Krishna watched the wonder and the fear still mixed on Arjuna's face, and he wanted his friend to grasp just how uncommon this moment was.

"Listen, brave one," he said. "There are people who spend their whole lives trying to reach me. And they try in every way human beings have ever invented."

He named them, one by one.

"Some read the holy books from dawn to dusk, year after year, until they know every word of every verse by heart. Some light great sacrificial fires and pour offerings into the flames. Some give away all their wealth — gold, cattle, land — keeping nothing for themselves. Some perform every ritual perfectly, in exactly the right order, never missing a step. And some do the fiercest practices of all: standing on one leg for years, fasting until they are thin as reeds, sitting in the burning sun ringed by fires."

He paused.

"All of these are good things. None of them are wasted. But not one of them, by itself, can pry open the door to *this*, the form you have just seen. Not all the study, not all the sacrifice, not all the giving, not all the fierce burning effort in the whole world of men. You cannot earn this sight like a prize. You cannot pay for it like a thing in the market."

Arjuna stared at him. "Then how did I—?"

Krishna only smiled, holding the answer back for now, the way a good teacher waits.

"No one in all the human world has seen me like this," he said. "No one but you, hero of the Kurus. And the reason is not your strength, or your study, or anything you bought or built. There is a different key altogether — and soon I will tell you its name."

The vision dimmed another shade, gentler now, and Arjuna leaned in, waiting to learn the secret.