He was beginning to meditate.
Time passed—or stood still—for Tropile; there was no difference. There was no time. He found himself almost on the brink of Understanding.
Something snapped. An intruding blue-bottle drone, maybe, or a twitching muscle. Partly, Tropile came back to reality. Almost, he glanced upward. Almost, he saw the Eye....
It didn't matter. The thing that really mattered, the only thing in the world, was all within his mind; and he was ready, he knew, to find it.
Once more! Try harder!
He let the mind-clearing unanswerable question drift into his mind:
If the sound of two hands together is a clapping, what is the sound of one hand?
Gently he pawed at the question, the symbol of the futility of mind—and therefore the gateway to meditation. Unawareness of self was stealing deliciously over him.
He was Glenn Tropile. He was more than that. He was the water boiling ... and the boiling water was he. He was the gentle warmth of the fire, which was—which was, yes, itself the arc of the sky. As each thing was each other thing; water was fire, and fire air; Tropile was the first simmering bubble and the full roll of Well-aged Water was Self, was—more than Self—was—
The answer to the unanswerable question was coming clearer and softer to him. And then, all at once, but not suddenly, for there was no time, it was not close—it was.