THE FERRYMAN

By this river I want to stay, thought Siddhartha, it is the same which

I have crossed a long time ago on my way to the childlike people, a

friendly ferryman had guided me then, he is the one I want to go to,

starting out from his hut, my path had led me at that time into a new

life, which had now grown old and is dead--my present path, my present

new life, shall also take its start there!

Tenderly, he looked into the rushing water, into the transparent green,

into the crystal lines of its drawing, so rich in secrets.  Bright

pearls he saw rising from the deep, quiet bubbles of air floating on

the reflecting surface, the blue of the sky being depicted in it.  With

a thousand eyes, the river looked at him, with green ones, with white

ones, with crystal ones, with sky-blue ones.  How did he love this

water, how did it delight him, how grateful was he to it!  In his heart

he heard the voice talking, which was newly awaking, and it told him:

Love this water!  Stay near it!  Learn from it!  Oh yes, he wanted to

learn from it, he wanted to listen to it.  He who would understand this

water and its secrets, so it seemed to him, would also understand many

other things, many secrets, all secrets.

But out of all secrets of the river, he today only saw one, this one

touched his soul.  He saw: this water ran and ran, incessantly it ran,

and was nevertheless always there, was always at all times the same

and yet new in every moment!  Great be he who would grasp this,

understand this!  He understood and grasped it not, only felt some idea

of it stirring, a distant memory, divine voices.

Siddhartha rose, the workings of hunger in his body became unbearable.

In a daze he walked on, up the path by the bank, upriver,

listened to the current, listened to the rumbling hunger in his body.

When he reached the ferry, the boat was just ready, and the same

ferryman who had once transported the young Samana across the river,

stood in the boat, Siddhartha recognised him, he had also aged very

much.

"Would you like to ferry me over?" he asked.

The ferryman, being astonished to see such an elegant man walking along

and on foot, took him into his boat and pushed it off the bank.

"It's a beautiful life you have chosen for yourself," the passenger

spoke.  "It must be beautiful to live by this water every day and to

cruise on it."

With a smile, the man at the oar moved from side to side:  "It is

beautiful, sir, it is as you say.  But isn't every life, isn't every

work beautiful?"

"This may be true.  But I envy you for yours."

"Ah, you would soon stop enjoying it.  This is nothing for people

wearing fine clothes."

Siddhartha laughed.  "Once before, I have been looked upon today because

of my clothes, I have been looked upon with distrust.  Wouldn't you,

ferryman, like to accept these clothes, which are a nuisance to me,

from me?  For you must know, I have no money to pay your fare."

"You're joking, sir," the ferryman laughed.

"I'm not joking, friend.  Behold, once before you have ferried me across

this water in your boat for the immaterial reward of a good deed.  Thus,

do it today as well, and accept my clothes for it."

"And do you, sir, intent to continue travelling without clothes?"

"Ah, most of all I wouldn't want to continue travelling at all.  Most of

all I would like you, ferryman, to give me an old loincloth and kept me

with you as your assistant, or rather as your trainee, for I'll have to

learn first how to handle the boat."

For a long time, the ferryman looked at the stranger, searching.

"Now I recognise you," he finally said.  "At one time, you've slept in

my hut, this was a long time ago, possibly more than twenty years ago,

and you've been ferried across the river by me, and we parted like good

friends.  Haven't you've been a Samana?  I can't think of your name any

more."

"My name is Siddhartha, and I was a Samana, when you've last seen me."

"So be welcome, Siddhartha.  My name is Vasudeva."  You will, so I hope,

be my guest today as well and sleep in my hut, and tell me, where you're

coming from and why these beautiful clothes are such a nuisance to you."

They had reached the middle of the river, and Vasudeva pushed the oar

with more strength, in order to overcome the current.  He worked calmly,

his eyes fixed in on the front of the boat, with brawny arms.

