It's you, and it's not you. How has his point of view changed? He presented his wound, also told how he fled today, how he ferried across the water, a childish run-away, willing to walk to the city, how the river had laughed. The river comes to represent the ideas through which Siddhartha reaches enlightenment. Nevertheless, I have had many teachers since then. Hesse 15 If his goal is continual spiritual growth until enlightenment, it is reasonable for him to want to try other philosophies. Look, my dear Govinda, this is one of my thoughts, which I have found: wisdom cannot be passed on.
Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with words, it's all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness. Janwillem van de Wettering, Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery 1973 A well-known Dutch mystery writer describes with wry humor his serious attempts to learn and refine his spiritual practices under the direction of an enigmatic, cantankerous Zen master. Siddhartha recalls the living presence of the Buddha which has awed him so much, and he feels a strong bond with him. 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. In a friendly manner, he lived side by side with Vasudeva, and occasionally they exchanged some words, few and at length thought about words. But the longing voice had changed. But most of all, I have learned here from this river and from my predecessor, the ferryman Vasudeva.
Siddhartha does not listen, believing that one day the boy will hear the voice of the river that is and understand the cycle of life, too. When Siddhartha eventually leaves the Samanas, he appears to have attained a superior level of spirituality. He believes that enlightenment cannot be taught, only experienced. From the first time that we meet him, we get an overwhelming feeling of warmth. 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.
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. What is the symbolism of the stone? You'll learn that other thing from it as well. Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. We are, however, given little hints that this boy will eventually seek his own goals despite his current recalcitrance. At the same time he recognizes how his own father's words were unable to keep him from leaving so many decades before. Behold, once before you have ferried me across this water in your boat for the immaterial reward of a good deed.
He rose, said farewell to the mango tree and the pleasure garden. I have transported many, thousands; and to all of them, my river has been nothing but an obstacle on their travels. Kamala looked into his eyes. Nothing was, nothing will be, everything has reality and presence. Kamala has grown older and wiser 7.
What does Siddhartha do with the oldest Samana? He likes the ferryman and compares him to govinda. Pain distorted her face, Siddhartha's eyes read the suffering on her mouth, on her pale cheeks. Siddhartha — not so much. Om, he remembers all his old knowledge and falls asleep 4. When Siddhartha receives his first kiss, the style changes. He saw the face of a fish, a carp, with an infinitely painfully opened mouth, the face of a dying fish, with fading eyes—he saw the face of a new-born child, red and full of wrinkles, distorted from crying—he saw the face of a murderer, he saw him plunging a knife into the body of another person—he saw, in the same second, this criminal in bondage, kneeling and his head being chopped off by the executioner with one blow of his sword—he saw the bodies of men and women, naked in positions and cramps of frenzied love—he saw corpses stretched out, motionless, cold, void—he saw the heads of animals, of boars, of crocodiles, of elephants, of bulls, of birds—he saw gods, saw Krishna, saw Agni—he saw all of these figures and faces in a thousand relationships with one another, each one helping the other, loving it, hating it, destroying it, giving re-birth to it, each one was a will to die, a passionately painful confession of transitoriness, and yet none of them died, each one only transformed, was always re-born, received evermore a new face, without any time having passed between the one and the other face—and all of these figures and faces rested, flowed, generated themselves, floated along and merged with each other, and they were all constantly covered by something thin, without individuality of its own, but yet existing, like a thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, a shell or mold or mask of water, and this mask was smiling, and this mask was Siddhartha's smiling face, which he, Govinda, in this very same moment touched with his lips.
Now, what did you expect, Siddhartha? She dies, he accepts it and does not become sad, rather he rejoices that he has found his son. Since time had passed on in the meantime, and the boy remained a stranger and in a gloomy disposition, since he displayed a proud and stubbornly disobedient heart, did not want to do any work, did not pay his respect to the old men, stole from Vasudeva's fruit-trees, then Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him happiness and peace, but suffering and worry. Stay with me, Siddhartha, my friend. Kamala attracts Siddhartha because of her beauty. Siddhartha grows sick with sex and money by the way, he becomes a gambler, as well and decides to return to the river.
In succession, he rejects the intellectual and ritualistic teachings of his father and the other Brahmins; the self-abnegating rigors of the ascetic samanas; the opportunity to become a disciple of Gautama, the Buddha; the world-weary existence of material success; and even the futile role of protective father to his son. While he was still speaking, still admitting and confessing, Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, 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. For a long time, he stood there, looked at the monks, saw young Siddhartha in their place, saw young Kamala walking among the high trees. It shows that he learned more in 3 years than the other samanas did in a lifetime. He argues that the individual seeks an absolutely unique, personal meaning that cannot be presented to him by a teacher. And this had been the very thing which Siddhartha had also been hearing.
It is unlikely for one of us to see the other again in this incarnation. 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. How does Siddhartha prepare for Kamala? When Siddhartha summons Govinda to kiss him on the forehead, Govinda feels as if he is touching eternity, a kind of mystical transference from Siddhartha, and he sees in Siddhartha's beatific smile a continuous stream of thousands of faces much like those Siddhartha saw many years earlier in the river. Listening carefully, he let everything enter his mind, birthplace and childhood, all that learning, all that searching, all joy, all distress. There was something about this ferry and the two ferrymen which was transmitted to others, which many of the travellers felt. 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.
A man only looks and walks like that when he has conquered his Self. Tell me, oh honourable one, one more word, give me something on my way which I can grasp, which I can understand! You're son, my dear, is worrying you, and he is also worrying me. Gratefully, he accepted Vasudeva's invitation. All his life he has attempted to escape himself by various methods, and he therefore knows little of himself, he has ignored himself 2. Siddhartha decides to leave behind his home in the hope of gaining by becoming an wandering beggar of the.