world, it is something that cannot be shown, cannot be proved: this is your teaching about not being overcome by the world, your teaching about liberation. With this tiny hole, with this tiny intrusion the entire coherent and eternal world-order is once again broken down and cannot be maintained. I hope you will forgive me for voicing this objection."
Gotama had listened to him still and unmoving. Now, with his benevolent voice, with his clear and polite voice, the perfect one spoke: "You have listened to the teachings, brahmin's son, and it is good that you have thought so deeply about them. You have found a gap in them, a mistake. I hope you will continue to think about the teachings, you have a thirst for knowledge, but you should be warned of the thickets of beliefs and of quibbles around words. Beliefs are not important, they can be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can stay attached to them or throw them away. But the teachings that you heard from me are not beliefs and I was not trying to explain the world to them who have a thirst for knowledge. I was attempting something quite different, I was attempting to show how to gain liberation from suffering. This is what Gotama teaches, nothing else."
"I hope you will not be cross with me, noble one," the young man said. "I have no wish to argue with you but to argue about words, this is why I have spoken to you in this way. You are certainly quite right, beliefs alone are not of great importance. But allow me to say one thing more: I have never for a moment had any doubts about you. I have never for a moment doubted that you are a buddha, that you have reached the end of your path, the highest objective that so many thousands of brahmins and brahmins' sons pursue. You have found liberation from death. You have attained this by your own searching, by travelling your own path, by thought, by meditation, by knowledge, by enlightenment. You have not attained it by listening to the teachings of others! And—this is what I have come to believe, noble one—nobody can ever attain liberation by listening to the teachings of others! Nobody, venerable one, will come to understand what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment by hearing your words and your teachings! The enlightened one, the buddha, teaches many things about how to live a good and honest life and how to avoid evil, but the teaching that is so clear, that is so noble, is not there: the noble one does not give teaching about the secret that he alone has experienced, he alone out of hundreds of thousands. This is what I thought, what I perceived, when I heard your teachings. This is the reason I will continue in my wanderings—not to find other teachings which may be better, for I know there are none, but to abandon all teachings and all teachers and either to attain my goal alone or to die. But, noble one, I will often think back to this day and this hour, for my eyes have seen a man of great holiness."
The buddha looked quietly down at the ground, the buddha's face, peaceful but inscrutable, shone with perfect serenity.
"I hope your thoughts," the venerable one said slowly, "are not mistaken! May you arrive at your objective! But tell me: have you seen how many samanas I have, how many brothers who have taken refuge in my teachings? And do you think, samana from a foreign place, do you think all of these would be better off if they abandoned the teachings and went back to life in the world with all its enjoyments?"
"Such a thought is far from me," Siddhartha exclaimed. "I hope they will all remain with the teachings, I hope they will reach their goal! It is not up to me to judge how others lead their lives. I can only judge my own life, I must choose for myself, must reject for myself. We samanas seek liberation from our selves, noble one. I fear, venerable one, that if I were one of your followers I might only seem to bring my self to peace, that my liberation would be illusory and my self would in fact continue to exist and grow bigger, as then I would have the teachings, would have my followers, would have my love for you, would have the community of monks and all this I would have made into my self!"
With a half-smile, with unshakeable clarity and friendliness, Gotama looked the stranger in the eye and took his leave of him with barely noticeable gesture.
"You are clever, samana," the venerable one said. "Your arguments, my friend, are very clever. Take care that you do not become too clever!"
The buddha walked slowly away, and his look and his half smile remained forever engraved in Siddhartha's memory.
I have never before seen anyone look and smile, sit and walk, like this man, he thought to himself. I truly hope that I, too, will be able to look and to smile, to sit and to walk as he does, so free, so venerable, so hidden, so open, so child-like and private. It is only the man who has penetrated to his innermost self who is truly able to look and to walk in this way. I, too, will do my utmost to penetrate to my innermost self.
I have seen one man, Siddhartha thought, just one, to whom I had to lower my eyes. I will not lower my eyes to any other man, not anyone. I will not be drawn into any teachings, as I was not drawn into the teachings of this man.
I was robbed by this buddha, Siddhartha thought, he robbed me, but he gave me much more. He robbed me of my friend, of him who had faith in me and now has faith in him, of him who was my shadow and is now the shadow of Gotama. But he made the gift to me, to Siddhartha, of myself.
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