This was the most nauseating thing that had ever happened to Siddhartha. He decided to shake off all that disturbed his mind and to go out and search for real happiness and the way to become free from all pain and surffering. He rose silently, careful not to awaken the girls, and quietly went to see his wife and newborn son, who were sleeping soundly. Then he ordered his servant, Chandaka, to get his horse ready.

Siddhartha was twenty-nine years old, exactly as had been predicted by the wise sage years before. In the middle of the night, he escaped from the palace with his favorite horse and his servant. At dawn, they arrived at the banks of the Anoma River. The prince stood by the riverside, took off the precious clothes he was wearing and handed them to Chandaka. He resolutely ordered his servant to take the clothes and the horse back to Kapilavastu and tell the king what had happened. Prince Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakaya caste thus began his quest of finding a solution to end the suffering of mankind.

There were many Hindu religious wanderers and hermits in India at that time, and the prince studied their ascetic techniques of ending surffering. He followed one Brahman master, then another, and then yet another. He was never happy, because he did not find the solution to the world's suffering.

Siddhartha's father sent out a group of ministers to persuade him to return. Instead, five of them were inspired by his thoughts and stayed with him. They finally tried fasting, surviving on only the smallest amount of food, in the hope that this would be the way to enlightenment.

One day, Siddhartha overheard a master musician instructing his pupil."If the string is too tight, it will break. If the string is too loose, no sound will come out from the lute. So we should tie the string neither too loose nor too tight and then the lute will sound beautiful."

"The Middle Way!" That was what Siddhartha had sought for so many years. He looked at himself: he was so skinny that his ribs were outlined against his skin and there did not seem to be any flesh left on him. He was so weak that he could hardly stand up. If he continued like this, he would simply die from starvation without reaching the Truth. For the first time, Siddhartha realized that asceticism was not the most effective solution to the questions existing in his mind. The Middle Way was the solution.

He crawled to a river and drank some water, and then went into the river to bathe and refresh himself. A young girl herding goats came by and offered him some goat's milk, which invigorated his thin body. His five friends saw him drinking the milk and considered him to be breaking their rules. They still firmly believed that practicing strict asceticism was the only way to enlightenment. When Siddhartha gave up asceticism and returned to normal eating habits, they thought he had become a glutton, so they left him and went to Mrgadava.