To Those Seeking Ground Again

Recently, I wrote to my guru, Swami Dheerananda.

Not with a question fully formed—but with a quiet sense of being unanchored.

His response came in three parts.

First, an image: a flute.

A reminder to leave oneself in the hands of the higher powers—to become, simply, an instrument.

It is a comforting thought—not to have to orchestrate everything oneself, but to trust that something larger may be at play.

I recognized the image and the words. I have been his disciple for ten years.

And yet, I found myself yearning for something more.
Surrender, while comforting, has never been enough for me.

I do believe in a larger force—call it a universal spirit, or God.

But what draws me to Vedanta is something else entirely: its insistence that you have a role to play.

It does not ask for blind faith. Instead, it asks you to understand.

And so the question lingered: where was my role in this, beyond surrender?

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Then came his next text.

A nudge to return to the Bhagawad Gītā, Chapter 2, Verse 38:

sukha-duḥkhe same kṛitvā lābhālābhau jayājayau

tato yuddhāya yujyasva naivaṁ pāpam avāpsyasi

I knew the verse.

But like many things, knowing is not the same as living.

To hold pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as the same—and then to act. That’s the essence of the verse.

The crux is simple, and yet not easy: life moves in opposites.

Not one or the other—but both, always.

Why?

Because that is the very nature of life.

When a swimmer enters the sea, they do so knowing the waves will rise.

They know the sea does not possess the stillness of a pool.

To step into life is to accept the same: that currents will come—sometimes gentle, sometimes forceful—but never entirely within our control.

What do we do when we face strong currents?

Perhaps it begins with learning how to stay balanced within them.

Not by resisting every wave, and not by being carried away by it—but by finding a way to remain centered within it.

To not identify with every rise and fall, but to witness it.

To return, again and again, to an inner poise.

This, perhaps, is what yoga points to—not as a concept, but as a practice.

Where then do we find the strength to return to ourselves?

Almost as the thought arose, the next message came—highlighting one of my favorite verses from the Bhagawad Gītā, Chapter 6, Verse 5:

uddhared ātmanātmānaṁ nātmānam avasādayet

ātmaiva hyātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripur ātmanaḥ

Let a person lift themselves by their own Self—and not allow that very self to fall.

Over the years, this has become one of my most underlined, revisited, and quietly returned-to verses.

In many ways, it sits at the heart of what I have come to think of as imperfectly perfect, my Substack’s namesake.

Because when life feels uncertain, the same self that falters is also the one that lifts.

That’s why the deepest answers are often found by turning inward.

Not perfectly.

Not all at once.

But enough to move from where we are to where we need to be.

And perhaps that is the quiet beauty of it—to acknowledge that we are, at once, imperfect, and yet not entirely without access to something deeper.

Not somewhere outside us, but within reach.

The mind may wander, resist, and pull us away—but it is also ours to gently steady and return.

I think back now to the three messages from Swamiji.

The flute.

The steadiness amidst opposites.

And the call to lift oneself.

What first appeared to be separate ideas now feels like parts of the same whole:

To place oneself in the hands of the higher powers and be carried.

To remain centered amidst life’s opposites.

To quietly lift oneself from within.

And perhaps, in that quiet interplay of trusting the universe and doing our part in staying centered and lifting ourselves, something within finds its ground again.

Meaningfully yours,
Anu Prabhala

If this reflection spoke to you, feel free to share it with someone else seeking ground again.

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