Arjuna had seen the warriors rush into the great mouths, and his heart had been shaken. But now, looking longer, a quieter understanding came to him, and with it the gift of a true picture, the kind that turns a terror into a truth you can carry.

He thought of the rivers.

He had crossed many in his life. He had seen the Ganga come down white and wild from the mountains, and the Yamuna run dark and deep, and a hundred smaller streams besides. Each river was different. Each had its own name, its own villages along its banks, its own twists and quiet pools and roaring rapids. Each behaved as though its journey were the only journey in the world.

And yet, Arjuna knew, every single one of them was going to the same place. No matter how a river wandered, no matter how proudly it rushed, sooner or later it reached the sea — and the moment it touched that vast water, it was no longer a separate river at all. It became the ocean. Its name slipped away. Its banks dissolved. And it was not lost; it was home.

"That is what I am seeing," Arjuna said softly. The kings and warriors, the grandfathers and teachers, all the proud heroes of the world of men — they were the rivers. And Krishna's blazing form was the sea. Each one had lived as though his story were the whole story. Each was now hurrying, abhimukhāḥ, face turned toward the one great gathering-place, to enter the mouths that flamed like dawn.

It was still an enormous thing to behold. But the picture of the rivers softened the fear in it. Rivers reaching the sea is not a disaster. It is the most natural thing there is. It is simply how the world breathes — out into many shapes, and back into the One.

Arjuna stood before the cosmic form, trembling still, but understanding more. All things flow. All things return. And the sea they return to is not hungry darkness. It is Krishna, the home of all the worlds.