On the thirtieth morning, the forest was so still that one could hear the dew falling onto the leaves.

The young man sat meditating under the bodhi tree—the place he had remained throughout this entire journey.

But this morning, the posture was no longer a “meditation posture” in the technical sense he had been taught.

It felt like a natural state of the earth and sky.

His breath was steady, light like a breeze gliding across a lake.

His mind settled, clear like the first drop of morning dew.

And within that stillness, something strange happened.

He no longer felt that “someone is sitting here meditating.”

No longer felt that “a mind is observing.”

No longer felt that “there is a world outside.”

Everything—inside and outside—seemed to dissolve into each other.
No more two.

The teacher approached, standing behind him for a long while.
He did not speak.

He let the silence speak first.

After some time, the teacher asked:

— What are you seeing this morning, my child?

The young man opened his eyes, but they were no longer the eyes of the previous days.

They were wider, brighter, and without a center.

He answered softly, yet his voice echoed like a mountain spring:

— Master… I don’t know how to name it.
It feels as if the mind and the universe… have merged.
No more inside or outside.

No more self and universe.
Only one single stream of life.

The teacher sat down beside him, his gaze gentle like early morning light:

— Good.
Today you touched the meeting point of two streams:
the mind is the universe — the universe is the mind.

He pointed to the sky:

— When you look at the sky, the sky appears within the mind.

When the mind expands, it merges with the sky.
There is no “inside.”

There is no “outside.”
Only one space of awareness.

The teacher picked up a fallen leaf and placed it in the young man’s hand:

— You see this leaf because it appears within the mind.

But when the mind is as vast as the sky, the leaf is no longer “inside” or “outside.”

It is simply an expression within the stream of life.

The teacher spoke slowly:

— When the mind is no longer limited by the self,
and the universe is no longer seen as “outside,”
the two streams meet.

— Not uniting.
Not blending.

But because they were never two.

The young man looked at the leaf in his hand.
It was no longer a leaf.
It was a part of the sky.

And the sky was a part of it.

Within him, Jiddu’s words echoed again—not as a concept this time, but as a ripened truth:

“When the observer is not, only observation remains.”

No more “I am seeing.”
Only seeing.
No more “I am breathing.”
Only breath.
No more “I am living.”
Only life.

The teacher stood up, brushing dust off his robe:

— Now, during walking meditation today, try to feel this:
no inside, no outside; no self, no universe.
Only one stream of life walking.

The young man rose and followed the teacher.
His first step touched the earth—
and he felt as though it wasn’t he who was walking,
but the entire universe walking through him.

This morning was no longer just a morning.
It became an infinite space—
within which everything was unfolding as one.