Why Does Life Take Away the People We Love? The Gita’s Perspective on Loss
Riya Kumari | Mar 27, 2025, 23:55 IST
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
So, you’re heartbroken. Maybe life snatched away your favorite person, and now everything feels like a sad indie film where it’s always raining and someone’s whispering poetic nonsense about time being a thief. Maybe it was a relationship breakup, a tragic loss, or just one of those slow-burn goodbyes that sting more than a straight-up ghosting. Either way, you’re left staring at the ceiling, asking, Why?—like you’re the lead in a Hollywood tearjerker.
Loss is a strange thing. One day, someone is here. You laugh with them, hold them, listen to the small, unremarkable details of their day. And then, suddenly, they’re gone. Their chair is empty, their voice is just an echo in your memory, and the world somehow continues spinning like nothing happened. You tell yourself this is life—it happens to everyone. And yet, when it happens to you, the logic doesn’t make it easier. You search for reasons. You try to understand why the universe gives only to take away. And in that moment, there are only two options: You can believe life is cruel, or you can try to make sense of it in a way that allows you to keep living. The Bhagavad Gita takes the second path. It doesn’t give easy answers, but it offers something better—wisdom that can hold you when you don’t know how to hold yourself.
1. Loss Isn’t the End—It’s Just Change
Imagine standing on the shore, watching waves rise and crash, one after another. No two waves are the same, but the ocean itself remains. This is how the Gita explains life and death. Krishna, speaking to Arjuna—who is paralyzed by the thought of losing his loved ones—says: "You grieve for those who should not be grieved for. The wise do not mourn for the living or the dead. The soul is eternal. It does not die when the body dies."
At first, this might sound detached, even dismissive. But Krishna isn’t saying, “Stop feeling.” He’s saying, “Look deeper.” What we lose is only the form—the body, the presence, the tangible proof of someone’s existence. But the essence, the part of them that touched our life, does not disappear. Like the wave returning to the ocean, they exist beyond what we can see. The mistake we make is believing we ever owned anything in the first place. We call people ours—our parents, our friends, our love. But were they ever really ours? Or were they, like everything else in life, only passing through?
2. The Pain of Holding On
Loss hurts because we resist it. We tell ourselves, This shouldn’t have happened. We replay moments, rewrite endings, bargain with reality. But what if the pain isn’t just from what’s gone—but from our refusal to let go? Krishna teaches that everything in this world is temporary. Not as a cold fact, but as a way to set us free. If we accept that nothing stays, we stop grasping at life like it’s slipping through our fingers. We start living in a way that honors what we have, instead of mourning what we’ve lost. This doesn’t mean forgetting. It doesn’t mean we don’t miss people or ache for their presence. But it means we don’t fight the truth. We allow ourselves to love without needing to possess. We allow life to move, even when it moves in a direction we don’t want.
3. Where Do They Go?
It’s a question we all ask. And depending on who you ask, the answers vary—heaven, reincarnation, energy, nothingness. But the Gita tells us that the soul is not lost, only transformed. That love doesn’t end, it only takes a different shape. Think of the people you’ve lost. They are not here in the way you want them to be. But are they gone? Or do they live in the way you love, in the choices you make, in the parts of yourself they shaped? The presence of absence is still a presence. And maybe that’s what the Gita is really trying to tell us. That life never truly takes away—because nothing that is real can ever be lost.
1. Loss Isn’t the End—It’s Just Change
Soulmate
( Image credit : Pexels )
Imagine standing on the shore, watching waves rise and crash, one after another. No two waves are the same, but the ocean itself remains. This is how the Gita explains life and death. Krishna, speaking to Arjuna—who is paralyzed by the thought of losing his loved ones—says: "You grieve for those who should not be grieved for. The wise do not mourn for the living or the dead. The soul is eternal. It does not die when the body dies."
At first, this might sound detached, even dismissive. But Krishna isn’t saying, “Stop feeling.” He’s saying, “Look deeper.” What we lose is only the form—the body, the presence, the tangible proof of someone’s existence. But the essence, the part of them that touched our life, does not disappear. Like the wave returning to the ocean, they exist beyond what we can see. The mistake we make is believing we ever owned anything in the first place. We call people ours—our parents, our friends, our love. But were they ever really ours? Or were they, like everything else in life, only passing through?
2. The Pain of Holding On
Holding hands
( Image credit : Pexels )
Loss hurts because we resist it. We tell ourselves, This shouldn’t have happened. We replay moments, rewrite endings, bargain with reality. But what if the pain isn’t just from what’s gone—but from our refusal to let go? Krishna teaches that everything in this world is temporary. Not as a cold fact, but as a way to set us free. If we accept that nothing stays, we stop grasping at life like it’s slipping through our fingers. We start living in a way that honors what we have, instead of mourning what we’ve lost. This doesn’t mean forgetting. It doesn’t mean we don’t miss people or ache for their presence. But it means we don’t fight the truth. We allow ourselves to love without needing to possess. We allow life to move, even when it moves in a direction we don’t want.
3. Where Do They Go?
Photos
( Image credit : Pexels )
It’s a question we all ask. And depending on who you ask, the answers vary—heaven, reincarnation, energy, nothingness. But the Gita tells us that the soul is not lost, only transformed. That love doesn’t end, it only takes a different shape. Think of the people you’ve lost. They are not here in the way you want them to be. But are they gone? Or do they live in the way you love, in the choices you make, in the parts of yourself they shaped? The presence of absence is still a presence. And maybe that’s what the Gita is really trying to tell us. That life never truly takes away—because nothing that is real can ever be lost.