AWAKENING

When Siddhartha left the grove, where the Buddha, the perfected one,

stayed behind, where Govinda stayed behind, then he felt that in this

grove his past life also stayed behind and parted from him.  He pondered

about this sensation, which filled him completely, as he was slowly

walking along.  He pondered deeply, like diving into a deep water he

let himself sink down to the ground of the sensation, down to the place

where the causes lie, because to identify the causes, so it seemed to

him, is the very essence of thinking, and by this alone sensations turn

into realizations and are not lost, but become entities and start to

emit like rays of light what is inside of them.

Slowly walking along, Siddhartha pondered.  He realized that he was no

youth any more, but had turned into a man.  He realized that one thing

had left him, as a snake is left by its old skin, that one thing no

longer existed in him, which had accompanied him throughout his youth

and used to be a part of him: the wish to have teachers and to listen to

teachings.  He had also left the last teacher who had appeared on his

path, even him, the highest and wisest teacher, the most holy one,

Buddha, he had left him, had to part with him, was not able to accept

his teachings.

Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself:  "But what

is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers,

and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach

you?"  And he found:  "It was the self, the purpose and essence of which

I sought to learn.  It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which

I sought to overcome.  But I was not able to overcome it, could only

deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it.  Truly, no

thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own

self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being

separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha!  And

there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about

Siddhartha!"

Having been pondering while slowly walking along, he now stopped as

these thoughts caught hold of him, and right away another thought sprang

forth from these, a new thought, which was:  "That I know nothing about

myself, that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown to me, stems

from one cause, a single cause:  I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing

from myself!  I searched Atman, I searched Brahman, I was willing to

to dissect my self and peel off all of its layers, to find the core of

all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life, the divine part, the

ultimate part.  But I have lost myself in the process."

Siddhartha opened his eyes and looked around, a smile filled his face

and a feeling of awakening from long dreams flowed through him from his

head down to his toes.  And it was not long before he walked again,

walked quickly like a man who knows what he has got to do.

"Oh," he thought, taking a deep breath, "now I would not let Siddhartha

escape from me again!  No longer, I want to begin my thoughts and my

life with Atman and with the suffering of the world.  I do not want to

kill and dissect myself any longer, to find a secret behind the ruins.

Neither Yoga-Veda shall teach me any more, nor Atharva-Veda, nor the

ascetics, nor any kind of teachings.  I want to learn from myself, want

to be my student, want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha."

He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time.

Beautiful was the world, colourful was the world, strange and mysterious

was the world!  Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky

and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it

was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was

he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself.  All of this,

all this yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha for the

first time through the eyes, was no longer a spell of Mara, was no

longer the veil of Maya, was no longer a pointless and coincidental

diversity of mere appearances, despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman,

who scorns diversity, who seeks unity.  Blue was blue, river was river,

and if also in the blue and the river, in Siddhartha, the singular and

divine lived hidden, so it was still that very divinity's way and

purpose, to be here yellow, here blue, there sky, there forest, and here

Siddhartha.  The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere

behind the things, they were in them, in everything.

"How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along.

"When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not

scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence,

and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them,

letter by letter.  But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and

the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had

anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the

visible world a deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental

and worthless forms without substance.  No, this is over, I have

awakened, I have indeed awakened and have not been born before this

very day."

In thinking this thoughts, Siddhartha stopped once again, suddenly, as

if there was a snake lying in front of him on the path.

Because suddenly, he had also become aware of this:  He, who was indeed

like someone who had just woken up or like a new-born baby, he had to

start his life anew and start again at the very beginning.  When he had

left in this very morning from the grove Jetavana, the grove of that

exalted one, already awakening, already on the path towards himself, he

he had every intention, regarded as natural and took for granted, that

he, after years as an ascetic, would return to his home and his father.

But now, only in this moment, when he stopped as if a snake was lying on

his path, he also awoke to this realization:  "But I am no longer the

one I was, I am no ascetic any more, I am not a priest any more, I am no

Brahman any more.  Whatever should I do at home and at my father's

place?  Study?  Make offerings?  Practise meditation?  But all this is

over, all of this is no longer alongside my path."

Motionless, Siddhartha remained standing there, and for the time of

one moment and breath, his heart felt cold, he felt a cold in his chest,

as a small animal, a bird or a rabbit, would when seeing how alone he

was.  For many years, he had been without home and had felt nothing.

Now, he felt it.  Still, even in the deepest meditation, he had been

his father's son, had been a Brahman, of a high caste, a cleric.  Now,

he was nothing but Siddhartha, the awoken one, nothing else was left.

Deeply, he inhaled, and for a moment, he felt cold and shivered.

Nobody was thus alone as he was.  There was no nobleman who did not

belong to the noblemen, no worker that did not belong to the workers,

and found refuge with them, shared their life, spoke their language.

No Brahman, who would not be regarded as Brahmans and lived with them,

no ascetic who would not find his refuge in the caste of the Samanas,

and even the most forlorn hermit in the forest was not just one and

alone, he was also surrounded by a place he belonged to, he also

belonged to a caste, in which he was at home.  Govinda had become a

monk, and a thousand monks were his brothers, wore the same robe as he,

believed in his faith, spoke his language.  But he, Siddhartha, where

did he belong to?  With whom would he share his life?  Whose language

would he speak?

Out of this moment, when the world melted away all around him, when he

stood alone like a star in the sky, out of this moment of a cold and

despair, Siddhartha emerged, more a self than before, more firmly

concentrated.  He felt:  This had been the last tremor of the awakening,

the last struggle of this birth.  And it was not long until he walked

again in long strides, started to proceed swiftly and impatiently,

heading no longer for home, no longer to his father, no longer back.