ep. Upon awakening he found himself changed, renewed, and reborn. He was no longer the man he recognized nor the man that his friend Govinda, who was watching him sleep, recognized. Only by losing everything did he begin to find himself. At the brink of death, where he was about to end his life, did he finally discover himself again. All these transitory things have slipped away from him, and he is once more standing beneath the sun as he once stood as a small child. "Nothing is mine, I know nothing, I possess nothing, I have learned nothing... Now, when I am no longer young, when my hair is fast growing gray, when strength begins to diminish, now I am beginning again like a child," he thinks to himself, "I had to become a fool again in order to find Atma in myself. I had to sin in order to live again. Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it."He does follow it. He follows it right to Vesudeva, the ferryman. He stays with Vesudeva and learns the ways of the river. He learned to listen openly and freely, without judgement or opinions. He learned that time does not exist, that everything has reality and presence. Living simply, but happily as a ferryman he learns from the river; it talks to him; it teaches him. In taking care of his son, and losing him, he finds love, an emotion that he once thought he was not capable of. Regardless of his son's disobedience, and lack of respect, Siddhartha loved him blindly and unconditionally. Only when his son runs away does he realize that he is his son. He, too, chose to leave his father, to find his own path, make his own mistakes, suffer from his own sins, before he finally found his path. "I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew."Siddhartha evolve...
