What Stays is What We Remember, What Shapes Us is What We Lose - Gita's Truth
Riya Kumari | May 13, 2025, 23:34 IST
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
The Gita knows all about it. Loss isn’t just a plot twist. It’s the entire character arc. Krishna doesn’t sit Arjuna down and go, “Okay, babe, here’s how to win the war.” No. He basically says, “You’re gonna lose people. You're gonna lose illusions. And by the end of it, if you’re lucky, you’ll lose your ego too.”
We think we are shaped by what we achieve. By what we gain. By what we collect, post, archive, show off. But what if that’s the illusion? What if it’s the absence of something that truly shifts the direction of our lives? At first glance, it sounds poetic. But when you really sit with it, it unpacks everything we think we know about growth, memory, and identity. And suddenly, you’re seeing your whole life differently.
MEMORY BUILDS THE STORY. LOSS REWRITES THE PLOT
The truth is, memory is selective. We don’t remember the entire movie—just a few scenes that made us feel something sharp. Some combination of love, pain, fear, wonder. Your first heartbreak. The last time someone you loved made you laugh like a child. That one sentence a teacher said that made you believe you weren’t stupid. These moments stay. Not because they were “important” by society’s standards, but because they marked you emotionally.
But here’s the deeper layer: while memory holds what stays, it’s loss that sculpts who you become. Not getting the job you thought you deserved. Losing a parent before you could fully understand them. Walking away from a friendship that used to feel like home. These don’t just leave space—they create new shapes. Spaces where something used to be, and now isn’t. And in those spaces, you grow. Quietly. Often without realizing it.
WE DON'T GROW BECAUSE WE HAVE. WE GROW BECAUSE WE’VE HAD TO
The Gita isn’t romantic about loss. It doesn’t pretend pain is glamorous. Krishna doesn’t promise Arjuna comfort. He promises clarity. He tells him that detachment isn’t about being numb, it’s about seeing things for what they are, not what we wish they were. And most of us don’t really “get” this until life removes something we thought we couldn’t live without. A person. A belief. A version of ourselves.
That’s when we start to shift—not just in emotion, but in identity. We learn to rebuild not because we want to, but because we have to. And somewhere in that rebuilding, we realize we are no longer who we were. That’s not just change. That’s transformation.
LOSS ISN’T THE END. IT’S THE START OF MEANING.
It’s a strange thing: we chase permanence, but it’s the temporary that teaches us the most. You don’t learn the value of someone until they leave. You don’t know what stability meant to you until it’s shaken. You don’t understand your own strength until it’s all you have. In those moments, you’re not just surviving. You’re meeting yourself. The real you.
Not the curated one. Not the one performing for approval. But the one who’s just... there. Raw. Awake. Growing roots. The Gita isn’t asking us to celebrate loss. It’s asking us to recognize its role. To stop seeing it as failure, and start seeing it as formation.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
If you’ve lost something lately—something that mattered—you’re not alone. And you’re not broken. You’re in a chapter that won’t get shared on Instagram but will quietly shape who you are years from now. Because here’s the final truth: We don’t carry everything. We carry what mattered. And what mattered isn’t always what lasted. Sometimes, the loss is the lesson. And sometimes, the absence is the real teacher.
So don’t rush to move on. Sit with what’s gone. Feel it. Learn from it. Let it shape you. Because that’s how the soul matures. Not by gaining more, but by losing what it thought it couldn’t live without—and discovering that it still can.
MEMORY BUILDS THE STORY. LOSS REWRITES THE PLOT
But here’s the deeper layer: while memory holds what stays, it’s loss that sculpts who you become. Not getting the job you thought you deserved. Losing a parent before you could fully understand them. Walking away from a friendship that used to feel like home. These don’t just leave space—they create new shapes. Spaces where something used to be, and now isn’t. And in those spaces, you grow. Quietly. Often without realizing it.
WE DON'T GROW BECAUSE WE HAVE. WE GROW BECAUSE WE’VE HAD TO
That’s when we start to shift—not just in emotion, but in identity. We learn to rebuild not because we want to, but because we have to. And somewhere in that rebuilding, we realize we are no longer who we were. That’s not just change. That’s transformation.
LOSS ISN’T THE END. IT’S THE START OF MEANING.
Not the curated one. Not the one performing for approval. But the one who’s just... there. Raw. Awake. Growing roots. The Gita isn’t asking us to celebrate loss. It’s asking us to recognize its role. To stop seeing it as failure, and start seeing it as formation.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
So don’t rush to move on. Sit with what’s gone. Feel it. Learn from it. Let it shape you. Because that’s how the soul matures. Not by gaining more, but by losing what it thought it couldn’t live without—and discovering that it still can.