Deep in the mountains, in a cave warmed by a small fire, the sage Angiras
sat with his student through the long night, answering question after
question.
The boy had asked: "If Brahman is the highest truth, where does it live?
Does it sit in one place, like a king on a throne? Does it have one face I
could look into, one pair of eyes I could meet?"
Angiras was quiet for a while. Then he said, "Come outside with me."
They stepped out of the cave into the cold, clear dark. The whole valley lay
below them, and above it the sky blazed with more stars than anyone could
count.
"Listen," said the sage.
The boy listened. Far off, a deer rustled through the grass. An owl called.
Down in the village, a baby cried, a dog barked, someone laughed. The wind
moved through the pines. A thousand small sounds rose up from the sleeping
world.
"Every one of those ears hearing the night," Angiras said softly, "the deer's
ears, the owl's, the baby's, yours and mine — the hearing in all of them is
one hearing. Every pair of eyes that will open at dawn — the farmer's, the
sparrow's, the fish's in the river — the seeing in all of them is one seeing.
Every hand that will work tomorrow, every foot that will walk, every face
that will turn toward the sun — there is one truth living behind them all."
The boy's eyes went wide. "You mean Brahman has... no single face. It has
ALL the faces. All the eyes. All the hands."
"Yes," said Angiras. "Do not look for it in one place, child. It does not sit
on a throne in some far-off corner. It is the seeing looking out of every
eye in the world at once, the listening in every ear, the strength in every
hand. It wraps around everything that lives, the way this great sky wraps
around the whole valley — leaving nothing out."
The boy looked at the stars, then down at the dark valley full of sleeping
creatures, and felt something he had no words for: that he was not separate
and small after all, but part of one vast Seer who was, at this very moment,
looking up at the stars through his own two eyes.
