For a while Arjuna said nothing. The morning had warmed; the dew on the chariot rail had dried to nothing. He had listened to Krishna describe the yogi who sits still as a lamp in a windless room, who looks on a lump of clay and a bar of gold with the very same calm. It was a beautiful thing to hear. It was also, Arjuna thought, completely impossible.

He rubbed the back of his neck and finally spoke. "Krishna. Madhusudana. May I be honest with you?"

"Always," Krishna said, without turning. The horses cropped at the trampled grass.

"You have shown me a wonderful picture," Arjuna said. "A mind so even that nothing tips it — not heat, not cold, not praise, not insult. A person resting in himself like still water in a bowl." He spread his hands, helpless. "But when I look inside myself for that still water, I find a river in flood. My thoughts run one way, then another. I think of the battle, then of my brothers, then of an old kindness, then of supper, then of the battle again — all in the space of one breath."

He laughed a little, the laugh of someone admitting a thing he cannot fix.

"So when you tell me to make my mind even and let it stay that way, I believe you that it is good. I simply cannot see *where* it would stay. Where would such steadiness even sit, in a mind as jumpy as mine? Show me a calm pond, and I'll show you my mind splashing it everywhere."

Krishna listened to all of it without the smallest frown. There was no scolding in his face, no disappointment — only the patience of someone who had been asked exactly the right question.

For this, Arjuna realised, was not a foolish doubt. It was the doubt of every honest seeker who has ever tried to sit quietly and discovered, to their dismay, just how loud the inside of their own head can be. And admitting it out loud, instead of pretending to a calm he did not feel, was already the first true step.

Krishna shifted the reins to one hand. "Tell me more," he said gently. "How restless, exactly, is this mind of yours?"