Krishna raised his hand and pointed east, toward the rising sun.

"Consider the sword," he said.

Arjuna looked at the army of the Kauravas. He could see, even from this distance, the glint of a hundred thousand blades — swords and spears and the curved edges of battle-axes catching the morning light. Every one of them forged for a single purpose: to cut.

"A sword can cut flesh," Krishna said. "It can split armor. It can fell a tree and divide a river. But take the sharpest sword ever forged — the one Bhishma carries, the one that has tasted the blood of a thousand warriors — and try to cut the soul. What happens?"

He paused, as though genuinely curious about the answer.

"Nothing. The blade passes through emptiness. You cannot cut what has no edge to cut, no surface to meet the steel."

He pointed south, where the morning cookfires of the army sent columns of grey smoke into the air.

"Consider fire. Fire can consume a forest. It can melt iron. It can turn a palace to ash in a single night. But hold the soul over a flame. What burns?" He shook his head. "Nothing. Fire needs something to grip — wood, cloth, oil. The soul offers it nothing. The flame flickers and goes out, and the soul has not grown even warm."

He pointed west, toward the distant gleam of the Sarasvati river.

"Consider water. Water can dissolve salt. It can wear away mountains, grain by grain, over a million years. It can flood a city and leave nothing standing. But pour the ocean over the soul. Does it dissolve? Does it soften? Does even a single drop cling to it?" A slow shake of his head. "Water cannot wet what has no surface to be wet."

He pointed north, where the wind was coming from — a dry, hard wind that pressed against the banners and made the elephants shift their weight.

"And wind. Wind can uproot trees. It can scatter armies. It can strip the skin from a man's face in a desert storm. But the soul?" Krishna smiled — a small, quiet smile that held the patience of someone who has explained the same truth across a thousand ages. "Wind cannot dry what was never moist. It cannot scatter what has no parts. It blows through the soul the way it blows through the sky — without resistance, without effect, without the soul even noticing."

He lowered his hand.

"Four elements," he said. "Earth's sharpest blade, fire's fiercest heat, water's deepest flood, wind's wildest gale. Each one vast. Each one powerful. And each one — entirely, completely, hopelessly — helpless against what you truly are."