Siddhartha sat and watched him, and remembered, how once before, on that

last day of his time as a Samana, love for this man had stirred in his

heart.  Gratefully, he accepted Vasudeva's invitation.  When they had

reached the bank, he helped him to tie the boat to the stakes; after

this, the ferryman asked him to enter the hut, offered him bread and

water, and Siddhartha ate with eager pleasure, and also ate with eager

pleasure of the mango fruits, Vasudeva offered him.

Afterwards, it was almost the time of the sunset, they sat on a log by

the bank, and Siddhartha told the ferryman about where he originally

came from and about his life, as he had seen it before his eyes today,

in that hour of despair.  Until late at night, lasted his tale.

Vasudeva listened with great attention.  Listening carefully, he let

everything enter his mind, birthplace and childhood, all that learning,

all that searching, all joy, all distress.  This was among the

ferryman's virtues one of the greatest:  like only a few, he knew how

to listen.  Without him having spoken a word, the speaker sensed how

Vasudeva let his words enter his mind, quiet, open, waiting, how he

did not lose a single one, awaited not a single one with impatience,

did not add his praise or rebuke, was just listening.  Siddhartha felt,

what a happy fortune it is, to confess to such a listener, to burry in

his heart his own life, his own search, his own suffering.

But in the end of Siddhartha's tale, when he spoke of the tree by the

river, and of his deep fall, of the holy Om, and how he had felt such

a love for the river after his slumber, the ferryman listened with twice

the attention, entirely and completely absorbed by it, with his eyes

closed.

But when Siddhartha fell silent, and a long silence had occurred, then

Vasudeva said:  "It is as I thought.  The river has spoken to you.  It

is your friend as well, it speaks to you as well.  That is good, that is

very good.  Stay with me, Siddhartha, my friend.  I used to have a wife,

her bed was next to mine, but she has died a long time ago, for a long

time, I have lived alone.  Now, you shall live with me, there is space

and food for both."

"I thank you," said Siddhartha, "I thank you and accept.  And I also

thank you for this, Vasudeva, for listening to me so well!  These people

are rare who know how to listen.  And I did not meet a single one who

knew it as well as you did.  I will also learn in this respect from

you."

"You will learn it," spoke Vasudeva, "but not from me.  The river has

taught me to listen, from it you will learn it as well.  It knows

everything, the river, everything can be learned from it.  See, you've

already learned this from the water too, that it is good to strive

downwards, to sink, to seek depth.  The rich and elegant Siddhartha is

becoming an oarsman's servant, the learned Brahman Siddhartha becomes a

ferryman: this has also been told to you by the river.  You'll learn

that other thing from it as well."

Quoth Siddhartha after a long pause:  "What other thing, Vasudeva?"

Vasudeva rose.  "It is late," he said, "let's go to sleep.  I can't

tell you that other thing, oh friend.  You'll learn it, or perhaps you

know it already.  See, I'm no learned man, I have no special skill in

speaking, I also have no special skill in thinking.  All I'm able to do

is to listen and to be godly, I have learned nothing else.  If I was

able to say and teach it, I might be a wise man, but like this I am only

a ferryman, and it is my task to ferry people across the river.  I have

transported many, thousands; and to all of them, my river has been

nothing but an obstacle on their travels.  They travelled to seek money

and business, and for weddings, and on pilgrimages, and the river was

obstructing their path, and the ferryman's job was to get them quickly

across that obstacle.  But for some among thousands, a few, four or

five, the river has stopped being an obstacle, they have heard its

voice, they have listened to it, and the river has become sacred to

them, as it has become sacred to me.  Let's rest now, Siddhartha."

Siddhartha stayed with the ferryman and learned to operate the boat, and

when there was nothing to do at the ferry, he worked with Vasudeva in

the rice-field, gathered wood, plucked the fruit off the banana-trees.

He learned to build an oar, and learned to mend the boat, and to weave

baskets, and was joyful because of everything he learned, and the days

and months passed quickly.  But more than Vasudeva could teach him, he

was taught by the river.  Incessantly, he learned from it.  Most of all,

he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart,

with a waiting, opened soul, without passion, without a wish, without

judgement, without an opinion.

