And this is a teaching you will laugh about

“I can love a stone, Govinda, and also a tree or a piece of bark. These are things, and things can be loved. But I cannot love words. Therefore, teachings are no good for me, they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no edges, no smell, no taste, they have nothing but words.”

“Perhaps it are these which keep you from finding peace, perhaps it are the many words. Because salvation and virtue as well, Sansara and Nirvana as well, are mere words, Govinda. There is no thing which would be Nirvana; there is just the word Nirvana.”

Govinda said: “Not just a word, my friend, is Nirvana. It is a thought.”

Siddhartha continued: “A thought, it might be so. I must confess to you, my dear: I don’t differentiate much between thoughts and words. To be honest, I also have no high opinion of thoughts. I have a better opinion of things. Here on this ferryboat, for instance, a man has been my predecessor and teacher, a holy man, who has for many years simply believed in the river, nothing else.”

…

Govinda said: “But is that what you call ‘things,’ actually something real, something which has existence? Isn’t it just a deception…, just an image and illusion? Your stone, your tree, your river — are they actually a reality?”

“This too,” spoke Siddhartha, “I do not care very much about. Let the things be illusions or not, after all I would then also be an illusion, and thus they are always like me. This is what makes them so dear and worthy of veneration for me: they are like me. Therefore, I can love them.

And, this is now a teaching you will laugh about: love, oh Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all. To thoroughly understand the world, to explain it, to despise it, may be the thing great thinkers do. But I’m only interested in being able to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it.”

I have read the above words many times, and they rank as one of my absolute favorite Kindle Keeps, from the book Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse . I often return to this part of the book when my mind is restless, and the heart seeks some simplicity. Soon after this part, Siddhartha goes on to explain how he disregards the words and speeches of Buddha, but focuses on Buddha’s actions, his life, and his work. The entire conversation between Siddhartha and his friend Govinda has a rare quality to it, it’s touching you and changing you at the same time.

Although this book has been around for decades, I discovered it accidentally when I was editing the final draft of my first book. My book is a memoir of a phase where I relearned life and love, and pretty much hit reboot on most of my earlier goals and spiritual learning. My eyes got misty when I found the above words from Siddhartha; it seemed that we were meant to find each other only after we’d found the same answer from our independent journeys.