ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a story about the awakening of Siddhartha Gautama. It is told by a narrator, Mahanama, who with his four brothers is seeking the peace and wisdom of the Atma. Twilight was coming on as he spoke, the blue air darkening to purple the four corners of the sky. A whiff of twilight even tinctured the shadows as he unfurled what the author surmised was a bald-faced lie, a fairy tale, a bedtime story so fantastic only a child could believe it. Until a year ago, he said, he had been a prince whose loving father, Shuddodana, had sheltered him from the painful, hard and ugly things of the world. The palace in which he was raised, with its parks, lakes and perfectly tended gardens, gave a person a glimpse of what the homes of the gods must look like. All satisfaction with the fleeting pleasures of his cloistered life in the palace left him.
