You Chose Dharma, Did Everything Right, Why Does the Soul Still Feel Empty?
Riya Kumari | Dec 19, 2025, 00:24 IST
Gita
( Image credit : AI )
There are seasons in life when nothing is visibly wrong. You are doing what is expected of you. You are kind. You are disciplined. You are stable. From the outside, it looks like you’ve arrived at peace. But inside, there is a quiet hollowness - subtle, persistent, hard to explain. A sense that you are constantly running, not toward joy, but away from collapse. Afraid that one wrong step might undo everything.
There comes a moment in many lives where nothing is wrong, and yet everything feels unresolved. Life is not falling apart. There is no visible tragedy. Days pass smoothly. People would say you are doing well. And still, beneath that calm surface, there is a strange sensation - as if you are constantly running. Not toward something, but away. Away from breaking what you have built. Away from a single misstep that could undo everything. Away from the quiet question that waits patiently at the back of your mind: Is this all? The Bhagavad Gita recognizes this state intimately. It does not accuse it. It names it.
The Peace That Feels Like Surveillance
![Balance]()
There are phases where life feels orderly, almost serene. Things are right. You are careful. You are composed. Nothing demands urgency. And yet the mind refuses to rest. It scans the future. It rehearses alternate realities. It whispers what if endlessly.
What if this peace does not last?
What if one wrong decision collapses everything?
What if this stability is borrowed time?
So even in calm, you remain tense. Even in happiness, you remain alert. Peace becomes something you guard instead of something you trust. The Gita understands this kind of peace as conditional - a peace born not of freedom, but of fear. It is the peace of someone who believes balance must be constantly maintained, or it will be lost. You are not still. You are standing very carefully. And that is why the soul feels tired. Because it is always bracing for impact.
The Mind That Wants More
The mind does not crave fulfillment. It craves motion. It chases inconsistencies, risks, instability - not because chaos is good, but because movement feels alive. Stability feels like stagnation to an unanchored mind. Silence feels threatening.
So even when you have enough, the mind invents lack.
Even when you arrive, it insists you are late.
Even when you rest, it tells you you are falling behind.
A voice grows louder: Do more. Become more. Prove more.
And you begin to feel as though a crucial piece of yourself is missing - some invisible component that no achievement ever seems to supply. The Gita does not call this ambition. It calls it displacement. Because the mind, when disconnected from the self, searches endlessly in the world for what can only be found within. It is not hunger, it is exile. And the tragedy is not wanting more. The tragedy is never asking why more never satisfies.
When You Avoid Feeling, Until Feeling Breaks You Open
![Hurt]()
Some people survive by postponing themselves. They do not heal; they manage. They do not feel; they function. They tell themselves they will deal with it later - after this phase, after this responsibility, after this version of life stabilizes. For a while, this numbness feels efficient. Even mature. You are not overwhelmed. You are composed. You are “strong.” Until one day, the body remembers everything the mind refused to process. And it arrives all at once - grief without warning, tears without narrative, exhaustion without explanation.
The Gita never advises suppression. It warns against it. Because what is not felt consciously returns unconsciously, with force. Expression is not instability. Avoidance is. Some people will be frightened by your emotional depth. They will prefer you calm, muted, manageable. Let them go. Others will recognize your intensity as truth. They will not ask you to shrink. They will meet you where you are. The Gita is uncompromising here: do not abandon your inner life to preserve fragile bonds. Life is not meant to be survived quietly.
Losing Yourself While Trying to Preserve the Ending
Most people imagine life as a story with a clear arc. A beginning. A plan. A beautiful ending shared with certain people. And then life interferes. People leave. Paths diverge. Versions of yourself dissolve. And somewhere in trying to hold the story together, you realize you no longer recognize the one living it. This feels like loss. But the Gita frames it differently: transformation is not betrayal.
Why “Good” Was Never Enough
The Gita never asks you to be good. It asks you to be awake.
You can be kind and still be absent from your own life.
