The Upanishads are not texts of instruction, but records of profound inquiry. They capture the dialogue between student and teacher, often held near crackling fires in forest ashrams, trying to articulate the nature of the Self, the subtle thread woven through the entire cosmos. Reading them today feels less like doctrine and more like hearing a distant, familiar echo—a whisper confirming the vastness we often forget in the rush of daily life.
The struggle they describe—the urge to grasp, the anxiety of comparison—is perhaps magnified a thousandfold in our modern existence. We live saturated in the curated realities of others. Our cognitive landscape is polluted not by material poverty, but by spiritual distraction, constantly coveting the perceived success, ease, or even the ‘perfectly mindful moment’ we scroll past on a screen.
This is why a single, essential verse from the Isha Upanishad takes on a startling new resonance. It declares: “Tena tyaktena bhunjithah. Ma gridhah kasyasvid dhanam.” Traditionally translated as, “Enjoy what is given, and do not covet the wealth of others,” the insight here transcends mere economic caution.
Consider ‘wealth’ (dhanam) not as coinage or land, but as the resource we truly run short of: attention and peace. In this light, the directive becomes a mandate for digital vairagya, or non-attachment. We are told to enjoy what is already consecrated within our own sphere—the unique path, the messy reality, the specific challenges that are intrinsically ours.
The true renunciation we must practice daily is letting go of the fabricated smoothness of others’ lives. We waste vital energy yearning for a focus, a stillness, or an achievement we observe elsewhere, instead of consecrating the experience we are currently having. This yearning is the modern form of coveting wealth, draining our capacity to see the divine presence inherent in our own struggle. When we stop trying to possess the focus we believe others have mastered, we finally claim the attention that has always belonged to us.
The freedom of the Self begins the moment we stop outsourcing our sense of worth to a comparison metric that was never designed for us.
We are already inhabiting everything; we need only inhabit the moment.