Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
Siddhartha
By Herman Hesse
Chapter IV. Awakening
WHEN Siddhartha left the grove where Govinda and the Buddha, the perfected one, 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 and down to the place where the causes lie. Because to identify the causes, so it seemed to him, is the very essence of thinking. 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 that he 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. He had to part with him and was not able to accept his teachings.
Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself: "But what is this? What have you 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 that I wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it. I could only deceive it, could only flee from it, and could only hide from it. Truly, nothing 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, and of me being Siddhartha! And there is nothing 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. 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 dissect myself and peel off all of its layers to find the core of all peels in its unknown interior — the Atman, life, the divine part, and 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. He walked quickly like a man who knows what he has got to do.
"Oh," he thought and taking a deep breath,
now I would not let Siddhartha escape from me again! No longer, do 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. I do not want to find a secret behind the ruins. Neither Yoga-Veda, nor Atharva-Veda, nor the ascetics, nor any kind of teachings shall teach me anymore. I want to learn from myself. I want to be my student, and I 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! Colorful was the world! Strange and mysterious was the world!
All of this — all this yellow and blue, river and forest — entered Siddhartha for the first time through the eyes. It was no longer a spell of Mara, was no longer the veil of Maya, and was no longer a pointless and coincidental diversity of mere appearances, despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman, who scorns diversity and who seeks unity. Blue was blue; river was river; and if also in the blue, the river, and in Siddhartha, the singular and divine lived hidden, so it was still that very divinity's way and purpose. It was divinity’s 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 and in everything.
"How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along.
When someone reads a text and wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters. He will not 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; I 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 these 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 and already on the path towards himself, he had every intention, which he 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? Practice meditation? But all this is over — all of this is no longer alongside my path."
Motionless, Siddhartha remained standing there. For the time of one moment and breath, his heart felt cold. He felt a cold in his chest as a small animal such as 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. He had been a Brahman of a high caste and a cleric.
Now, he was nothing but Siddhartha, the awoken one. Nothing else was left. Deeply, he inhaled. 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. There was no worker that did not belong to the workers, found refuge with them, shared their life, and 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. 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 who wore the same robe as he, believed in his faith, and spoke his language.
But he, Siddhartha, where did he belong? With whom would he share his life? Whose language would he speak
Out of this moment when the world melted away all around him and when he stood alone like a star in the sky and out of this moment of cold and despair, Siddhartha emerged more a self than before and more firmly concentrated. He felt — this had been the last tremor of the awakening and the last struggle of this birth. And, it was not long until he walked again in long strides and started to proceed swiftly and impatiently heading no longer for home, no longer to his father, and no longer back.
