The young student could not stop frowning.

The day before, his teacher had told him that all beings rest inside God, the way clouds rest in the sky. He had loved that. It made sense. But now, on the second morning, his teacher said something that turned his thinking upside down.

"And yet," the sage said with a twinkle, "in another way, beings are *not* contained in me at all. Behold my mystery!"

The boy's eyes went wide. "But Teacher — yesterday you said everything rests inside God. Now you say nothing is contained in him? Which is true? They can't both be true!"

The sage laughed, delighted. "Ah. Now you have found the riddle. And the answer is — both are true. That is exactly the mystery."

He picked up a clay pot and held it out. "Think of the space inside this pot. Is the space inside the pot? Yes — you can point to it. But is the great open space of the whole world trapped inside this little pot? Of course not. The pot floats *in* the space. The space is not caged by the pot. Break the pot, and the space inside was never really separate at all."

The boy turned the idea over and over.

"So God holds everyone up," he said slowly, "carries us, makes us, keeps us alive — like a parent carrying a sleeping child. We could not exist for one heartbeat without him."

"Yes," said the sage.

"But he is not stuffed inside us like water in a jug. He is far too big to be contained. He is everywhere, holding everything — and tied down by nothing."

"Now," said the sage gently, "you are not just hearing the riddle. You are beginning to feel it. This is what Krishna means when he says, *Behold my divine mystery.* He is not asking you to solve it like a sum. He is asking you to stand before it the way you stand before a sky full of stars — too great to hold in your hands, yet holding you all the same."

The boy looked up, and for the first time the puzzle did not frustrate him. It made him feel safe. He was carried by something far too big to ever drop him.