But Siddhartha said in a voice which contained just as much sadness as mockery, with a quiet, a slightly sad, a slightly mocking voice: “Soon, Govinda, your friend will leave the path of the Samanas, he has walked along your side for so long. I’m suffering of thirst, O Govinda, and on this long path of a Samana, my thirst has remained as strong as ever. I always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions. I have asked the Brahmins, year after year, and I have asked the holy Vedas, year after year, and I have asked the devoted Samanas, year after year. Perhaps, O Govinda, it had been just as well, had been just as smart and just as profitable, if I had asked the hornbill-bird or the chimpanzee. It took me a long time and am not finished learning this yet, O Govinda: that there is nothing to be learned! There is indeed no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as ‘learning.’ There is, O my friend, just one knowledge, this is everywhere, this is Atman, this is within me and within you and within every creature. And so I’m starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the desire to know it, than learning.”