The body was certainly not the self, nor was the self the playing of the senses; but neither was thinking the self, nor the mind, nor the acquired wisdom, nor the acquired art of drawing conclusions and spinning new thoughts from earlier ones. No, even this world of thought was of this world, and it led to no goal if one killed the random ego of the senses while fattening the random ego of thinking and learning.
You did want to. Listen, Kamala: If you toss a stone into water, it takes the swiftest way to the bottom. And Siddhartha is like that when he has a goal, makes a resolve. Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like the stone through the water, never acting, never stirring. He is drawn, he lets himself drop. His goal draws him, for he lets nothing into his soul that could go against his goal. That is what Siddhartha learned among the samanas. It is what fools call magic and what they think is worked by demons. Nothing is worked by demons, there are no demons. Anyone can work magic, anyone can reach his goals if he can think, if he can wait, if he can fast.
Siddhartha never had an ear for Kamaswami's worries, and Kamaswami had a lot of worries. If a transaction was threatened by failure, if a shipment of wares seemed lost, if a debtor appeared unable to pay, Kamaswami could never convince his colleague that it was useful to waste words of grief or anger, to have furrows on his forehead, to sleep badly.
At times he heard, deep in his breast, a soft and dying voice that admonished softly, lamented softly, barely audible. Then for an hour he was aware that he was leading a strange life, that he was doing all sorts of things that were merely a game, that he was cheerful, granted, and sometimes felt joy, but that real life was flowing past him and not touching him. Like a juggler juggling his balls, he played with his business, with the people around him, watched them, enjoyed them; but he never participated with his heart, with the wellspring of his being. The wellspring ran somewhere, as if far from him, ran and ran, invisible, having nothing to do with his life. And sometimes he was startled by such thoughts and wished that it could be granted him to participate with passion and with all his heart in the childlike doings of the day, to live really—to act really, to enjoy really, and to live really instead of merely standing on the side as a spectator.
Above all, it taught him how to listen, to listen with a silent heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinion.
A thought—that may be. I must confess to you, dear friend: I barely distinguish between thoughts and words. Frankly, I have little esteem for thoughts. I have more esteem for things.
Love, O Govinda, seems paramount to me. Seeing through the world, explaining it, despising it may be crucial to great thinkers. But all I care about is to be able to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it or myself, to be able to view it and myself and all beings with love and admiration and awe.
"I know," said Siddhartha; his smile beamed golden. "I know, Govinda. And look, here we are in the midst of the thicket of opinions, in the fight over words. For I cannot deny that my words about love contradict, seem to contradict, Gautama's words. That is precisely why I so greatly distrust words, for I know that this contradiction is an illusion. I know that I am one with Gautama. How could he then not also know love? He, who recognized all humanness in its ephemeralness, in its vanity, and yet loved human beings so much that he devoted a long and arduous life purely to helping them, to teaching them! Even with him, even with this great teacher, the things are dearer to me than words, his life and deeds more important than his speaking, the gestures of his hands more important than his opinions. I see his greatness not in speaking, not in thinking, but only in doing, in living."