeva, no longer a human being who was

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listening to him, That this motionless
listener was absorbing his confession into himself like

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a tree the rain. That this
motionless man was the river itself, that

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he was God himself, that he
was the eternal itself. And while sid

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Arthur stopped thinking of himself and his
wound, this realization of Vasadeva's changed character

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took possession of him, and the
more he felt it and entered into it,

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the less wondrous it became. The
more he realize that everything was in

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order and natural, that Vasudeva had
already been like this for a long time,

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almost forever, that only he had
not quite recognized it. Yes,

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that he himself had almost reached the
same state. He felt that he was

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now seeing old Vasudeva as the people
see the gods, and that this could

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not last. In his heart,
he started bidding his farewell to Vasudeva.

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Through all this, he talked incessantly. When he had finished talking, Vasudeva

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turned his friendly eyes, which had
grown slightly weak, at him, said

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nothing. Let his silent love and
cheerfulness, understanding and knowledge shine at him.

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He took sad Arthur's hand, led
him to the seat of the bank,

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sat down with him, smiled at
the river. You've heard it,

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laugh, he said, But you
haven't heard everything. Let's listen, you'll

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hear more. They listened softly,
sounded the river singing in many voices,

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said Arthur. Looked into the river, and images appeared to him in the

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moving water. His father appeared lonely, mourning for his son. He himself

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appeared lonely, he also being tied
with the bondage of yearning to his distant

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son. His son appeared lonely as
well. The boy greedily rushing along the

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burning course of his young wishes,
each one heading for his goal, each

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one obsessed by the goal, each
one suffering. The river sang with a

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voice of suffering longingly. It sang
longingly. It flowed towards its goal lamentingly.

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Its voice sang, do you hear
Thasudeva's mute gaze asked Siddartha nodded,

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listen better. Thasudeva whispered. Sidarthur
made an effort to listen better. The

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image of his father, his own
image, the image of his son merged.

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Kamala's image also appeared and was dispersed, and the image of Govinda,

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and other images, and they merged
with each other, turned all into the

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river headed, all being the river
for the goal, longing, desiring,

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suffering, And the river's voice sounded
full of yearning, full of burning woe,

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full of unsatisfiable desire for the goal. The river was heading. Sidarthur

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saw it, hurrying, the river
which consisted of him and his loved ones,

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and of all people he had ever
seen. All of these waves and

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waters were hurrying, suffering towards goals, many goals, the waterfall, the

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lake, the rapids, the sea, and all goals were reached, and

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every goal was followed by a new
one. And the water turned into vapor

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and rose to the sky, turned
into rain and poured down from the sky,

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turned into a source a stream,
a river headed forward once again,

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flowed on once again, But the
longing voice had changed. It still resounded

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full of suffering, searching, But
other voices joined it, voices of joy

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and of suffering, good and bad, voices, laughing and sad ones.

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A hundred voices, a thousand voices, Sadarthur listened. He was now nothing

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but a listener, completely concentrated on
listening, completely empty. He felt that

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he had now finished learning to listen. Often before he had heard all this,

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these many voices in the river.
Today it sounded new. Already he

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could no longer tell the many voices
apart, not the happy ones from the

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weeping ones, not the ones of
children from those of men. They all

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belonged together, the lamentation of yearning
and the laughter of the knowledgeable one,

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the scream of rage and the moaning
of the dying ones. Everything was one.

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Everything was intertwined and connected, entangled
a thousand times, and everything altogether

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all voices, all goals, all
yearning, all suffering, all pleasure,

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all that was good and evil.
All of this together was the world.

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All of it together was the flow
of events, was the music of life.

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And when said Arthur was listening attentively
to this river, this song of

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a thousand voices, when he neither
listened to the suffering nor the laughter,

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when he did not tie his soul
to any particular voice, and submerged hisself

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into it. But when he heard
them all perceived the whole, the oneness.

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Then the great song of the thousand
voices consisted of a single word,

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which was Om, the perfection.
Do you hear Vasudeva's gaze, asked again,

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brightly, Vasudeva's smile was shining,
floating radiantly over all the wrinkles of

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his old face, as the OM
was floating in the air, above all

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the voices of the river. Brightly, his smile was shining when he looked

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at his friend, and brightly the
same smile was now starting to shine on

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sid Arthur's face as well. His
wound blossomed, his suffering was shining.

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His self had flown into the oneness. In this hour, sid Arthur stopped

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fighting his fate, stopped suffering.
On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a

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knowledge which is no longer opposed by
any will, which knows perfection, which

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is in agreement with the flow of
events, with a current of life,

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full of sympathy for the pain of
others, full of sympathy for the pleasure

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of others, devoted to the flow, belonging to the oneness. When Vasudeva

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rose from the seat by the bank, when he looked into sird Arthur's eyes

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and saw the cheerfulness of the knowledge
shining in them, he softly touched his

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shoulder with his hand in his careful
and tender manner, and said, I've

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been waiting for this hour, my
dear, and now that it has come,

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let me leave. For a long
time. I've been waiting for this

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hour for a long time. I've
been Vasudiva, the fairyman. Now it's

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enough. Farewell, heart, farewell, river, farewell, said Arthur.

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Sid Arthur made a deep bow before
him, who bid his farewell. I've

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known it, he said, quietly, you'll go into the forests. I

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am going into the forests. I
Am going into the weness, spoke Vasudiva

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with a bright smile. With a
bright smile, he left. Sid Arthur

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watched him leaving with deep joy,
with great solemnity. He watched him leave,

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saw his steps full of peace,
saw his head full of luster,

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saw his body full of light.
End of Chapter eleven.