"Now let me tell you about a certain kind of person," Krishna said, "the kind the awakened ones bow to."

He gestured toward a small cooking fire burning beside a soldier's tent at the edge of the field. The flames were clean and bright.

"Watch the fire," he said. "When a dry stick falls into it, what happens?"

"It burns," said Arjuna. "It turns to light and ash and warmth."

"Just so," said Krishna. "Now imagine a person whose mind has become like that bright fire — a fire made of true understanding. Every action they take, every task they begin, is like a stick they toss into that flame. And what burns away?"

Arjuna waited.

"The grabbing burns away," said Krishna. "The endless *I want, I want.* The scheming — the secret planning of *how do I get the most for myself.* All of it catches fire and turns to nothing. What is left is the warm, clean act itself, glowing and pure."

A spark drifted up from the distant fire and winked out in the morning air.

"Such a person still works," Krishna said. "Make no mistake — their hands are as busy as anyone's. They sow, they build, they fight when they must. But they do not start a single thing out of craving. They do not lie awake plotting how to twist the world to their own gain. Their wanting has been burned out of them, the way the fire burns the damp out of green wood until only flame remains."

Krishna's eyes were steady on Arjuna now.

"The wise ones — the ones who are truly awake — look at such a person and they say, *there, that one, that is a real sage.* Not the one who has read the most books. Not the one who can argue the loudest. But the one whose every deed has passed through the fire of knowing and come out free of greed."

He smiled.

"That, Arjuna, is who I am asking you to become. Not a man who stops working — but a man whose work no longer burns *him.*"