You can be responsible and still be disconnected.
You can do everything right and still feel hollow.
That emptiness is not failure. It is the moment before honesty. It is the space where you stop running. Where you stop numbing. Where you stop asking if you are safe and start asking if you are alive. And when you finally allow yourself to live, not cautiously, not perfectly, but truthfully, you realize something quietly radical: You were never meant to be merely good. You were meant to be whole.
The Peace That Feels Like Surveillance
Balance
( Image credit : Pexels )
There are phases where life feels orderly, almost serene. Things are right. You are careful. You are composed. Nothing demands urgency. And yet the mind refuses to rest. It scans the future. It rehearses alternate realities. It whispers what if endlessly.
What if this peace does not last?
What if one wrong decision collapses everything?
What if this stability is borrowed time?
So even in calm, you remain tense. Even in happiness, you remain alert. Peace becomes something you guard instead of something you trust. The Gita understands this kind of peace as conditional - a peace born not of freedom, but of fear. It is the peace of someone who believes balance must be constantly maintained, or it will be lost. You are not still. You are standing very carefully. And that is why the soul feels tired. Because it is always bracing for impact.
The Mind That Wants More
The mind does not crave fulfillment. It craves motion. It chases inconsistencies, risks, instability - not because chaos is good, but because movement feels alive. Stability feels like stagnation to an unanchored mind. Silence feels threatening.
So even when you have enough, the mind invents lack.
Even when you arrive, it insists you are late.
Even when you rest, it tells you you are falling behind.
A voice grows louder: Do more. Become more. Prove more.
And you begin to feel as though a crucial piece of yourself is missing - some invisible component that no achievement ever seems to supply. The Gita does not call this ambition. It calls it displacement. Because the mind, when disconnected from the self, searches endlessly in the world for what can only be found within. It is not hunger, it is exile. And the tragedy is not wanting more. The tragedy is never asking why more never satisfies.
When You Avoid Feeling, Until Feeling Breaks You Open
Hurt
( Image credit : Pexels )
Some people survive by postponing themselves. They do not heal; they manage. They do not feel; they function. They tell themselves they will deal with it later - after this phase, after this responsibility, after this version of life stabilizes. For a while, this numbness feels efficient. Even mature. You are not overwhelmed. You are composed. You are “strong.” Until one day, the body remembers everything the mind refused to process. And it arrives all at once - grief without warning, tears without narrative, exhaustion without explanation.
The Gita never advises suppression. It warns against it. Because what is not felt consciously returns unconsciously, with force. Expression is not instability. Avoidance is. Some people will be frightened by your emotional depth. They will prefer you calm, muted, manageable. Let them go. Others will recognize your intensity as truth. They will not ask you to shrink. They will meet you where you are. The Gita is uncompromising here: do not abandon your inner life to preserve fragile bonds. Life is not meant to be survived quietly.
Losing Yourself While Trying to Preserve the Ending
Most people imagine life as a story with a clear arc. A beginning. A plan. A beautiful ending shared with certain people. And then life interferes. People leave. Paths diverge. Versions of yourself dissolve. And somewhere in trying to hold the story together, you realize you no longer recognize the one living it. This feels like loss. But the Gita frames it differently: transformation is not betrayal.
- Every encounter changes you. Every phase reshapes you. You are not meant to remain intact, you are meant to evolve.
- What feels like losing yourself is often the painful shedding of an identity that once kept you safe but no longer keeps you true.
Why “Good” Was Never Enough
The Gita never asks you to be good. It asks you to be awake.
You can be kind and still be absent from your own life.
You can be responsible and still be disconnected.
You can do everything right and still feel hollow.
That emptiness is not failure. It is the moment before honesty. It is the space where you stop running. Where you stop numbing. Where you stop asking if you are safe and start asking if you are alive. And when you finally allow yourself to live, not cautiously, not perfectly, but truthfully, you realize something quietly radical: You were never meant to be merely good. You were meant to be whole.