With a gloomy mind, Siddhartha went to the pleasure-garden he owned,
locked the gate, sat down under a mango-tree, felt death in his heart
and horror in his chest, sat and sensed how everything died in him,
withered in him, came to an end in him. By and by, he gathered his
thoughts, and in his mind, he once again went the entire path of his
life, starting with the first days he could remember. When was there
ever a time when he had experienced happiness, felt a true bliss? Oh
yes, several times he had experienced such a thing. In his years as a
boy, he has had a taste of it, when he had obtained praise from the
Brahmans, he had felt it in his heart: "There is a path in front of
the one who has distinguished himself in the recitation
of the holy verses, in the dispute with the learned ones, as an
assistant in the offerings." Then, he had felt it in his heart: "There
is a path in front of you, you are destined for, the gods are awaiting
you." And again, as a young man, when the ever rising, upward fleeing,
goal of all thinking had ripped him out of and up from the multitude of
those seeking the same goal, when he wrestled in pain for the purpose of
Brahman, when every obtained knowledge only kindled new thirst in him,
then again he had, in the midst of the thirst, in the midst of the pain
felt this very same thing: "Go on! Go on! You are called upon!" He
had heard this voice when he had left his home and had chosen the life
of a Samana, and again when he had gone away from the Samanas to that
perfected one, and also when he had gone away from him to the uncertain.
For how long had he not heard this voice any more, for how long had he
reached no height any more, how even and dull was the manner in which
his path had passed through life, for many long years, without a high
goal, without thirst, without elevation, content with small lustful
pleasures and yet never satisfied! For all of these many years, without
knowing it himself, he had tried hard and longed to become a man like