The Ultimate Boon

"...every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people--eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past present and future, and everything that exists is good--death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary..." (144)

Siddhartha's original goal was to reach Nirvana, and is what he manages to do. He realize even though he was once a gambler, and a material man, it didn't make him any less equal to everything else. His deeper understanding of unity among everything in the world is enlightenment. He knows now that yes, someone could have sat there and told him all this, but that wouldn't be enlightenment. One cannot reach Nirvana through teachings, but through experience, the same way wisdom is obtained. The relationships between everything could of easily been taught to him, but that is not what he needed. Siddhartha needed his own experience to realize this. His experience is the prior incident when listening to the river. This is what helped him reach this ultimate boon, it helped him understand the wholesomeness between everything in the world.