teachers, Siddhartha began to speak and said: "What now, oh Govinda,
might we be on the right path? Might we get closer to enlightenment?
Might we get closer to salvation? Or do we perhaps live in a circle--
we, who have thought we were escaping the cycle?"

Quoth Govinda: "We have learned a lot, Siddhartha, there is still
much to learn. We are not going around in circles, we are moving up,
the circle is a spiral, we have already ascended many a level."

Siddhartha answered: "How old, would you think, is our oldest Samana,
our venerable teacher?"

Quoth Govinda: "Our oldest one might be about sixty years of age."

And Siddhartha: "He has lived for sixty years and has not reached the
nirvana. He'll turn seventy and eighty, and you and me, we will grow
just as old and will do our exercises, and will fast, and will meditate.
But we will not reach the nirvana, he won't and we won't. Oh Govinda,
I believe out of all the Samanas out there, perhaps not a single one,
not a single one, will reach the nirvana. We find comfort, we find
numbness, we learn feats, to deceive others. But the most important
thing, the path of paths, we will not find."

"If you only," spoke Govinda, "wouldn't speak such terrible words,
Siddhartha! How could it be that among so many learned men, among so
many Brahmans, among so many austere and venerable Samanas, among so
many who are searching, so many who are eagerly trying, so many holy
men, no one will find the path of paths?"

But Siddhartha said in a voice which contained just as much sadness as