Between Solitude and Belonging 

November 28, 2025

Dr Tanu jain

(Chief executive officer
Bareilly cantonment board
Ministry of defence)

There comes a time in every seeker’s life when the noise of the world begins to fade, and the whispers of the soul grow stronger. I have reached that threshold — a tender space between solitude and belonging — where silence is no longer emptiness, but a quiet teacher.

I don’t yearn for relationships, nor do I reject them. I simply rest in the awareness that everything, even companionship, has its appointed season. There’s a line from the Bhagavad Gita that often echoes in me:

“Ātmanam rathinam viddhi shariram rathameva tu,

Buddhim tu sarathim viddhi manah pragrahameva cha.” (Katha Upanishad / Gita reference)

Know the self as the rider in the chariot of the body; the intellect as the charioteer, and the mind as the reins.

Perhaps that’s what this phase is — learning to let my intellect steer the chariot calmly, not pulled by fleeting emotions or the noise of desire.

I have always been surrounded by people, by roles and responsibilities that defined my days. Yet now, I crave neither company nor applause. I seek the stillness that comes when the mind no longer runs toward or away from anything. The Gita reminds:

“Uddhared ātmanātmānaṁ nātmānam avasādayet;

Ātmaiva hyātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripur ātmanaḥ.” (Bhagavad Gita 6.5)

Let a person lift oneself by one’s own self; for the self alone is friend and self alone is enemy.

And in that truth, I find peace. When the soul becomes its own companion, loneliness dissolves.

The Shiv Puran tells us that when Lord Shiva retreats into the mountains, absorbed in deep meditation, the whole cosmos still revolves — because even in isolation, He is complete. He doesn’t turn away from the world out of detachment, but because He carries the universe within.

There’s a quiet lesson there — true solitude is not withdrawal, it is fullness.

There are moments when silence feels like a weight — the absence of familiar laughter, the ache of unspoken emotion. But then there are moments when the same silence becomes a sanctuary, where I sense Shiva’s stillness within me — the eternal observer, unshaken, luminous, free.

Perhaps this is what the Gita meant when it said:

“Yogasthaḥ kuru karmāṇi” (Bhagavad Gita 2.48) —

Perform your actions, rooted in yoga, in equanimity.

In this quiet bridge between being alone and being whole, I am discovering that solitude is not a phase to escape — it is a path to embrace.

When the time comes, life will bring its people, its meanings, its bonds again. Until then, I walk with myself — gently, steadily — knowing that even in the silence, Shiva dances, and the soul sings its own sacred hymn.