A person bows in front of what they honour. You face the temple, you face the teacher, you face the elder, and you lower your head. All Arjuna's life that had been enough — there was a front to bow toward, and a back you could turn.

But the cosmic form had no front and no back. It was everywhere.

Arjuna turned his head to the right, and there was the blazing face of Krishna, with its kind and terrible eyes. He turned to the left — and there was Krishna again, just as vast. He looked up, and the form filled the heavens. He looked down, past the chariot wheels, and the form was there too, holding up the very ground. He could not find an edge to it anywhere. Wherever he pointed, Krishna was already there, gazing back.

So Arjuna did the only thing that made sense. He bowed in every direction at once.

"Salutations to you from the front," he sang, lowering his head toward the great face before him. "And salutations from behind," for he knew now that even when his back was turned, Krishna was there. "Salutations from every side, O You who are All!"

He felt the truth of it settle into his bones. "Your courage has no end," he said. "Your strength cannot be measured. You stride across the whole universe, and there is no place too far for you to reach." He thought of how Krishna filled everything — every stone, every star, every soldier, every blade of grass on the battlefield — leaving no gap, no corner, no crack unfilled.

"You reach into everything and fill it completely," Arjuna whispered. "And so — and so you are everything. There is nothing that is not you."

He stopped trying to find the right way to face. He let his whole body bow, knowing that whichever way he turned, he was turning toward Krishna. For the first time, bowing did not feel like facing one direction. It felt like being held on all sides at once.