There are places and times when awe-inspiring experiences happen in quiet and solitude-and religions get their energy. Also their ambivalence. Beneath the Bodhi tree, on the summit of Mount Sinai, in the desert, in the Hira cave.

It is said that when Siddharta Gautama finally meditated beneath the Bodhi tree, his five friends had deserted him. They thought that the prince who had become a wandering monk was no longer pure.

Siddharta-almost dead of