Soul of Glass 

December 7, 2025

Dr Tanu jain
Chief executive officer
Bareilly cantonment board
Ministry of defence

The soul is like glass — fragile, transparent, and beautiful. It breaks a thousand times, and yet somehow, it finds a way to heal.

How many times have you noticed that it isn’t the great storms of life that shatter you, but the small things — a careless word, an unexpected silence, a tone, a look? Someone says something; you say something back. You hear something you weren’t meant to. And before you know it, you’re hurt, your peace disturbed, your spirit bruised.

We carry these wounds quietly, wrapping them in layers of pride and composure. But deep inside, each scratch leaves a mark.

In moments like these, I often recall Shakespeare’s immortal line —

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.”

Suddenly, life feels like a grand theatre. People enter, play their parts, and exit. Their lines, sometimes gentle and sometimes cruel, are all part of a larger script we can’t yet read. And in that realization lies both pain and liberation — that nothing is truly personal. We are all characters playing roles that will soon fade into memory.

Then comes the deeper wisdom of Vipassana — just observe. Don’t react, don’t resist. Let life unfold as it is. The words, the actions, the people — they are mere waves passing over the still surface of consciousness. When you stop identifying with the role, the hurt begins to dissolve.

Perhaps then, the entire world appears like a motion picture — running whether we watch it or not.

औरशायदतबयहपूराविश्वएकचलचित्र-सामहसूसहोताहै —

जिससेहमदेखनेकेलिएहोंयानहों,

वहवैसेहीचलतारहेगाजैसाचलताआरहाहै।

हमशायदवोकिरदारभीनहींहैं,

जोहमसोचतेथेकिहमहैं।

And so, the soul of glass breaks, again and again — each crack a reminder of its humanity, each healing a testament to its strength.

The only thing we can truly do is revert back — to stillness, to awareness, to the self that observes without breaking.

Because maybe, the purpose of all these fractures is not to destroy us —

but to let more light in.