THE WEIGHT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

October 26, 2025

Dealing with Stress, Depression and values

Parneet Sachdev

While serving as a director on the National Security Council, Alexander Vindman happened to listen in on a call between the U.S. President and the President of Ukraine. He believed the conversation was inappropriate and potentially illegal. He formally reported his concerns to his superiors, and later testified before Congress, upholding his duty to the Constitution and the nation’s values. His action led to public smear campaigns, threats, and ultimately the end of his military career. His choice to prioritize ethical principles over career security cost him his job, his security, friends and much more (Truman centre for policy).It all seems great as we read it. Yet the one who bears the brunt of honesty can only fathom the extreme torture and pain that accompanies this path.

Some people refuse to lie, betray, scheme, or wound another just to get ahead. Their values hold them back from “hitting below the belt,” even when life seems to reward those who do. These are the ones who carry a secret burden — not because they are weak, but because they are strong enough to bear the cost of goodness; something, the ordinary world doesn’t acknowledge. Their hearts break more quietly. Their stress does not explode outward; it caves inward.

Scriptures across traditions acknowledge this silent suffering — and they do not dismiss it. They do not call it failure of strength, but the glory of faith.The Buddha said:

“In this world, hatred is never healed by hatred.

Only by love is hatred healed.”

But he did not demand that love feel easy. He simply showed that inner refuge can exist even when the outer world is harsh.

The Bhagavad Gita whispers to the anguished heart:

“Even a little of this dharma, even a small step taken in the path of faith, protects you from great fear.” (2.40)

The Psalmist cries out in the Bible:

“Out of the depths I call to You.” (Psalm 130:1)

This is not the voice of someone defeated, weak, dejected — it is the voice of someone surrounded, overwhelmed, but still reaching upward. It is, believe me, the voice of a brave man.

Guru Arjan Dev ji, writing the Guru Granth Sahib (pg 679) says

“The Guru’s power abides with my soul

It does not sink in water, thieves cannot steal it and fire cannot burn it

It is like wealth to the poor, cane to the blind and mother’s milk for the infant

In the ocean of the world, I have found the boat of the Lord, the merciful Lord has bestowed his mercy on Nanak.”

These great prophets were not individuals immune to pain — they were people who acknowledged agony with faith, surrendered to the Divinity within those rough conditions. Through their faith; the power of the Divine, found for them solutions, and perfect passages.

 

WHEN YOU CAN’T BREATHE — TAKE ONE MINUTE

There are times you feel choked. A weight on the chest that refuses to leave. No amount of crying out aloud to the Divine helps. The sinking just refuses to part.

If someone feels caged from all sides and faith seems impossibly far, they do not need a grand prayer. They need one minute of relief. A single thread of gratitude — not for the whole life, but for one breath, one memory, one presence.

Here is a one-minute inner act that will help:

Sit with the pain — don’t argue with it. Take a deep breath.

Place a hand on the heart, not to fix it, but to acknowledge it.

Whisper inwardly: “I am still here. This breath is still with me.”

Recall one moment in your life when you were held, helped, or protected — by a friend, a stranger, life itself.

Just notice one thing that did not abandon you.

Just try to feel that moment. Believe me, the Divinity, unknown to us does awaken in that moment.

This is a great exercise that can help many, many in this world.

If we can awaken only one shred of thankfulness

In this situation, when all seems lost, when the ‘evil’ seems to have won, only one tiny thread can stop the soul from tearing further. If you feel that you cannot thank life, thank something smaller:

Just say inwardly that you are grateful for a glass of water, the sky you once saw, the mother who comforted you or anything equally simple.  In that moment of feeling, a small tear from a corner of your eye will remind you of the presence of the profound Divinity within. In that one instant you will feel a fleeting inner awakening. This is the Divine, telling you that you are worthy, you are loved.

The Gita says:

“Among thousands, even one who turns towards Me is blessed.”

It does not require perfection; it does not require a lifetime of good deeds and charity.  It needs just a moment of letting go, of surrender.

The Dhammapada further reminds us:

“From a withered tree, a tiny shoot may grow again.”

After being crushed for a lifetime of beating, by the typhoons of life, a single moment of surrender, of gratitude has the power to rekindle you.

THE MOST PROFOUND SPIRITUAL EXERCISE

Try this exercise even for a few seconds or for 2 minutes if you can. Firstly understand, the true import of the words

“Be still, and know that I am God”

This reflective statement is often misunderstood as a call to resignation or passivity. Stillness here does not mean withdrawal from life or the abandonment of action. It refers instead to a state of deep surrender. This is how, in spontaneity, the often-inert inner power, the omnipotence awakens within us. Little by little.  When the Psalmist says, “Be still,” it is an invitation to lay down the mental weapons through which we try to manage our pain: agitation, argument, judgment, fear, and the exhaustion of striving.

True stillness is not the inactivity of the body; it is giving up of the turbulence within to a higher power. In that loosening, something higher is allowed to stir. Stillness is not unconsciousness or emotional shutdown; it is the awakening of a deeper intelligence — what sages have called the super-consciousness or the inner divinity. When resistance melts, grace begins to move on its own accord.

The second part of the line — “and know that I am God” — is not a theological command but an experiential truth. It means that in the absence of outer noise, the presence of the Divine becomes perceptible. One does not discover God through argument or effort; it is an awakening, a feeling, because the awareness of that Presence was always there, buried under noise. It is not a pause in life but a return to the source from which life itself flows.

Try this simple exercise. In one instant, it may not end your woes, but it will grant immediate relief. And unbeknownst to you, it will place in gentle motion, a very deep process inside and outside of you.  A process that will eat and destroy your karma, every unwholesome thought of yours that you may be carrying for ages. Stillness, then, becomes the doorway through which suffering is alchemised into understanding, not by escaping experience but by entering the deeper Presence beneath it.

When the heart sinks…

When the mind feels cornered from all directions…

When your goodness starts to feel like a prison…

When you feel the pinch of your imagined weakness….

That is not the end of your story. In every wisdom tradition, this moment is described as the threshold — the place where faith begins to breathe.

This, my dear, is the emergence of strength.

(Views expressed are the author’s own).

Parneet Sachdev, IRS is the Chairman of Real Estate Regulatory Authority and a leading author.