Alone

What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

“You have the right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action.” — Bhagavad Gita

Being alone has helped me. It led me quietly toward the practices of the Isha Foundation, where I began the slow work of finding myself again. For a long time, something inside me felt unsettled, like a constant background noise that no conversation could silence.

Most people I spoke to did not see what I saw or feel what I felt. Their answers were practical, distant, fend for yourself, move on, manage it.So I accepted a harder truth: no one is coming to clean up the mess of my own mind.

Responsibility sits here, with me.I have become sensitive to my surroundings loud noise jars me, strange smells disturb me, sudden splashes of water irritate my nerves. But I no longer give power to fearful stories.

Whatever suffering exists in the world belongs to those carrying it. My work is to steady my own breath, my own thoughts, my own direction.The spiritual path, I am learning, is not crowded. It is walked mostly in silence. Some days the mind behaves. Some days it kicks and screams.

Like just from the other side, Xandra started knocking the cupboard like a mad woman,loud, sudden, chaotic. Once, that kind of disruption would have pulled my mind into agitation.

Now I pause. I breathe. I return to my practice. Let the noise exhaust itself.Because peace is not built by controlling the world outside.It is built by refusing to let madness take residence within.

“When the mind, restrained by the practice of yoga, attains quietness and sees the Self by the self, one is satisfied in the Self alone.” — Bhagavad Gita