Krishna did not answer at once. Instead he lifted the reins and pointed with his chin toward the far hills, where the morning light was just beginning to gild the ridges.

"Beyond those hills," he said, "two rivers are born from the same mountain. One slips down the eastern slope, quiet and narrow, through cool forest where almost no one walks. The other tumbles down the western side, wide and busy, past villages and fields and the wells where children fill their pots."

Arjuna listened, his frown softening just a little.

"Now," said Krishna, "both rivers reach the same great ocean. Neither one is lost. Neither one is wrong. If you asked a sage which river is holier, he would tell you truly: both are."

He turned to look at Arjuna directly.

"So it is with your two doors. The one who lays everything down and the one who works without clinging — both arrive at the same peace. I will not lie to you and call one of them a dead end."

The horses stamped. Somewhere a war-elephant trumpeted, low and far away.

"But you asked me to choose, and so I will." Krishna's voice was warm and plain, the way Arjuna had begged it to be. "The narrow eastern river is beautiful, but it is hard to find and easy to lose. The western river runs right past your own feet. It waters the fields. It fills the pots. A person standing in the middle of life — with a bow in his hand and people depending on him — that person does better to follow the river that flows through the world than the one that hides in the forest."

He smiled, just slightly.

"Stay in the world, Arjuna. Do your work. Only do it without grabbing. That is the better road for a man like you — not because the other is lesser, but because this one is yours."

Arjuna let out a long breath he had not known he was holding. For the first time that morning, the field did not seem quite so heavy.