Long before the war, when Arjuna was still a student, he had once watched
his grandfather Bhishma perform a great fire-offering at dawn.
He remembered it now as Krishna spoke. The priests had risen in the dark.
They had built the fire stone by stone, fed it with sandalwood and clean
butter, and chanted until the flames stood tall and golden against the
purple sky. Into that fire they poured grain, ghee, sweet milk — gift
after gift — each one vanishing into the light with a soft crackle.
Young Arjuna had tugged his grandfather's sleeve. "Grandfather, where does
it all go? The milk, the grain — we cannot get it back. Who is eating it?"
Bhishma had smiled down at him. "Ah. That is the great question, little
one. We pour the offering into the fire, and the fire carries it upward to
the gods. But behind the gods, behind even the fire, there is One who
truly receives every gift ever given. Most people never see Him. They see
only the flames."
"Who is He?" Arjuna had asked.
"That," Bhishma had said, "you will understand one day, when the right
teacher tells you."
Now, in the chariot, the memory broke open like a seed. For Krishna was
saying the very thing Bhishma had hinted at all those years ago.
"The world that changes and crumbles," Krishna said, "the leaves, the
bodies, the kingdoms — that is the perishable realm of beings. The shining
Person who stands behind the sun and the bright gods — that is the divine
realm. But the One who receives every offering, the Lord of sacrifice
himself, Arjuna —" Krishna touched his own heart, then gently touched
Arjuna's, "— that One is here. In Me. And in you. Not in some far-off
heaven. Right here, inside the body that breathes and aches and wonders."
Arjuna's breath caught. All his life he had imagined the great Lord as
something distant — above the clouds, beyond the stars, far past where any
arrow could fly. And now Krishna was saying that the One behind his
grandfather's dawn fire had been sitting beside him on the chariot the
whole time, holding the reins.
"So close," Arjuna whispered.
"So close," Krishna agreed, "that most people look right past Him —
searching the sky for what is already beating in their chest."
