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The world itself, however, the Being all around us and within us, is never one-sided.
Time is not real, Govinda. I have experienced this again and again. And if time is not real, then the distance that appears to lie between world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between evil and good, is also an illusion.”
This one day is an illusion, it is only an allegory! The sinner is not on his way to the state of Buddhahood, he is not caught up in a process of developing, although our thought cannot imagine things in any other way.
The world, friend Govinda, is not imperfect, nor is it in the middle of a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect in every moment; every sin already carries forgiveness within it, all little children already carry their aged forms within them, all infants death, all dying men eternal life.
Death appears to me like life, sin like holiness, cleverness like folly; everything must be just as it is, everything requires only my assent, only my willingness, my loving approval, and for me it is good and can never harm me.
Words are not good for the secret meaning; everything always becomes a little bit different the moment one speaks it aloud, a bit falsified, a bit foolish—yes, and this too is also very good and pleases me greatly: that one person’s treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to others.”
Perhaps it is this that has hindered you in finding peace; perhaps it is all these words. For even redemption and virtue, even Sansara and Nirvana, are just words, Govinda.
Let the things be semblances or not; then I too am only semblance, and so they will always be like me.
To see through the world, to explain it, to scorn it—this may be the business of great thinkers. But what interests me is being able to love the world, not scorn it, not to hate it and hate myself, but to look at it and myself and all beings with love and admiration and reverence.”
For I cannot deny that my words about love stand in opposition, in apparent opposition to Gautama’s words. This is precisely why I distrust words so much, for I know this opposition is an illusion.
Even with regard to him, your great teacher, things are dearer to me than words, his actions and life more important than his speeches, the gestures of his hand more important than his opinions.
Govinda stared into his face with fear, with longing. Suffering and eternal searching stood written in his gaze, eternal not-finding.
Govinda remained standing there a short while longer, bending over Siddhartha’s still face that he had just kissed, that had just been the site of all shapes, all Becoming, all Being.
Deeply Govinda bowed, tears of which he knew nothing coursed down his old face, and like a fire the feeling of the most ardent love, the most humble reverence was burning in his heart.
