With the Samanas

On the evening of that day they caught up with the ascetics, the gaunt Samanas, and offered them their companionship and obedience. They were accepted.

Siddhartha gave his garment to a poor Brahmin on the road. He wore nothing now but the loincloth and the earth-colored, unsewn wrap. He ate only once a day, and never anything cooked. He fasted fifteen days. He fasted twenty-eight days. The flesh dwindled from his thighs and cheeks. Hot dreams flickered from his enlarged eyes; on his withering fingers the nails grew long, and on his chin the dry, shaggy beard. His gaze turned icy when he met women; his mouth twitched with contempt when he passed through a town of finely dressed people. He saw merchants trading, princes going to the hunt, mourners weeping over their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians laboring over the sick, priests fixing the day for sowing, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children—and none of it was worth a glance of his eye, everything lied, everything stank, everything stank of lies, everything feigned meaning and happiness and beauty, and everything was unacknowledged decay. The world tasted bitter. Life was torment.

A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single one: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. To die away from himself, to be a self no longer, to find rest with an emptied heart, to stand open to the miracle in self-emptied thought: that was his goal. When all self was overcome and dead, when every craving and every urge in the heart was silent, then the ultimate had to awaken, the innermost of being, which is no longer self, the great secret.

Silently Siddhartha stood in the vertical blaze of the sun, glowing with pain, glowing with thirst, and stood until he felt neither pain nor thirst any longer. Silently he stood in the rainy season; the water dripped from his hair over freezing shoulders, over freezing hips and legs, and the penitent stood until shoulders and legs no longer froze, until they were silent, until they were still. Silently he crouched in the thorny brush; blood dripped from the burning skin, pus from the sores, and Siddhartha remained rigid, remained motionless, until no more blood flowed, until nothing stung any longer, until nothing burned any longer.

Siddhartha sat upright and learned to save his breath, learned to make do with little breath, learned to stop his breath. He learned, beginning with the breath, to calm his heartbeat, learned to reduce the beats of his heart until they were few and almost none.

Instructed by the eldest of the Samanas, Siddhartha practiced self-emptying, practiced meditation, according to new Samana rules. A heron flew over the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha took the heron into his soul, flew over forest and mountains, was heron, ate fish, hungered heron hunger, spoke heron croaking, died heron death. A dead jackal lay on the sandy bank, and Siddhartha’s soul slipped into the carcass, was dead jackal, lay on the shore, bloated, stank, rotted, was torn apart by hyenas, was flayed by vultures, became a skeleton, became dust, blew out over the fields. And Siddhartha’s soul returned, had died, had rotted, had turned to dust, had tasted the dull intoxication of the cycle, waited in new thirst like a hunter for the gap where escape from the cycle might be, where the end of causes, where an eternity without suffering might begin. He killed his senses, he killed his memory, he slipped out of his self into a thousand strange forms, was animal, was carrion, was stone, was wood, was water, and each time found himself awakening again, the sun shining or the moon, was self again, swung in the cycle, felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt new thirst.

Siddhartha learned much with the Samanas; he learned to walk many ways leading away from the self. He walked the way of self-emptying through pain, through the voluntary suffering and overcoming of pain, of hunger, of thirst, of weariness. He walked the way of self-emptying through meditation, through thinking the mind empty of all images. These and other ways he learned to walk; a thousand times he left his self, for hours and days he lingered in the not-self. But though the ways led away from the self, their end always led back to the self. Though Siddhartha fled the self a thousand times, lingered in nothingness, lingered in the animal, in the stone, the return was unavoidable, inescapable the hour when he found himself again, in sunshine or in moonlight, in shade or in rain, and was once more self and Siddhartha, and once more felt the torment of the cycle laid upon him.

Beside him lived Govinda, his shadow, walked the same ways, submitted to the same efforts. They seldom spoke of anything to each other beyond what the service and the exercises required. Sometimes the two of them went through the villages to beg food for themselves and their teachers.

“What do you think, Govinda,” Siddhartha said once on such a begging round, “what do you think, have we got any farther? Have we reached any goals?”

Govinda answered: “We have learned, and we are still learning. You will be a great Samana, Siddhartha. You have learned every exercise quickly; the old Samanas have often admired you. One day you will be a holy man, O Siddhartha.”

Siddhartha spoke: “It does not seem so to me, my friend. What I have learned with the Samanas up to this day, O Govinda, I could have learned more quickly and more simply. In any tavern in a whores’ quarter, my friend, among the carters and the dice players, I could have learned it.”

Govinda spoke: “Siddhartha is making fun of me. How could you have learned meditation, how could you have learned to hold your breath, how could you have learned insensibility to hunger and pain there among those wretches?”

