The Samanas were thin men. They had given up their clothes, their homes, their families. They slept in the forest. They ate only what was placed into their bowls. They did not own names.

Siddhartha learned their ways. He learned to fast — to go without food for days, until his stomach fell quiet and the hunger became a small, dry wind inside him. He learned to hold his breath until the world turned bright around him. He learned to leave his body: to become a stone by the road, a jackal calling in the night, a hawk riding the thermals above the hills.

He left himself a thousand times. A thousand times he came back. Each time, he was still Siddhartha. The thirst was still there — the thirst for meaning, for union, for the one thing that would make the long ache of being himself finally stop.

After three years, he said to Govinda: I have not learned the highest lesson. The Samanas can teach me how to escape, but they cannot teach me how to arrive.

And then they heard, far off in the villages, of a man called Gotama, who it was said had found the way.

A thousand times he came back. Each time, he was still Siddhartha.