Chapter 11 · Verse 45

Arjuna's heart was doing two things at once, and he had never felt anything like it.

Part of him was soaring. He had seen what no human eye had ever seen — the whole universe alive inside one shining body, gods upon gods, suns beyond counting, worlds turning like beads of light. His skin prickled all over with the thrill of it. How many people, in all of time, had been shown such a thing? He felt impossibly lucky, lifted up, blessed.

And part of him was terrified. The same vision that thrilled him also made his knees water and his breath come short. The fiery mouths, the endless eyes, the sheer crushing vastness of it. His small human heart simply could not hold so much. It trembled like a leaf in a storm.

Joy and fear, braided together so tightly he could not pull them apart.

He thought of how you might feel standing at the very edge of a great waterfall — dizzy with wonder at its roar and its rainbows, and at the same time clutching the rock because one part of you knows you are very, very small beside it.

"I am so glad," he said honestly, not hiding either feeling. "Glad beyond words to have seen this. And I am so afraid. Both at once, my Lord."

He lifted his eyes, but only for a moment, before the brightness made him look away.

"Please," he asked. "Show me that other form again — the one I know, the one my heart can rest in. Be gracious, O Lord of all the gods. You who are the home where the whole world lives — let me come home too."

He did not wish he had never seen the great form. Having seen it, he now longed for the gentle face that could hold him.