the words, "You have ingested the teachings well, they were conveyed to you well. Come, then, among us and walk in holiness, that you may prepare an end to all sorrow".
Then Govinda, too, the shy one, was seen to come forward and he said, "I, too, seek refuge with the noble one and his teachings," and asked to be accepted among the buddha's followers, and he was accepted.
Soon thereafter, as the buddha had withdrawn for his night's rest, Govinda went to Siddhartha with great enthusiasm and said, "I am not entitled to reproach you for anything. We have both heard the noble one, we have both received his teachings. Govinda heard the teaching, he has taken refuge in them. But you, revered one, will you not take the path of liberation? Will you delay, will you continue to wait?"
When he realised what Govinda had said Siddhartha woke as if he had been sleeping. Then, gently and with no mockery in his voice, he said, "Govinda, my friend, now you have taken the first step, now you have chosen your path. You have always been my friend, Govinda, you have always followed me one step behind. I have often asked myself whether Govinda would one day take a step of his own, without me, from his own soul. Now see, you have become a man and chosen your own way. I hope you will follow it to its end, my friend! I hope you will find liberation!"
Govinda still did not fully understand, and impatiently repeated his question: "Speak, dear friend, I beg of you, speak! Tell me what cannot be different, tell me my learned friend that you too will take refuge with the noble buddha!"
Siddhartha lay his hand on Govinda's shoulder. You have failed to hear my deepest wish for you, Govinda. I will repeat if for you: I hope you will follow your path to its end, my friend! I hope you will find liberation!"
At that moment Govinda saw that his friend had left him, and he began to weep.
"Siddhartha!" he implored.
Siddhartha's reply was friendly. "Govinda, do not forget that you now are one of the samanas of the buddha. You have forsaken your home and your parents, forsaken origins and possessions, by your own free will you have forsaken friendship. This is what is said in the teachings, this is what is said by the buddha. This is what you have chosen for yourself. Tomorrow, Govinda, I will leave you."
The two friends wandered long among the trees, long they lay but found no sleep. And Govinda asked his friend over and over again why he would not take refuge in the teachings of Gotama, what fault could he find in these teachings. But Siddharth always rejected his insistence and said, "Learn to be in peace, Govinda. The teachings of the noble one are very good. How should I find any fault in them?"
As morning was breaking one of the buddha's followers, one of his eldest monks, went through the garden and summoned all them who had newly chosen to take refuge in the teachings. They were to put on their yellow robes and receive their first instruction in the teachings and duties of their new status. Govinda ran to Siddhartha, embraced his childhood friend on more time, and went to join the ranks of the novices.
Siddhartha, however, wandered among the trees, deep in thought.
While he was there he came across Gotama, the noble one. Siddhartha greeted him with veneration. There was so much peace and goodness to be seen in the buddha's eyes that the young man took courage and asked the venerable one's permission to speak to him. The noble one gave his assent with a silent nod.
Siddhartha said, "Noble one, I was yesterday privileged to hear your wonderful teachings. I had come here from afar with a friend to hear them. My friend now will stay among your followers and take refuge with you. I, however, will start my pigrimage anew."
"You are free to do as you wish," said the noble one politely.
"In speaking to you I have been more bold than I should have been," Siddhartha continued, "but I would not want to depart from the noble one without having given him my sincere thoughts. Would the noble one be willing to give me another moment of his time to hear me?"
The buddha gave his assent with a silent nod.
Siddhartha said, "There is something, most venerable one, that I admired most of all in what you said. Everything in your teachings is perfectly clear and supported with proof; you depict the world as a perfect chain, never broken anywhere on its length, an eternal chain made up of causes and effects. This has never been made so clear, never set out so irrefutably; the heart of every brahman must surely beat at a higher level when he has heard your teachings and first sees the world of perfect coherence, without omissions, as clear as crystal, not dependent on chance, not dependent on any gods. This could be good or bad, could bring joy or sorrow to life, but it is not something we need to consider, it could well be that it is not of basic importance—but the unity of the world, that all events are inter-related, the flow of existence that embraces all things great and small, the law of cause and effect, existence and death, all these things shine brightly out from your noble teachings, o perfect one. But there is a place in your own teachings where this cohesion, this sound argument that governs all things is interrupted, there is a small hole where something strange, something new, something not previously there flows into this 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