In a friendly manner, he lived side by side with Vasudeva, and

occasionally they exchanged some words, few and at length thought about

words.  Vasudeva was no friend of words; rarely, Siddhartha succeeded

in persuading him to speak.

"Did you," so he asked him at one time, "did you too learn that secret

from the river: that there is no time?"

Vasudeva's face was filled with a bright smile.

"Yes, Siddhartha," he spoke.  "It is this what you mean, isn't it: that

the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the

waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains,

everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not

the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future?"

"This it is," said Siddhartha.  "And when I had learned it, I looked at

my life, and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was only

separated from the man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by a

shadow, not by something real.  Also, Siddhartha's previous births were

no past, and his death and his return to Brahma was no future.  Nothing

was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is

present."

Siddhartha spoke with ecstasy; deeply, this enlightenment had delighted

him.  Oh, was not all suffering time, were not all forms of tormenting

oneself and being afraid time, was not everything hard, everything

hostile in the world gone and overcome as soon as one had overcome time,

as soon as time would have been put out of existence by one's thoughts?

In ecstatic delight, he had spoken, but Vasudeva smiled at him brightly

and nodded in confirmation; silently he nodded, brushed his hand over

Siddhartha's shoulder, turned back to his work.

And once again, when the river had just increased its flow in the rainy

season and made a powerful noise, then said Siddhartha:  "Isn't it so,

oh friend, the river has many voices, very many voices?  Hasn't it the

voice of a king, and of a warrior, and of a bull, and of a bird of the

night, and of a woman giving birth, and of a sighing man, and a thousand

other voices more?"

"So it is," Vasudeva nodded, "all voices of the creatures are in its

voice."

"And do you know," Siddhartha continued, "what word it speaks, when you

succeed in hearing all of its ten thousand voices at once?"

Happily, Vasudeva's face was smiling, he bent over to Siddhartha and

spoke the holy Om into his ear.  And this had been the very thing which

Siddhartha had also been hearing.

And time after time, his smile became more similar to the ferryman's,

became almost just as bright, almost just as throughly glowing with

bliss, just as shining out of thousand small wrinkles, just as alike to

a child's, just as alike to an old man's.  Many travellers, seeing the

two ferrymen, thought they were brothers.  Often, they sat in the

evening together by the bank on the log, said nothing and both listened

to the water, which was no water to them, but the voice of life, the

voice of what exists, of what is eternally taking shape.  And it

happened from time to time that both, when listening to the river,

thought of the same things, of a conversation from the day before

yesterday, of one of their travellers, the face and fate of whom had

occupied their thoughts, of death, of their childhood, and that they

both in the same moment, when the river had been saying something good

to them, looked at each other, both thinking precisely the same thing,

both delighted about the same answer to the same question.

There was something about this ferry and the two ferrymen which was

transmitted to others, which many of the travellers felt.  It happened

occasionally that a traveller, after having looked at the face of one of

the ferrymen, started to tell the story of his life, told about pains,

confessed evil things, asked for comfort and advice.  It happened

occasionally that someone asked for permission to stay for a night with

them to listen to the river.  It also happened that curious people came,

who had been told that there were two wise men, or sorcerers, or holy

men living by that ferry.  The curious people asked many questions, but

they got no answers, and they found neither sorcerers nor wise men, they

only found two friendly little old men, who seemed to be mute and to

have become a bit strange and gaga.  And the curious people laughed and

were discussing how foolishly and gullibly the common people were

spreading such empty rumours.

The years passed by, and nobody counted them.  Then, at one time, monks

came by on a pilgrimage, followers of Gotama, the Buddha, who were

asking to be ferried across the river, and by them the ferrymen were

told that they were most hurriedly walking back to their great

teacher, for the news had spread the exalted one was deadly sick and

would soon die his last human death, in order to become one with the

salvation.  It was not long, until a new flock of monks came along on

their pilgrimage, and another one, and the monks as well as most of the

other travellers and people walking through the land spoke of nothing

else than of Gotama and his impending death.  And as people are flocking

from everywhere and from all sides, when they are going to war or to the

coronation of a king, and are gathering like ants in droves, thus they

flocked, like being drawn on by a magic spell, to where the great Buddha

was awaiting his death, where the huge event was to take place and the

great perfected one of an era was to become one with the glory.

