Between the two great armies the chariot stood still, and the two friends inside it spoke quietly together, as if there were all the time in the world.

Krishna had just finished telling Arjuna something wonderful: that a person could climb right above the three weathers of the mind — the bright calm of sattva, the restless fire of rajas, the heavy dark of tamas — and reach a life that never ends. Arjuna listened with his whole heart. But he was an archer, a man who liked clear marks to aim at, and a soft puzzle had begun to turn in his mind.

He shifted on the chariot floor and looked at his friend. "Krishna," he said slowly, "that sounds beautiful. But how would I ever *know* such a person if I met one? They would look like anyone else, wouldn't they — two arms, two eyes, walking down the road. What are the signs? By what little marks could I tell that someone has gone beyond the three gunas?"

Krishna smiled but did not interrupt. He could see more questions coming, the way you see more arrows in a quiver.

"And another thing," Arjuna went on, leaning forward. "How does such a person *live*? When the day is ordinary — eating, walking, speaking to people, doing their work — how do they behave? Are they strange and far away, or close and ordinary?"

He paused, and then asked the deepest question of all, the one underneath the other two. "And tell me this, my friend. *How* did they do it? How does anyone actually cross over these three weathers that push and pull at all of us? Not what it feels like at the end — but the way across. Show me the path, and I will walk it."

Then Arjuna fell silent and waited, his eyes bright, the whole battlefield forgotten, listening for his friend's answer.