That evening Arjuna asked, "You say a freed person's deeds dissolve. How can a deed dissolve? It is done. It stays done."

Krishna smiled and told him an old story.

"Long ago, a doll made of salt set out to measure the depth of the sea. She was a curious little thing, proud of her senses, certain she could weigh and count the whole world. She marched down to the shore. 'I will walk in,' she declared, 'and tell everyone exactly how deep the ocean is.'"

The horses had been unyoked; the camp was settling into firelight.

"The salt doll stepped into the shallows. At once a little of her foot softened and joined the water. She did not notice. She went deeper. Her ankles, then her knees, dissolved into the sea — and a strange thing happened. The further she went, the less of her was left to cling to fear, to pride, to the wish to come back and boast. Each step let go of her."

Arjuna leaned closer.

"By the time she reached the deep water, there was no doll at all. Only sea. The measuring was complete, you might say — but there was no one separate left to carry the measurement home. Her whole self had melted into the very thing she went to know."

"So she failed," Arjuna said.

"She succeeded," said Krishna, "more completely than she dreamed. She wanted to know the sea. In the end she did not stand apart and study it — she became it. That is the freed person and their actions. When a person has dropped clinging, rests firm in knowing, and offers each deed up instead of hoarding its reward, the deed does not pile up behind them like a wall. It dissolves, the way the salt dissolved, until there is nothing left to bind and nowhere left to hide."

The fire popped. Somewhere a sentry called the watch.

"Do your work as an offering, Arjuna, and your work will not chain you to it. The salt that returns to the sea was never lost. It only came home."