The forest was still, as if the morning had paused to listen. The banyan's roots hung like ancient curtains, their shadows stretching across the earth. Sunlight filtered in thin golden shafts, catching the dust motes that drifted between trunk and air.
Aarav awoke to the faint rustle of leaves. The guide was seated in Padmasana — the lotus position — exactly as he had been the night before, back straight, eyes closed, hands resting upon his knees. His breathing was so slow that Aarav could not tell whether it was breath at all or simply the forest moving through him.
For a while, Aarav just watched. In those unmoving lines of the man's frame, he felt the same inexplicable gravity he had sensed since they first met — the presence that could quiet the noise of his thoughts without a single word spoken.
A part of him wanted to speak, to ask one of the hundreds of questions that had collected in his mind over these days. But something else, deeper and older than thought, told him to remain silent.
He closed his eyes, mirroring the guide's posture. The earth beneath him was cool, grounding. He felt the weight of his own breath, the rise and fall of his chest, the pulse in his fingertips. Somewhere, far away, a koel called out.
Minutes passed. Or hours. Aarav couldn't tell. Time had thinned.
When he finally opened his eyes, the guide's gaze was upon him — calm, penetrating, and strangely tender. Without a word, the man reached forward and placed his right hand lightly on Aarav's crown.
The touch was warm, but it seemed to pass through skin into something unseen. "In every breath, remember," the guide said softly,
"शान्तिः परं सुखम् — true peace is the highest joy. When your mind becomes still, the world will reveal its truths to you."
Aarav bowed his head. The hand withdrew. The guide's eyes closed again, his face calm, as if retreating to a place beyond waking and sleep.
Aarav waited. Perhaps another teaching would come, or some sign that the moment had ended. None came.
The banyan leaves whispered in the breeze. Light shifted. The silence deepened.
At last, Aarav's thoughts grew restless again. He lifted his gaze — and felt his breath catch.
The space before him was empty. No movement. No footstep. No rustle in the grass. The guide was simply… gone.
Only a folded saffron cloth remained where he had sat. Resting atop it was a single carved bead, etched with the image of a rising sun.
Aarav picked it up. The wood was warm, as if it had been in the guide's hand just moments before.
The forest did not feel empty. If anything, it throbbed with presence — the banyan, the air, even the soil seemed to hum with what the guide had been.
Aarav's eyes caught something glinting faintly in the roots. He bent down and found it — a single carved bead, warm against his palm as if it had been waiting for him.
A sudden rush of panic gripped him.
Had the guide gone? Had he been left without a word?
His breath quickened, but then, almost unbidden, the man's voice stirred in his mind: "Strength without stillness is only noise."
The words pressed through the storm in his chest, steadying him. "Guruji…" Aarav whispered into the stillness, the word catching in his throat. He let the breath slow.
With both hands, he lifted the bead to his forehead and bowed toward the place where the guide had been seated in Padmasana.
The seat was empty, yet not — the stillness itself felt like a presence.
Aarav remained bowed for a long moment, before lifting his gaze to the forest path ahead, the bead warm in his grasp.
And so, with the bead in his hand and the silence of the guru upon his heart, Aarav stepped into the forest — not knowing where the path would lead, only that it had already begun.