How Losses Taught me to Live the Gita

Ananda Rupa Devi

We read in the Bhagavad Gita that the soul is eternal and is on a journey back to its true home. It also talks about attaining peace through detachment, steadiness, and faith. Such philosophy remains comforting until life asks us to live it.

This reflection arose from experiencing the departures that shaped me: the loss of a loving parent whose voice now lives in memory, the separation from a spiritual Guru whose physical presence is no longer visible yet continues to guide through his teachings, and the farewell to a faithful pet whose trusting eyes and surrendered heart held our family together for years.

Each loss asked the same question: Do we truly live what we say we believe?

When a parent departs, we discover that their love has become our inner strength. When a Guru leaves this world, we realize he lives on in his words, in every instruction remembered and in every practice sustained. When a beloved soul in fur leaves with faith and love in her eyes, we are reminded how to trust even when we do not understand.

In these moments, the teachings of the Gita move from page to heart. The verses about the eternal soul are no longer concepts. They become anchors. The call to steadiness in happiness and distress becomes personal. The invitation to act with faith becomes immediate.

Through these separations, the difference between knowing spiritual wisdom and applying it becomes clear. It is easy to speak of detachment. It is far harder to release what we cherish with gratitude instead of despair. Yet loss gently reveals that real loss is not death, distance, or change itself. Real loss is forgetting the deeper foundation that steadies us through them.

This offering is simply a meditation on grief, gratitude, and practice. It reflects the learning that every soul we meet enriches our journey, that love transforms rather than disappears, and that each relationship, whether parent, Guru, child, or devoted companion, is a sacred trust shaping who we become.

When loss teaches us to live the Gita, we begin to understand that solace is not found in holding on, but in remembering who we are, whose we are, and in trusting that even as life changes, we remain held in a care greater than our own.