asked the Brahmins, year after year, and I have asked the holy Vedas, year after year, and I have asked the devoted Samanas, year after year. Perhaps, O Govinda, it had been just as well, had been just as smart and just as profitable, if I had asked the hornbill-bird or the chimpanzee. It took me a long time and am not finished learning this yet, O Govinda: that there is nothing to be learned! There is indeed no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as ‘learning.’ There is, O my friend, just one knowledge, this is everywhere, this is Atman, this is within me and within you and within every creature. And so I’m starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the desire to know it, than learning.”
At this, Govinda stopped on the path, rose his hands, and spoke: “If you, Siddhartha, only would not bother your friend with this kind of talk! Truly, your words stir up fear in my heart. And just consider: what would become of the sanctity of prayer, what of the venerability of the Brahmins’ caste, what of the holiness of the Samanas, if it was as you say, if there was no learning? What, O Siddhartha, what would then become of all of this what is holy, what is precious, what is venerable on earth?”
And Govinda mumbled a verse to himself, a verse from an Upanishad:
He who ponderingly, of a purified spirit, loses himself in the meditation of Atman— Unexpressable by words is his blissfulness of his heart.
But Siddhartha remained silent. He thought about the words which Govinda had said to him and thought the words through to their end.
Yes, he thought, standing there with his head low, what would remain of all that which seemed to us to be holy? What remains? What can stand the test? And he shook his head.