Bodhi Day, which occurs annually on Dec. 8, commemorates the day Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment in India 2,600 years ago and marks the beginning of the Buddhist faith.

The story of Buddha's search for enlightenment is fairly well known: His father wanted him to become a king. Gautama escaped the palace and was confronted by the harsh reality of impermanence that spurred his search. Engaging in a process of study with noted teachers and practicing with close friends, he finally embarked on a solitary, personal effort in search of enlightenment.

Gautama's progress to enlightenment offers lessons for spiritual development that remain as significant and relevant for our day as those early years. Spiritual growth requires leaving, departing. To attain anything significant in life, we must make choices, giving up one thing to do another.

Gautama had to go against his father's wishes to seek the truth. He left the palace secretly, and in the nearby town he saw people in various stages of life, children and youth, ill and aged people and even a funeral procession on the way to the cremation pyres. Finally, he also saw a tranquil mendicant monk and realized this must be his path.

Sometimes we must go against what our families desire. Consequently, in the dead of night in a dramatic scene, Gautama left behind his parents, wife and child. With his attendant he fled to the forest, cut his hair and sought spiritual teachers.

Gautama studied with several famous teachers seeking wisdom and the solution to life's questions. However, these teachers could not satisfy him fully. He maintained an intellectual and spiritual independence, continuing his personal search.

Together with five companions who, like himself, were engaged in seeking the solution to life's problems, he engaged in serious ascetic practice. Realizing the ineffectiveness of asceticism, Gautama refused to conform to its expectations and departed to follow his own path.

We all desire to be praised and accepted by our friends. Buddhism recognizes the importance of friendship with the concept of the "good friend," but it rejects domination by social pressures. A true friend does not obstruct spiritual growth.

Perhaps the most difficult departure was leaving his ego behind to become aware of the truth of life. In the story, this aspect is undefined. The stages of transcending his ego are indicated with no specific content. The account indicates that Gautama experienced a deep transformation that cannot easily be described, yet made him attractive to his former friends who previously agreed to disown him.

Despite Gautama's deeply personal and inward experience, he had to communicate it by means of language and principles. Rejoining his former friends at Benares, he outlined the basic principles that define Buddhism as a way of life and thought.

For Buddhism, spiritual life is a dynamic process of the awakening of religious consciousness. It reflects inner personal strength as one leaves behind all obstructions to the realization of the higher truth. Spiritual growth requires intellectual, spiritual and personal independence. This is the lesson we discover in Gautama's progress to enlightenment.

The Rev. Al Bloom, a Buddhist, is professor emeritus of religion at the University of Hawai'i.