High in the foothills, where the pines gave way to bare grey rock, an old seeker named Devala had spent thirty years learning to still his mind.

He had come close. On his best mornings the world fell away and a quiet light filled him, the way water fills a clay pot. But the goal Krishna speaks of — the final, perfect resting in the Self — that he had not yet reached. He was an old man now. His knees ached on the cold stone, and his breath had grown thin.

One winter dawn, sitting as he always sat, Devala simply did not rise. His body folded gently into the snow. His students found him there, peaceful, a faint smile on his lips, as if he had only paused.

"He failed," whispered the youngest student, frightened. "Thirty years, and he never finished. Where does a soul like his go?"

The eldest student, who had once heard these very teachings, shook his head.

"He did not fail. Listen." And he told them what becomes of such a soul.

First, the eldest said, Devala would not fall into any dark place. The good he had done lifted him. He would dwell for a very long time — years beyond counting — in the radiant worlds where the righteous go, resting like a traveller in a sunlit garden after a long climb.

"And then?" asked the youngest.

"And then, when that long rest is over, he will be born again. But not into just any home. The seed he planted chooses good soil. He will open his eyes as a baby in a household that is clean-hearted and kind, a family that loves learning and lives gently. He will be fed and loved and taught, and the quiet pull toward stillness will already be in him, waiting."

The students were silent. Outside, snow drifted softly over the place where the old man had sat.

"So nothing was lost," the youngest said at last.

"Nothing," said the eldest. "Not a single morning of it. He simply set the bow down to rest. Somewhere, soon, a child will be born who picks it up again — and will not even know why his hands already love it."