He lay down in the grass by the river. He slept the deepest sleep of his life. When he woke, a monk in yellow robes was sitting near him, watching over him. It was Govinda, who had not recognised him in his fine merchant's clothes until Siddhartha spoke his name.

Govinda was travelling with a company of Buddhists. He was surprised to find Siddhartha rich. He was more surprised to find him wretched. He gave him water. He left at dawn.

Siddhartha stayed by the river.

He listened to it. It was not one sound but many. It was the sound of water falling over stones. It was the sound of his father reading the Vedas at evening. It was the sound of Kamala laughing. It was the sound of his own voice, when he was a child, asking his father a question his father could not answer. It was all of these at once, and also none of them. It was simply the river, saying everything it had ever heard.

Sitting there, he understood that the river knew a secret he had not yet learned: that there is no time. That all of it — the boy, the Samana, the lover, the merchant, the broken man — was here, now, at the same moment, flowing past each other in one unbroken sound.

It was simply the river, saying everything it had ever heard.