Siddhartha

by Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him happiness and peace, but suffering and worry. But he loved him, and he preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and joy without the boy.

I asked the river, oh friend, many times I have asked it. But the river laughs, it laughs at me, it laughs at you and me, and is shaking with laughter at our foolishness.

Water wants to join water, youth wants to join youth, your son is not in the place where he can prosper.

“Oh yes, he too is called upon, he too is of the eternal life. But do we, you and me, know what he is called upon to do, what path to take, what actions to perform, what pain to endure?

You don’t force him, don’t beat him, don’t give him orders, because you know that ‘soft’ is stronger than ‘hard’, water stronger than rocks, love stronger than force.

But look, how shall I put him, who had no tender heart anyhow, into this world? Won’t he become exuberant, won’t he lose himself to pleasure and power, won’t he repeat all of his father’s mistakes, won’t he perhaps get entirely lost in Sansara?” Brightly, the ferryman’s smile lit up; softly, he touched Siddhartha’s arm and said: “Ask the river about it, my friend! Hear it laugh about it! Would you actually believe that you had committed your foolish acts in order to spare your son from committing them too?

But even if you would die ten times for him, you would not be able to take the slightest part of his destiny upon yourself.”

Now he too felt, late, once in his lifetime, this strongest and strangest of all passions, suffered from it, suffered miserably, and was nevertheless in bliss, was nevertheless renewed in one respect, enriched by one thing.

he understood and shared their life, which was not guided by thoughts and insight, but solely by urges and wishes,

Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realisation, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness.

Was it not a comedy, a strange and stupid matter, this repetition, this running around in a fateful circle? The river laughed. Yes, so it was, everything came back, which had not been suffered and solved up to its end, the same pain was suffered over and over again.