It was the kind of Puri afternoon where the weather could not make up its mind.

Aarav lay flat on his back on the warm roof terrace of his house, hands behind his head, watching the sky. Dadu sat nearby in the shade, sipping tea. They had been talking all week about the field and the knower, and today Aarav had gone quiet, just watching the clouds.

"Dadu," he said at last. "I've been noticing something."

"Mm?"

"Feelings. They come and go like *this*." He pointed up. A fat grey cloud was drifting across the blue, and behind it the sun kept flashing in and out. "This morning I really, *really* wanted Ma to make pakoras. *Wanting* — like that cloud rolling in. Then she said no, and I felt cross at my little cousin for no reason — *dislike*, another cloud. Then I found a rupee coin on the stairs and I was so happy — sunshine! Then I stubbed my toe and it hurt and I almost cried — rain." He laughed. "All before lunch!"

Dadu set down his tea.

"And here's the strange part," Aarav went on. "The wanting came and went. The crossness came and went. The happy, the hurt — all of them came and went. But *I* was here the whole time. Watching them blow past. Just like I'm lying here now watching the clouds blow past the sky."

Dadu was very still, the way he got when Aarav said something true.

"Aarav," he said softly, "you have just understood the last piece of Krishna's map. He told Arjuna exactly what you noticed. The field — your body and mind — is full of changing weather: *wanting* and *not wanting*, *pleasure* and *pain*. The body itself, a gathering of bones and breath. The awareness that fills it. The steadiness that holds it all together. All of it shifting, all day long, like sky."

"Clouds," Aarav murmured, watching the grey one finally clear.

"Clouds," Dadu agreed. "And the sky? The sky never gets wet when it rains. It never gets burnt when the sun blazes. It never tears when the wind blows. The clouds pass *across* it, but the sky stays open and clear behind them all." He looked over at his grandson. "That sky is the knower, child. That is the part of you that watches the feelings come and go — and is never once stained by any of them."

Aarav lay there a long time, feeling a small breeze move across his skin, a thought drift through his mind, a flicker of contentment rise and settle — and behind it all, quiet and wide, the one who was simply watching.