Before his ego dies by the river, Siddhartha considers his love for his son and his fear of losing the boy. His ferryman friend, Vasudeva, tells him that he must give these feelings up in order to lose his ego. Siddhartha has become completely ego-driven with his son around, like the "childlike people" who suffer and become a fool for that love; he knows that this is samsara. His son eventually runs away in order to escape Siddhartha's gentleness, piety, and devotion. Siddhartha follows his son to the city, but he eventually realizes that he must cease this pursuit and allow his wound to "blossom." It takes some time, but Siddhartha is finally able to heed Vasudeva's instruction to "'Listen better!'" to the river.
He was now nothing but a listener, completely concentrated on listening, completely empty, he felt, that he had now finished learning to listen [. . .]. Already, he could no longer tell the many voices apart [. . .]. And when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was Om: the perfection.
He maintains his soul, he just does not "tie it" to any one voice in the river; he "submerge[s]" his self by releasing his ego—he lets go of this idea of self/ego. When his ego dies, his soul remains, as it is part of Om. It is the ego which is not; the ego is illusion only.
It is Siddhartha's ego that dies by the river. His ego was the source of much sadness and tribulation in his life. The river represents several very significant turning points throughout Siddhartha's life, as every time he revisits it, he reaches a new stage on his constant quest for enlightenment. The state of ego-death is the highest form of enlightenment and represents a goal for all Buddhists.
The first time Siddhartha comes back to the river, he is world-weary from the cares of money and materialism. It is his initial wish to drown himself in the river, but the river shows him his reflection and sends him the word "Om." By repeating this mantra, Siddhartha is able to destroy his ego and give up on foolishly attempting to control the course of his life.
Siddhartha's ego dies by the river, which is what brings his soul to life. The word "Om" makes him transcend his earthly self and reach a higher plane, where he is not tethered to his first-person perspective but is rather at one with all of reality. This is the ultimate goal of Buddhism, as it is a letting-go of the selfishness and material concerns of the earthly plane and thus of the suffering that goes along with these things.
From this moment of the reverberating "Om," Siddhartha sees that the past does not determine the future, even though he cannot run away from the past. Siddhartha also learns to give up his search for control over the course of his life, instead submitting himself to time and the universe, which are the only things truly capable of influencing a person's direction.
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