What Can You Give?

Siddhartha went to see Kamaswami, the merchant, and was shown into a rich house. Servants conducted him across costly carpets to a room where he waited for the master of the house. 

Kamaswami came in, a supple, lively man, with graying hair, with clever, prudent eyes, and a sensual mouth. Master and visitor greeted each other in a friendly manner.

“I have been told,” the merchant began, “that you are a Brahmin, a learned man, but that you seek service with a merchant. Are you then in need, Brahmin, that you seek service?”

“No,” replied Siddhartha, “I am not in need and I have never been in need. I have come from the Samanas [a.k.a., ascetics] with whom I have lived for a long time.”

“If you come from the Samanas, how is it that you are not in need? Are not all the Samanas completely without possessions?” 

“I possess nothing,” said Siddhartha, “If that is what you mean. I am certainly without possessions, but of my own free will, so I am not in need.”

“But how will you live if you are without possessions?” 

“I have never thought about it, sir. I have been without possessions for nearly three years and I have never thought on what I should live.”

“So you have lived on the possessions of others?”

“Apparently. The merchant also lives on the possessions of others.”

“Well spoken, but he does not take from others for nothing, he gives his goods in exchange.”

“That seems to be the way of things. Everyone takes, everyone gives. Life is like that.”

“Ah, but if you are without possessions, how can you give?”

“Everyone gives what he has. The soldier gives strength, the merchant goods, the teacher instructions, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish.” 

“Very well, and what can you give? What have you learned that you can give? 

“I can think, I can wait, I can fast.”

“Is that all?”

“I think that is all.”

Hermann Hesse
from Siddhartha