Often, Siddhartha thought in those days of the dying wise man, the

great teacher, whose voice had admonished nations and had awoken

hundreds of thousands, whose voice he had also once heard, whose holy

face he had also once seen with respect.  Kindly, he thought of him, saw

his path to perfection before his eyes, and remembered with a smile

those words which he had once, as a young man, said to him, the exalted

one.  They had been, so it seemed to him, proud and precocious words;

with a smile, he remembered them.  For a long time he knew that there

was nothing standing between Gotama and him any more, though he was

still unable to accept his teachings.  No, there was no teaching a

truly searching person, someone who truly wanted to find, could accept.

But he who had found, he could approve of any teachings, every path,

every goal, there was nothing standing between him and all the other

thousand any more who lived in that what is eternal, who breathed what

is divine.

On one of these days, when so many went on a pilgrimage to the dying

Buddha, Kamala also went to him, who used to be the most beautiful of

the courtesans.  A long time ago, she had retired from her previous

life, had given her garden to the monks of Gotama as a gift, had taken

her refuge in the teachings, was among the friends and benefactors of

the pilgrims.  Together with Siddhartha the boy, her son, she had gone

on her way due to the news of the near death of Gotama, in simple

clothes, on foot.  With her little son, she was travelling by the river;

but the boy had soon grown tired, desired to go back home, desired to

rest, desired to eat, became disobedient and started whining.

Kamala often had to take a rest with him, he was accustomed to having

his way against her, she had to feed him, had to comfort him, had to

scold him.  He did not comprehend why he had to to go on this exhausting

and sad pilgrimage with his mother, to an unknown place, to a stranger,

who was holy and about to die.  So what if he died, how did this concern

the boy?

The pilgrims were getting close to Vasudeva's ferry, when little

Siddhartha once again forced his mother to rest.  She, Kamala herself,

had also become tired, and while the boy was chewing a banana, she

crouched down on the ground, closed her eyes a bit, and rested.  But

suddenly, she uttered a wailing scream, the boy looked at her in fear

and saw her face having grown pale from horror; and from under her

dress, a small, black snake fled, by which Kamala had been bitten.

Hurriedly, they now both ran along the path, in order to reach people,

and got near to the ferry, there Kamala collapsed, and was not able to

go any further.  But the boy started crying miserably, only interrupting

it to kiss and hug his mother, and she also joined his loud screams for

help, until the sound reached Vasudeva's ears, who stood at the ferry.

Quickly, he came walking, took the woman on his arms, carried her into

the boat, the boy ran along, and soon they all reached the hut, were

Siddhartha stood by the stove and was just lighting the fire.  He looked

up and first saw the boy's face, which wondrously reminded him of

something, like a warning to remember something he had forgotten.  Then

he saw Kamala, whom he instantly recognised, though she lay unconscious

in the ferryman's arms, and now he knew that it was his own son, whose

face had been such a warning reminder to him, and the heart stirred in

his chest.

Kamala's wound was washed, but had already turned black and her body was

swollen, she was made to drink a healing potion.  Her consciousness

returned, she lay on Siddhartha's bed in the hut and bent over her stood

Siddhartha, who used to love her so much.  It seemed like a dream to

her; with a smile, she looked at her friend's face; just slowly she,

realized her situation, remembered the bite, called timidly for the boy.

"He's with you, don't worry," said Siddhartha.

Kamala looked into his eyes.  She spoke with a heavy tongue, paralysed

by the poison.  "You've become old, my dear," she said, "you've become

gray.  But you are like the young Samana, who at one time came without

clothes, with dusty feet, to me into the garden.  You are much more like

him, than you were like him at that time when you had left me and

Kamaswami.  In the eyes, you're like him, Siddhartha.  Alas, I have also

grown old, old--could you still recognise me?"

