Chapter 7

SANSARA

For a long time, Siddhartha had lived the life of the world and of lust,
though without being a part of it. His senses, which he had killed off
in hot years as a Samana, had awoken again, he had tasted riches, had
tasted lust, had tasted power; nevertheless he had still remained in his
heart for a long time a Samana; Kamala, being smart, had realized this
quite right. It was still the art of thinking, of waiting, of fasting,
which guided his life; still the people of the world, the childlike
people, had remained alien to him as he was alien to them.

Years passed by; surrounded by the good life, Siddhartha hardly felt
them fading away. He had become rich, for quite a while he possessed a
house of his own and his own servants, and a garden before the city by
the river. The people liked him, they came to him, whenever they needed
money or advice, but there was nobody close to him, except Kamala.

That high, bright state of being awake, which he had experienced that
one time at the height of his youth, in those days after Gotama's
sermon, after the separation from Govinda, that tense expectation, that
proud state of standing alone without teachings and without teachers,
that supple willingness to listen to the divine voice in his own heart,
hat slowly become a memory, had been fleeting; distant and quiet, the
holy source murmured, which used to be near, which used to murmur within
himself. Nevertheless, many things he had learned from the Samanas, he
had learned from Gotama, he had learned from his father the Brahman,
had remained within him for a long time afterwards: moderate living,
joy of thinking, hours of meditation, secret knowledge of the self,
of his eternal entity, which is neither body nor consciousness. Many
a part of this he still had, but one part after another had been
submerged and had gathered dust. Just as a potter's wheel, once it has
been set in motion, will keep on turning for a long time and only slowly
lose its vigour and come to a stop, thus Siddhartha's soul had kept on
turning the wheel of asceticism, the wheel of thinking, the wheel of
differentiation for a long time, still turning, but it turned slowly and
hesitantly and was close to coming to a standstill. Slowly, like
humidity entering the dying stem of a tree, filling it slowly and
making it rot, the world and sloth had entered Siddhartha's soul,
slowly it filled his soul, made it heavy, made it tired, put it to
sleep. On the other hand, his senses had become alive, there was much
they had learned, much they had experienced.

Siddhartha had learned to trade, to use his power over people, to enjoy
himself with a woman, he had learned to wear beautiful clothes, to give
orders to servants, to bathe in perfumed