The Gita in daily life
When you are alone
I feel completely alone. Does the Gita say anything to someone like me?
Less than you might hope, and it is better to say so. The solitude the Gita discusses is chosen: the practitioner sitting alone in a quiet place, wanting nothing and holding nothing (6.10), and a taste for solitary places counted as a mark of knowledge (13.10). Being left — a widow’s house, a son gone abroad, a room where nobody comes — is not the text’s subject. What it does say is where the divine is: in the heart of every being (18.61), and never lost to the one who sees it everywhere (6.30).
Hansi Gita Bhawan Trust · from the Bhagavad Gita
The distinction matters, because the two things are opposite in the one respect that counts. The yogi at 6.10 has arranged his solitude. He has chosen the place, the seat and the hour, and he can end it when he likes. Loneliness of the other kind is exactly what has not been chosen. The Gita — spoken between two armies, to a man surrounded by his relatives — does not take it up directly. Reading the verses about chosen solitude as though they were about being left is a substitution, and it tends to leave a lonely reader feeling that even the scripture has told them their situation is a discipline.
What the text does offer is not company but location. 18.61 says the Lord stands in the heart of every being. 6.30 says that for one who sees him everywhere and sees everything in him, he is never lost, and that person is never lost to him. 9.29 is more careful than the way it is usually quoted: I am the same towards all beings, none hateful and none favoured — and then, those who worship me with devotion are in me and I am in them. These are claims about where the divine is. They are not a claim that you will stop feeling alone, and the Gita does not make that claim anywhere.
One verse speaks to the situation more directly, and it is hard. 6.5: lift yourself by your own effort, do not let yourself sink; a man is his own friend and his own enemy. It puts the work exactly where a lonely person least wants it. Read carelessly it is cruel, and it has been used cruelly. Read carefully it says something narrow and true — that the one relationship available at three in the morning is the one you have with yourself, and that it is not fixed. The Gita treats that relationship as something a person can improve, which is not the same as telling him he needs nobody else.
In the Gita’s own words
Where this comes from.
Bhagavad Gita 6.5Shri Bhagavan
उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानं नात्मानमवसादयेत् ।
आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मनः ॥Lift yourself by your own effort; do not let yourself sink. You are your own friend, and you are your own enemy.
Lift yourself by your own effort and do not let yourself sink; a man is his own friend and his own enemy. Hard counsel, and the closest the text comes to addressing a person with nobody at hand.
Bhagavad Gita 6.10Shri Bhagavan
योगी युञ्जीत सततमात्मानं रहसि स्थितः ।
एकाकी यतचित्तात्मा निराशीरपरिग्रहः ॥The yogi should steady himself again and again, staying in a quiet place, alone, his mind and body held in check, expecting nothing and owning nothing.
The practitioner alone in a quiet place, expecting nothing and owning nothing. Note that this solitude is arranged: the place, the hour and the ending of it are all his.
Bhagavad Gita 6.30Shri Bhagavan
यो मां पश्यति सर्वत्र सर्वं च मयि पश्यति ।
तस्याहं न प्रणश्यामि स च मे न प्रणश्यति ॥For the one who sees me everywhere and sees everything in me, I am never lost, and he is never lost to me.
For the one who sees him everywhere, he is never lost, and that person is never lost to him. A statement about presence, and the verse people most often reach for when alone.
Bhagavad Gita 9.22Shri Bhagavan
अनन्याश्चिन्तयन्तो मां ये जनाः पर्युपासते ।
तेषां नित्याभियुक्तानां योगक्षेमं वहाम्यहम् ॥For those who think of me and of no one else, who wait on me in worship, always steady in that union, I carry what they lack and guard what they hold.
For those steady in devotion, he carries what they lack and guards what they hold. The promise is about provision and protection; the verse says nothing about company.
Bhagavad Gita 9.29Shri Bhagavan
समोऽहं सर्वभूतेषु न मे द्वेष्योऽस्ति न प्रियः ।
ये भजन्ति तु मां भक्त्या मयि ते तेषु चाप्यहम् ॥I am the same towards all beings; no one is hateful to me and no one is favoured. But those who worship me with devotion are in me, and I am in them.
The same towards all beings, none hateful and none favoured — and those who worship with devotion are in him and he in them. Read the whole verse: the equality comes first.
Bhagavad Gita 13.10Shri Bhagavan
मयि चानन्ययोगेन भक्तिरव्यभिचारिणी ।
विविक्तदेशसेवित्वमरतिर्जनसंसदि ॥Unwavering devotion to me through an undivided mind; a liking for solitary places, and no appetite for the company of crowds;
A liking for solitary places and no appetite for crowds, listed among the marks of knowledge. Chosen solitude again, and named as a preference rather than a hardship.
Bhagavad Gita 18.61Shri Bhagavan
ईश्वरः सर्वभूतानां हृद्देशेऽर्जुन तिष्ठति ।
भ्रामयन्सर्वभूतानि यन्त्रारूढानि मायया ॥The Lord abides in the heart of every being, O Arjuna, turning all beings about by His power as though they were mounted on a machine.
The Lord stands in the heart of every being. Whatever else is true of your situation, the text locates him there and not somewhere you have to travel to.
What to actually do
Small, and today.
- Fix the hour rather than waiting for the mood. The practitioner at 6.10 steadies himself again and again, in the same place, at the same time. A lamp lit at seven each evening gives the day a shape that does not depend on anybody arriving.
- Use the solitude as far as it will honestly go, and no further. Some of it is usable: the quiet room, the unhurried reading, an hour that belongs to nobody else. 13.10 treats a taste for solitary places as worth having. What cannot be converted this way should be called by its own name and not dressed up as practice.
- Put yourself among people without waiting to feel like it — satsang, a temple in the evening, a neighbour’s kitchen, a class. The Gita does not instruct this, and it is worth saying plainly that it does not. But nothing in it argues against company, and 6.5 asks a person to do what keeps him from sinking.
- Tell one person that the days are long. Not the whole of it; one sentence. Loneliness is usually hidden out of pride, and hiding it is most of what keeps it the same size.
What the Gita does not say
That the Gita says you are never alone, offered as comfort to someone who has been left. 18.61 and 6.30 are statements about where the divine is; they are not a substitute for a person to eat with. The text nowhere calls the wish for company a weakness and nowhere says a practitioner should have no people. The teaching itself takes the form of a conversation between two friends, one of whom is in bad shape and needs the other to stay and talk.
The words behind this
Common questions
About this.
Does the Gita talk about loneliness?
It talks about solitude, which is not the same thing. 6.10 and 13.10 describe a solitude the practitioner chooses and can end. The loneliness of being widowed, left behind, or far from family is not a subject the text takes up, and pretending otherwise does a reader in that position no favours.
Is it wrong to want company?
Nothing in the Gita says so. It asks for detachment from results and from possessiveness, not from people. The teaching itself is a long conversation between two friends, and it happens because one of them would not leave the other alone in the state he was in.
Which verse helps when you feel alone?
Readers most often turn to 18.61, that the Lord stands in the heart of every being, and 6.30, that one who sees him everywhere is never lost to him. 9.22 says that for those steady in devotion he carries what they lack. What these offer is company of a particular kind; whether it is the company you are missing is a question only you can answer.
Does the Gita recommend living alone?
No. 6.10 describes a practice done in a quiet place by somebody who has a life to return to, and 6.16 and 6.17 insist on ordinary moderation in food, sleep and work. Arjuna himself is sent back into the middle of his people, not away from them.