Ever feel like you’re drowning in to-dos while the bigger, more meaningful parts of life pass you by? Like Bill Murray’s Phil in Groundhog Day, caught in a loop of endless repetition: organizing clutter, clearing your inbox, chasing that elusive “someday” when the stars will finally align?
I used to live there too. I chased the illusion of progress by crossing things off my list, rearranging the furniture, buying more stuff to solve problems created by …well, stuff. Life felt like a series of 15-minute sprints toward fleeting satisfaction. But then, Vedanta entered the picture.
Since encountering Vedanta in 2016 at a YPO retreat, my life has undergone a quiet but profound spiritual growth and transformation. At first, it was subtle: a cleaner inbox, a more intentional home. But gradually, the teachings started reshaping the way I live, think, and feel.
Here’s the biggest lesson Vedanta taught me: You can either chase endless desires or pursue lasting inner peace and freedom – but you can’t do both.
Western culture – supercharged by social media – has glorified desire. More, better, faster. Vedanta, on the other hand, taught me to detach not out of asceticism, but out of clarity and mindfulness. Desires aren’t evil. They’re just noisy. And if we don’t learn to quiet them, they crowd out what really matters.
One of my favorite teachings comes from Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” But Vedanta goes further. It shows that unless we actively rise above the tug of attachments, we’re not truly living – we’re just reacting. Vedanta showed me how my inbox and my clutter weren’t just organizational challenges. They were spiritual metaphors. Each unneeded object, each unread email, was a thread tying me down like Gulliver – binding me to the ordinary when something extraordinary was calling.
So what changed?
I started practicing Vedanta not just intellectually (Gnana Yoga), but emotionally (Bhakti) and practically (Karma Yoga). I cleared out clothes, unsubscribed from emails, gave away money instead of hoarding it. I started asking not, “Do I want this?” but, “Does this serve my life purpose?”
Surprisingly, as I let go, life became lighter – mentally, emotionally, even physically. With less “stuff” (literal and mental), I had more space to focus. More energy. More joy. I started waking up earlier. I felt less anxious. I could breathe again.
And most importantly, I stopped waiting for life to begin.
Here’s what I’ve learned from this path:
Desires are endless, but energy is limited. Choose wisely where you spend it.
Clarity doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from needing less.
You can’t organize your way to peace. You have to detach your way to it.
When you’re not obsessed with controlling outcomes, you’re free to do your best work.
These days, when a desire emerges, my mind has learned to pause. To ask: Is this attachment worth my peace of mind? Usually, the answer is no.
Vedanta has helped me go from drowning in distractions to sailing toward something deeper and more fulfilling. From being a rat on a wheel to someone who can look at the maze, smile, and walk away. As I studied Vedanta and the Bhagavad Gita, these everyday distractions started to look more like opportunities for self-mastery.
Not caring – about things that don’t matter – has become my superpower. And freedom, it turns out, was there all along. I just had to stop chasing and start letting go.
The blog above are thoughts of a student of the online weekly lectures”
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