Dadu woke Aarav before dawn. "Come," he said. "I want to show you something
before the day gets busy."
They climbed to the flat rooftop of the house. The lanes of Puri were still
grey and dim below them, the sea a band of dark silver, the tall spire of
the Jagannath temple just a black shape against a paling sky. Everything
waited, hushed, in the half-dark.
"Watch the east," said Dadu.
They waited. A line of pink crept along the horizon. Then gold. And then,
all at once, the rim of the sun lifted over the edge of the sea — and the
whole world woke up.
Aarav turned slowly, taking it in. The temple spire blazed gold. The wet sand
of the beach lit up pale and shining. Far off, Hari Uncle's paddy fields
flushed green. The grey lanes filled with light; he could see a milkman's
cart, a sleepy dog, a woman drawing a kolam at her doorstep. Up the coast, a
fishing boat's white sail caught fire with brightness. Even the faces of the
early walkers on the beach glowed.
"One sun," Aarav said in wonder. "Just one. And it's lighting all of it. The
temple and the sea and the fields and the boats and everybody's face — all
at the same time."
"All at the same time," Dadu agreed. "It doesn't shine on the temple first
and then run over to the fields. It doesn't pick favourites. One sun rises,
and everything that can be seen is seen. The light makes no effort. It simply
shines, and the whole world appears."
He turned to Aarav, the new sun warm on both their faces. "Now think of
inside you. Your eyes see, your ears hear, your mind thinks its thoughts,
your heart feels its feelings. So many different things, all going on at
once. What is it that lights them all up so you know about them?"
Aarav thought. "It's... the same thing? One thing inside me, seeing all of
it?"
"One Knower," said Dadu, "sitting quietly in the field of your body, lighting
up every corner of it — every sight, every sound, every thought — the way
this one sun lights the whole of Puri. You don't have a different little 'you'
for each thing. One light. One Self. The whole field shines because of it."
The two of them stood on the rooftop and watched the single sun finish
lighting the world, and Aarav felt the same single light, quietly, lighting
him.
