What’s a moment when you realized you were officially an adult?
As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.” — Bhagavad Gita 2.22
In the Eastern way of seeing life, adulthood is not simply the age of the body. The body may become old, but if the mind remains unconscious, one has not truly awakened.For many years, my body continued to grow, but my inner mind remained like a small child.
I allowed others to pull me in different directions. Without understanding the power I had surrendered, I allowed circumstances, people and their influence to determine the course of my life.
I lived through difficult years, yet I did not understand the deeper lesson.
Then came the turning point.Through intense and continuous practice of sadhanas and kriyas, I began to look inward. Day after day, the practice became a mirror.
Slowly, I began to see not only the world around me, but also the condition of my own mind.One day, the realisation came quietly but deeply:“I have been living my life without truly being awake to it.”That realisation itself became a kind of adulthood.
In the Eastern way, growing up is not merely becoming independent from others. It is becoming aware of oneself. It is learning to observe the mind instead of being dragged by every thought, emotion, fear and influence.
I began to understand that I cannot change the years that have already passed. I cannot return to the beginning and warn the younger version of myself.But I can stop repeating the same unconscious pattern.
Perhaps the suffering was not meaningless. Perhaps it became the ground from which awareness could arise.Now I wish to leave behind the world that kept me trapped in those old patterns.
I want to move elsewhere, rebuild my life and establish a new inner order.Not by running away from life, but by becoming conscious of how I live it.The child within me does not need hatred. It needs compassion.The past does not need endless punishment. It needs understanding.And the mind does not need to be destroyed.
It needs to be trained.This is the adulthood I understand now.The body grows by time. The mind grows through awareness. The soul awakens through understanding.I may have realised this later than I wished, but awakening has no expiry date.
What matters is that I have awakened now.And as Krishna reminds Arjuna:“Whenever and wherever there is a decline in righteousness and an increase in unrighteousness, at that time I manifest Myself.” — Bhagavad Gita 4.7
Perhaps the same principle applies within us.Whenever there is disorder within, there comes a moment when awareness rises.For me, that moment has come.
The old life has taught me enough.
Now the work is to walk forward consciously, with a steadier mind, a clearer direction and a life that I finally take responsibility for.
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