Chapter 2

WITH THE SAMANAS

In the evening of this day they caught up with the ascetics, the skinny
Samanas, and offered them their companionship and--obedience. They
were accepted.

Siddhartha gave his garments to a poor Brahman in the street. He wore
nothing more than the loincloth and the earth-coloured, unsown cloak.
He ate only once a day, and never something cooked. He fasted for
fifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight days. The flesh waned from
his thighs and cheeks. Feverish dreams flickered from his enlarged
eyes, long nails grew slowly on his parched fingers and a dry, shaggy
beard grew on his chin. His glance turned to icy when he encountered
women; his mouth twitched with contempt, when he walked through a city
of nicely dressed people. He saw merchants trading, princes hunting,
mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians
trying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day for
seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children--and all of this
was not worthy of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank,
it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful and
beautiful, and it all was just concealed putrefaction. The world tasted
bitter. Life was torture.

A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of
thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow.
Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with an
emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was
his goal. Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every
desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part
of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my
self, the great secret.

Silently, Siddhartha exposed himself to burning rays of the sun directly
above, glowing with pain, glowing with thirst, and stood there, until he
neither felt any pain nor thirst any more. Silently, he stood there in
the rainy season, from his hair the water was dripping over freezing
shoulders, over freezing hips and legs, and the penitent stood there,
until he could not feel the cold in his shoulders and legs any more,
until they were silent, until they were quiet. Silently, he cowered in
the thorny bushes, blood dripped from the burning skin, from festering
wounds dripped pus, and Siddhartha stayed rigidly, stayed motionless,
until no blood flowed any more, until nothing stung any more, until
nothing burned any more.

Siddhartha sat upright and learned to breathe sparingly, learned to
get along with only few breathes, learned to stop breathing. He
learned, beginning with the breath, to calm the beat of his heart,
leaned to reduce the beats of his