Was it therefore good, was it right, was it meaningful and the highest occupation to make offerings to the gods?  For whom else were offerings to be made, who else was to be worshipped but Him, the only one, the Atman?  And where was Atman to be found, where did He reside, where did his eternal heart beat, where else but in one’s own self, in its innermost part, in its indestructible part, which everyone had in himself?  But where, where was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part?  It was not flesh and bone, it was neither thought nor consciousness, thus the wisest ones taught.  So, where, where was it?  To reach this place, the self, myself, the Atman, there was another way, which was worthwhile looking for?  Alas, and nobody showed this way, nobody knew it, not the father, and not the teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial songs!  They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the gods, they knew infinitely much—­but was it valuable to know all of this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing?

Surely, many verses of the holy books, particularly in the Upanishades of Samaveda, spoke of this innermost and ultimate thing, wonderful verses.  “Your soul is the whole world”, was written there, and it was written that man in his sleep, in his deep sleep, would meet with his innermost part and would reside in the Atman.  Marvellous wisdom was in these verses, all knowledge of the wisest ones had been collected here in magic words, pure as honey collected by bees.  No, not to be looked down upon was the tremendous amount of enlightenment which lay here collected and preserved by innumerable generations of wise Brahmans.—­ But where were the Brahmans, where the priests, where the wise men or penitents, who had succeeded in not just knowing this deepest of all knowledge but also to live it?  Where was the knowledgeable one who wove his spell to bring his familiarity with the Atman out of the sleep into the state of being awake, into the life, into every step of the way, into word and deed?  Siddhartha knew many venerable Brahmans, chiefly his father, the pure one, the scholar, the most venerable one.  His father was to be admired, quiet and noble were his manners, pure his life, wise his words, delicate and noble thoughts lived behind its brow —­but even he, who knew so much, did he live in blissfulness, did he have peace, was he not also just a searching man, a thirsty man?  Did he not, again and again, have to drink from holy sources, as a thirsty man, from the offerings, from the books, from the disputes of the Brahmans?  Why did he, the irreproachable one, have to wash off sins every day, strive for a cleansing every day, over and over every day?  Was not Atman in him, did not the pristine source spring from his heart?  It had to be found, the pristine source in one’s own self, it had to be possessed!  Everything else was searching, was a detour, was getting lost.