The River’s Secret
“Once he asked him: ‘Have you also learned from the river the secret that there is no time?’
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“A bright smile came over Vasudeva’s face. ‘Yes, Siddhartha,’ he said. ‘This is probably what you mean: that the river is everywhere at once—at its source, at its mouth, by the waterfall, by the ferry crossing, in the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains—everywhere at the same time. And that for it there is only the present, not the shadow called the future.’
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“‘That’s it,’ said Siddhartha. ‘And when I learned that, I looked at my life, and it too was a river; and the boy Siddhartha and the man Siddhartha and the old man Siddhartha were only separated by shadows, not by anything real. Siddhartha’s previous births were also not a past, and his death and return to Brahma were not a future. Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has its being and is present.’
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“Siddhartha spoke with rapture; this revelation had brought him profound happiness. Was not all suffering time, was not all self-torment and fearfulness time? Was not all that was heavy and hostile in the world overcome and over with once one had overcome time, had been able to rid oneself of the notion of time?” — Herman Hesse; Siddhartha, p.112-113
James R. Eads
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