Yes, The River Knows

Sunset over the Mekong River

     "You will learned it," said Vasudeva, "but not from me. It was the river that taught me how to listen; you too will learn how from the river. The river knows everything, one can learn everything from it.You have already learned from the river that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek the depths. The rich and distinguished Siddhartha will become a rower; Siddhartha the learned Brahmin will become a ferryman. You have also learned this from the river. You will learn the other thing, too." 

      After a long pause, Siddhartha said: "What other thing, Vasudeva?"

     Vasudeva rose. "It has grown late, 'he said, let us go to bed. I cannot tell what the other thing is, my friend. You will find out, perhaps you already know. I am not a learned man; I do not know how to talk or think. I only know how to listen and be devout; otherwise I have learned nothing. If I could talk and teach, I would perhaps be a teacher. But as it is I am only a ferryman and it is my task to take people across this river. I have taken thousands of people across and to all of them my river has been nothing but a hindrance on their journey. They have travelled for money and business, to weddings and on pilgrImages; the river has been in their way and the ferryman was there to take them quickly across the obstacle. However, amongst the thousands there have been a few, four or five, to whom the river was not an obstacle. They have heard its voice and listened to it and the river has become holy to them as it has to me. Let us now go to bed, Siddhartha."

      Siddhartha stayed with the ferryman and learned how to look after the boat, and there was nothing to do at the ferry, he worked in the rice field with Vasudeva, gathered wood, and picked fruit from the banana trees. He learned how to make oars, how to improve the boat and to make baskets. He was pleased with everything that he did and learned and the days and months passed quickly. But he learned more from the river that Vasudeva could teach him. He learned from it continually. Above all, he learned from it how to listen, to listen with a still heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion without desire, without judgement, without opinions.

      He lived happily with Vasudeva and occasionally they exchanged words, few and long considered words. Vasudeva was no friend of words. Siddhartha was rarely successful in moving him to speak.

      He once asked him, "Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such as time?" 

      A bright smile spread over Vasudeva's face. "Yes, Siddhartha, "he said. "Is this what you mean? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future?" 

      "That is it, "said Siddhartha, "and when I learned that, I reviewed my life and it was also a river, and Siddhartha the boy, Siddhartha the mature man and Siddhartha the old man were only separated by shadows, not through reality. Siddhartha's previous lives were also not in the past, and his death and his return to Brahma are not in the future. Nothing was, nothing will be, everything has reality and presence."

From Siddhartha, H. Hesse