Siddhartha

And at several times he suddenly became alarmed on account of such thoughts and wanted to be gifted with the ability to participate, with passion and with all his heart, in all of the childish and naïve occupations of the daytime. He really wanted to live, to act, and to enjoy instead of just standing by as a spectator.

On the way, Siddhartha also recollected everything he had experienced in the Garden of Jetavana: the teaching he had heard there, the divine Buddha, the farewell from Govinda, his conversation with the exalted one. He remembered again the words that he had spoken to the exalted one, every word, and with astonishment he became aware of the fact that

I no longer want to begin my thoughts and my life with Atman and with the suffering of the world. I no longer want to kill and dissect myself just to find a secret behind the ruins. Neither Yoga-Veda shall teach me any more, no Atharva-Veda, nor the ascetics, nor any kind of teachings. I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, want to get

He had learned this one thing by the river: how to wait, how to have patience, how to listen attentively.

This is another teaching that you will laugh about: love, oh Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all. Great thinkers may try to thoroughly understand the world, explain it, and despise it. But I’m only interested in being able to love the world, not despise it. I don’t want to hate it and have it hate me; I want to be able to loo

You have found salvation from death. It has come to you in the course of your own search, on your own path, through thoughts, through meditation, through realization, through enlightenment. It has not come to you by means of teachings! And—so are my thoughts, oh exalted one—nobody will partake in salvation through teachings! You will not be able to

No, there were no teachings that a person who truly sought and wanted to find could accept. But the one who had already found could approve of any teachings, every path and goal; there was nothing that stood between him and the other thousands who lived in the eternal and breathed that which is divine.

See here, Govinda, this is one of the thoughts that I’ve found: wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness.”

“Have you,” Siddhartha once asked him, “also learned the following secret from the river: that there is no time?” Vasudeva’s face was filled with a bright smile. “Yes, Siddhartha,” he said. “It is even this that you mean: the river is everywhere at once, at the source and the mouth, at the waterfall, the ferry, the rapids, the sea, and the mountain