A recent visit to Buddha Gaya to ‘check-in’ with this era’s ur-guru, Shakyamuni, I realized how important is one’s current running narrative. The narrative there of course is straight to the point: liberation from ‘cycling in the cycling,’ the endless rounds of Samsara, which became the ruling, meditative thought, guiding the Shakya Prince to find a solution not only for himself but all sentient beings. So after many austerities that catalogue Indic yogic techniques of his time—the Axial Age—he doubled-down in a White Mahakala cave at Dungeshwari Cave Temples, not far from the Niranjan River, for six months of fasting. Coming out as a walking skeleton, the Princess Sujata fed him rice and milk, weening him away from austerity. Staring at the river’s water, he learned the correct way was in the middle away from all extremes, and so tuned his senses like a fine instrument in order to ‘play’ them. Then the Prince Siddhartha made a firm resolve he would not get up until he was fully e...