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emerging figure. His breathing became hard. Strange feelings rose from his heart into his throat.
    Apparently secure in this secluded spot, Siddhi stripped off her wet garments. Carefully, she wound the deerskin around her middle, and covered her breasts with the plantain bark. Then she filled her bowl with water and, making an obeisance to the sun, which was now concealed behind multicoloured clouds, she proceeded towards the hermitage.
    A sudden movement made Siddhi look in his direction. Coming towards her with long strides was ascetic Needak. She greeted him with bowed head but her body trembled with apprehension.
    She awaited the ascetic's command. Needak's gaze was upon her embarrassed figure. After a while he spoke in a trembling voice,
    'Nun, what is the goal of life?'
    'Life's goal is salvation from life's bondage,' she answered.
    Looking at her intently he questioned, 'Is life's goal its own destruction? What is life, Sister?'
    Eyes lowered, she said, 'According to the seers, life is a bondage of pain.'
    Needak went on, 'Life is a bondage of pain and the same life has as its goal freedom from itself? Nun, forget what is said. Consider this. Does the life-giving Brahma, the creative life force, create life only to end it? Does it will its own destruction? Such an argument appears illogical!'
    Pausing a little, Siddhi replied, 'This topic has never arisen in our Maharishi's discourses. How would the Enlightened One explain it?'
    Ignoring her question Needak pursued, 'Which is life's deepest pain, Sister?'
    Siddhi's answer was brief, 'Death.'
    A faint smile appeared on Needak's lips. Siddhi looked away at the Narmada.
    Needak exclaimed, 'Death! Nun, in life's progress death is inevitable. It is foolishness to fear death. Death is not the end of life; it is only the end of one link in life's chain. To continue life is life's main goal. To doubt this goal, to oppose this goal, to fear unhappiness and look for ways to end it - is that life's purpose? Nun, desire is life; love is life; life's demands are natural. Has life never beckoned you towards it?'
    Siddhi answered tremblingly, 'O source of light, my penance and meditation are incomplete. My soul has not yet received the light.'
    'Nun, I'm not thinking of the light that is arrived at with eyes closed. I'm thinking of the wisdom one gathers from the experience of life!'
    Her voice faltered, 'I do not follow the Enlightened One's words correctly. Please enlighten me about life!'
    Taking a deep breath Needak answered, 'Narmada's flow is Narmada's life. If you try to reverse its course the result will be unnatural. If this river, imagining its flow to be painful were to oppose it, what sort of salvation could it expect?'
    Siddhi bowed down and pleaded with folded hands. 'Enlightened One, my soul is weak and full of ignorance.'
    Needak replied, 'Nun, do you take the love of life itself as weakness? By calling life lust and appetite and pitting all of life's energy against it — you are only trying to forget what life really is all about.'
    Siddhi remained unaware of Needak's fast pulse. What she could sense, however, was a sudden change in his tone. The ascetic who had given his morning discourse in a calm, majestic voice and the one who now spoke in a trembling, hoarse voice appeared to be two different persons. Meeting him in solitude, where she could well have expected to feel a certain hesitation only caused a strange sweetness to enter her soul. Looking down on the ground she said, 'Would the Enlightened One initiate me into Wisdom?' 'Wisdom!' Needak exclaimed and took a deep breath. His gaze fell once again on the peaks where the pair of kites was still busy creating new life. Their love play reached a climax and they broke away from each other, their cries echoing in the gathering dusk. The waters of the Narmada reverberated with the sound. 'Look - that way...' cried Needak, pointing upwards.
    Siddhi looked up. She had watched such love transactions earlier. On