Siddhartha smiled:  "Instantly, I recognised you, Kamala, my dear."

Kamala pointed to her boy and said:  "Did you recognise him as well?

He is your son."

Her eyes became confused and fell shut.  The boy wept, Siddhartha took

him on his knees, let him weep, petted his hair, and at the sight of

the child's face, a Brahman prayer came to his mind, which he had

learned a long time ago, when he had been a little boy himself.  Slowly,

with a singing voice, he started to speak; from his past and childhood,

the words came flowing to him.  And with that singsong, the boy became

calm, was only now and then uttering a sob and fell asleep.  Siddhartha

placed him on Vasudeva's bed.  Vasudeva stood by the stove and cooked

rice.  Siddhartha gave him a look, which he returned with a smile.

"She'll die," Siddhartha said quietly.

Vasudeva nodded; over his friendly face ran the light of the stove's

fire.

Once again, Kamala returned to consciousness.  Pain distorted her face,

Siddhartha's eyes read the suffering on her mouth, on her pale cheeks.

Quietly, he read it, attentively, waiting, his mind becoming one with

her suffering.  Kamala felt it, her gaze sought his eyes.

Looking at him, she said:  "Now I see that your eyes have changed as

well.  They've become completely different.  By what do I still

recognise that you're Siddhartha?  It's you, and it's not you."

Siddhartha said nothing, quietly his eyes looked at hers.

"You have achieved it?" she asked.  "You have found peace?"

He smiled and placed his hand on hers.

"I'm seeing it," she said, "I'm seeing it.  I too will find peace."

"You have found it," Siddhartha spoke in a whisper.

Kamala never stopped looking into his eyes.  She thought about her

pilgrimage to Gotama, which wanted to take, in order to see the face of

the perfected one, to breathe his peace, and she thought that she had

now found him in his place, and that it was good, just as good, as if

she had seen the other one.  She wanted to tell this to him, but the

tongue no longer obeyed her will.  Without speaking, she looked at him,

and he saw the life fading from her eyes.  When the final pain filled

her eyes and made them grow dim, when the final shiver ran through her

limbs, his finger closed her eyelids.

For a long time, he sat and looked at her peacefully dead face.  For a

long time, he observed her mouth, her old, tired mouth, with those lips,

which had become thin, and he remembered, that he used to, in the spring

of his years, compare this mouth with a freshly cracked fig.  For a long

time, he sat, read in the pale face, in the tired wrinkles, filled

himself with this sight, saw his own face lying in the same manner,

just as white, just as quenched out, and saw at the same time his face

and hers being young, with red lips, with fiery eyes, and the feeling of

this both being present and at the same time real, the feeling of

eternity, completely filled every aspect of his being.  Deeply he felt,

more deeply than ever before, in this hour, the indestructibility of

every life, the eternity of every moment.

When he rose, Vasudeva had prepared rice for him.  But Siddhartha did

not eat.  In the stable, where their goat stood, the two old men

prepared beds of straw for themselves, and Vasudeva lay himself down

to sleep.  But Siddhartha went outside and sat this night before the

hut, listening to the river, surrounded by the past, touched and

encircled by all times of his life at the same time.  But occasionally,

he rose, stepped to the door of the hut and listened, whether the boy

was sleeping.

Early in the morning, even before the sun could be seen, Vasudeva came

out of the stable and walked over to his friend.

"You haven't slept," he said.

"No, Vasudeva.  I sat here, I was listening to the river.  A lot it has

told me, deeply it has filled me with the healing thought, with the

thought of oneness."

"You've experienced suffering, Siddhartha, but I see: no sadness has

entered your heart."

"No, my dear, how should I be sad?  I, who have been rich and happy,

have become even richer and happier now.  My son has been given to me."

"Your son shall be welcome to me as well.  But now, Siddhartha, let's

get to work, there is much to be done.  Kamala has died on the same bed,

on which my wife had died a long time ago.  Let us also build Kamala's

funeral pile on the same hill on which I had then built my wife's

funeral pile."

While the boy was still asleep, they built the funeral pile.