sky, there forest, and here Siddhartha. The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere
behind the things, they were in them, in everything.
"How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along. "When someone reads a text,
wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and 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, 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 this 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, already on the path towards himself, he had every intention, 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? Practise meditation?
But all this is over, all of this is no longer alongside my path."
Motionless, Siddhartha remained standing there, and for the time of one moment and breath, his
heart felt cold, he felt a cold in his chest, as a small animal, 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, had been a Brahman, of a high caste, a cleric.
Now, he was nothing but Siddhartha, the awoken one, nothing else was left. Deeply, he inhaled, and 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, no worker that did not belong to the workers, and found refuge with them,
shared their life, 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, and 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, wore the same robe as he, believed in his faith, spoke his language. But he,
Siddhartha, where did he belong to? With whom would he share his life? Whose language would he speak?
Out of this moment, when the world melted away all around him, when he stood alone like a star in
the sky, out of this moment of a cold and despair, Siddhartha emerged, more a self than before, more
firmly concentrated. He felt: This had been the last tremor of the awakening, the last struggle of this birth.
And it was not long until he walked again in long strides, started to proceed swiftly and impatiently,
heading no longer for home, no longer to his father, no longer back.