"Look at any village, any kingdom, any army," Krishna said, sweeping his
hand across the field, "and you will see that people are not all the same.
Each has a different nature, and each is suited to different work."
Arjuna followed his gesture. There, beyond the front lines, he could pick
out the wise old advisors with their scrolls; the armoured warriors like
himself; the merchants and farmers who fed and supplied the camps; and the
countless steady hands that built the wheels, cooked the food, and mended
the tents.
"I arranged it so," Krishna said. "Four kinds of work, fitted to four
kinds of nature. Those whose minds run to wisdom and teaching. Those whose
spirit rises to protect and to lead. Those who love to grow things, trade,
and build wealth that feeds a land. And those whose gift is to serve, to
make, to keep the whole thing running with willing hands. Not one is above
another in worth — each is a thread the cloth cannot do without."
He gathered an imaginary fabric in the air.
"Think of a great loom," he said. "Threads of every colour crossing,
over and under, making a single beautiful cloth. I am like the weaver who
set up the loom and chose the pattern."
Then he paused, and a curious smile touched his lips.
"But here is the secret, Arjuna. Watch a master weaver at her loom. Her
hands fly, the shuttle leaps, the cloth grows — and yet inside, she is
perfectly still. She is not strained, not anxious, not lost in the work.
She is doing everything, and somehow doing nothing. I am like that. I made
all this, I move through all this — and still I am the one who never acts,
who never changes, who never wears thin or grows tired. Know me as both:
the maker of the pattern, and the calm that the pattern never touches."
Arjuna frowned, then slowly nodded, as if catching the edge of something
vast.
"You shape the cloth," he said, "without being caught in the threads."
"Without being caught in the threads," said Krishna. And the morning wind
moved over the field like a hand passing over fabric, ruffling everything,
holding on to nothing.