And Siddhartha said quietly, as though he were speaking to himself: “What is meditation? What is leaving the body? What is fasting? What is holding the breath? It is flight from the self, it is a brief escape from the torment of being a self, it is a brief numbing against the pain and the senselessness of life. The same flight, the same brief numbing, the ox driver finds at the inn when he drinks a few bowls of rice wine or fermented coconut milk. Then he no longer feels his self, then he no longer feels the pains of life, then he finds a brief numbing. Dozing over his bowl of rice wine, he finds the same thing Siddhartha and Govinda find when after long exercises they slip out of their bodies and linger in the not-self. That is how it is, O Govinda.”

Govinda spoke: “So you say, O friend, and yet you know that Siddhartha is no ox driver and a Samana no drunkard. The drinker does find numbing, he does find brief flight and rest, but he comes back from the delusion and finds everything as it was; he has not grown wiser, has not gathered insight, has not climbed any steps higher.”

And Siddhartha said with a smile: “I do not know; I have never been a drinker. But that I, Siddhartha, find only a brief numbing in my exercises and meditations, and am as far from wisdom, from deliverance, as I was as a child in my mother’s womb, that I know, O Govinda, that I know.”

And once again, another time, as Siddhartha was leaving the forest with Govinda to beg some food in the village for their brothers and teachers, Siddhartha began to speak and said: “Well now, O Govinda, are we on the right way, do you think? Are we coming nearer to knowledge, do you think? Are we coming nearer to deliverance? Or are we perhaps going in a circle—we who thought we were escaping the cycle?”

Govinda spoke: “We have learned much, Siddhartha; much remains to be learned. We are not going in a circle, we are going upward; the circle is a spiral; we have already climbed many a step.”

Siddhartha answered: “How old, would you say, is our eldest Samana, our venerable teacher?”

Govinda spoke: “Our eldest may be sixty years old, perhaps.”

And Siddhartha: “He has lived to be sixty and has not reached Nirvana. He will turn seventy and eighty, and you and I, we will grow just as old and will practice, and will fast, and will meditate. But Nirvana we will not reach, not he, not we. O Govinda, I believe that of all the Samanas there are, perhaps not one, not one will reach Nirvana. We find comforts, we find numbings, we learn skills with which we deceive ourselves. But the essential thing, the way of ways, we do not find.”

“I wish,” said Govinda, “you would not speak such frightening words, Siddhartha! How could it be that among so many learned men, among so many Brahmins, among so many stern and venerable Samanas, among so many seeking, so many ardently devoted, so many holy men, not one should find the way of ways?”

But Siddhartha said in a voice that held as much sadness as mockery, in a quiet, a somewhat sad, a somewhat mocking voice: “Soon, Govinda, your friend will leave this path of the Samanas, which he has walked with you so long. I suffer thirst, O Govinda, and on this long Samana road my thirst has not grown one bit smaller. I have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions. I have questioned the Brahmins, year after year, and I have questioned the holy Vedas, year after year, and I have questioned the devout Samanas, year after year. Perhaps, O Govinda, it would have been just as good, just as sensible and just as wholesome, if I had questioned the hornbill or the chimpanzee. I have needed a long time, and I am not finished yet, to learn this, O Govinda: that one can learn nothing! There is, I believe, in fact no such thing as what we call ‘learning.’ There is, O my friend, only one knowledge; it is everywhere, it is Atman, it is in me and in you and in every being. And so I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than wanting to know, than learning.”

At that Govinda stopped on the road, raised his hands, and spoke: “Siddhartha, I wish you would not frighten your friend with such talk! Truly, your words wake fear in my heart. And only think: what would become of the holiness of prayer, what would become of the dignity of the Brahmin caste, what of the holiness of the Samanas, if it were as you say, if there were no learning?! What, O Siddhartha, what would become then of all that is holy on earth, all that is precious, all that is venerable?!”

And Govinda murmured a verse to himself, a verse from an Upanishad:

He who, pondering, his spirit purified, sinks himself in Atman,
Inexpressible in words is the bliss of his heart.

But Siddhartha was silent. He thought about the words Govinda had said to him, and thought the words through to their end.

Yes, he thought, standing with his head bowed, what would remain of all that seemed holy to us? What remains? What holds true? And he shook his head.

Once, when the two young men had lived nearly three years with the Samanas and shared their exercises, news reached them by many ways and byways, a rumor, a legend: someone had appeared, called Gotama, the Exalted One, the Buddha, who had overcome the suffering of the world in himself and brought the wheel of rebirths to a standstill. He was traveling through the land teaching, surrounded by disciples, without possessions, without home, without wife, in the yellow cloak of an ascetic, but with a serene brow, a blessed one, and Brahmins and princes bowed before him and became his pupils.

This legend, this rumor, this tale rang out, rose like a fragrance, here and there; in the towns the Brahmins spoke of it, in the forest the Samanas; again and again the name of Gotama, the Buddha, reached the young men’s ears, in good and in ill, in praise and in abuse.

