"I will tell you of a traveler," said Krishna, "who searched the whole earth for peace."

Arjuna had set his bow upright now, leaning it against the chariot rail, and his hands were quiet.

"This traveler had heard that somewhere there was a place of perfect stillness — no quarrels, no fear, no restless wanting. He sold his house and set out to find it. He crossed mountains where the wind cut like a knife. He crossed deserts where the sun pressed down like a hand. He asked everyone he met, 'Where is the place of peace?' And everyone pointed further on."

The mist had nearly burned away. Pale light was reaching the field.

"The years passed. His hair turned grey. And still he wandered, hungry and tired, carrying his anger at the world that would not give him what he sought, and his desire for the peace that always lay just over the next hill."

"At last, footsore and old, he sat down on a stone to rest. He was too tired to want anything anymore. Too tired even to be angry. His breathing slowed. His searching mind went still, just for a moment. And in that stillness he heard the wind in the grass, and the small sound of a stream, and his own quiet heart — and he realized, with a kind of laughter and a kind of weeping, that the peace he had crossed the world for was sitting right there on the stone with him. It had been beside him the whole way."

Krishna looked at Arjuna.

"For the one who has set down desire and anger, who has steadied the mind and come to know the Self within — the deep peace is not over the next hill. It is on every side of him, all around, near as the air. He does not journey to it. He simply stops searching, and finds that it was always there."

Arjuna let out a slow breath, as if he too had set something down.