As when plague reigns in a country, and word goes around that here or there is a man, a sage, a knowing one, whose word and breath are enough to heal anyone stricken by the pestilence, and as this word then runs through the land and everyone speaks of it, many believe, many doubt, but many set out at once to seek the sage, the helper: so that legend ran through the land, that fragrant legend of Gotama, the Buddha, the sage of the Sakya clan. The highest knowledge was his, so the believers said; he remembered his former lives, he had reached Nirvana and would never return into the cycle, would never again sink into the dark stream of forms. Many glorious and incredible things were reported of him: he had worked miracles, had overcome the devil, had spoken with the gods. But his enemies and the unbelievers said that this Gotama was a vain seducer, that he spent his days in luxury, scorned the sacrifices, was without learning, and knew neither exercise nor mortification.

Sweet sounded the legend of the Buddha; magic breathed from these reports. The world was sick, after all; life was hard to bear—and behold, here a spring seemed to leap up, here a messenger’s call seemed to sound, comforting, gentle, full of noble promises. Wherever the rumor of the Buddha rang out, everywhere in the lands of India the young men listened, felt longing, felt hope, and among the Brahmins’ sons of the towns and villages every pilgrim and stranger was welcome if he brought news of him, the Exalted One, the Sakyamuni.

The legend had made its way to the Samanas in the forest too, to Siddhartha too, to Govinda too, slowly, in drops, each drop heavy with hope, each drop heavy with doubt. They spoke little of it, for the eldest of the Samanas was no friend of this legend. He had heard that this so-called Buddha had formerly been an ascetic and lived in the forest, but had then turned back to luxury and worldly pleasure, and he thought nothing of this Gotama.

“O Siddhartha,” Govinda said once to his friend. “Today I was in the village, and a Brahmin invited me into his house, and in his house was a Brahmin’s son from Magadha who has seen the Buddha with his own eyes and has heard him teach. Truly, my breath ached in my chest then, and I thought to myself: If only I too, if only we two, Siddhartha and I, might live to see the hour when we hear the teaching from the mouth of that Perfected One! Tell me, friend, shall we not go there too and listen to the teaching from the mouth of the Buddha?”

Siddhartha spoke: “I had always thought, O Govinda, that Govinda would stay with the Samanas; I had always believed it was his goal to reach sixty and seventy years of age and go on and on practicing the arts and exercises that adorn a Samana. But see, I knew Govinda too little; I knew little of his heart. So now, dearest friend, you want to strike out on a new path and go where the Buddha proclaims his teaching.”

Govinda spoke: “You are pleased to mock. Mock all you like, Siddhartha! But has not a longing, a desire to hear this teaching, awakened in you too? And did you not tell me once that you would not walk the way of the Samanas much longer?”

Then Siddhartha laughed, in his own way, the tone of his voice taking on a shadow of sadness and a shadow of mockery, and said: “Well, Govinda, you have spoken well, you have remembered rightly. May you also remember the other thing you heard from me: that I have grown distrustful and weary of teaching and learning, and that my faith is small in words that come to us from teachers. But very well, my dear, I am ready to hear that teaching—though in my heart I believe that we have already tasted the best fruit of that teaching.”

Govinda spoke: “Your readiness gladdens my heart. But tell me, how could that be possible? How could Gotama’s teaching have opened its best fruit to us before we have even heard it?”

Siddhartha spoke: “Let us enjoy this fruit and wait for the rest, O Govinda! But this fruit, which we already owe to Gotama, consists in his calling us away from the Samanas! Whether he has anything else and better to give us, O friend, let us wait for that with a calm heart.”

On that same day Siddhartha made known to the eldest of the Samanas his decision to leave him. He made it known to the eldest with the courtesy and modesty that befit the younger man and the pupil. But the Samana flew into a rage because the two young men wanted to leave him, and he spoke loudly and used coarse abuse.

Govinda was startled and embarrassed, but Siddhartha put his mouth to Govinda’s ear and whispered to him: “Now I will show the old man that I have learned something from him.”

Placing himself close before the Samana, with his soul gathered, he caught the old man’s gaze with his own, held it spellbound, struck him dumb, deprived him of will, subjected him to his own will, commanded him to do soundlessly what he required of him. The old man fell silent, his eye grew fixed, his will was paralyzed, his arms hung down; powerless, he had succumbed to Siddhartha’s spell. Siddhartha’s thoughts took possession of the Samana; he had to carry out what they commanded. And so the old man bowed several times, made gestures of blessing, stammered a pious wish for their journey. And the young men returned the bows with thanks, returned the wish, and went on their way with a greeting.

On the way Govinda said: “O Siddhartha, you learned more with the Samanas than I knew. It is hard, it is very hard, to cast a spell on an old Samana. Truly, if you had stayed there, you would soon have learned to walk on water.”

“I have no wish to walk on water,” said Siddhartha. “Let old Samanas content themselves with such arts!”