I was twelve when I first saw the Himalayan stars.
My chappals — thin, already tearing at the heel — barely held as I stepped out of the little ashram where Baba had brought me for the summer. My parents thought I’d be quieter here, away from the school where I always felt like I wasn’t big or smart enough to matter.
Baba was a quiet man, not my real grandfather, but I called him that. He didn’t tell stories often, but sometimes he sang verses from the Rig Veda when he was cooking rice.
That night, everyone had gone to sleep after the evening aarti — the ritual of waving lamps to the Divine. I had crept outside, restless, filled with some tight ache I didn’t understand. The sky above was endless. Black and burning with stars I couldn’t count even if I tried all night. I stood, frozen, on the cold stone path, looking up. My throat felt dry.
“I’m so small,” I whispered, though no one could hear. “Too small for any of this to matter.”
Something in my chest twisted. Why did the stars exist? Why was I so scared all the time — scared of failing exams, scared of people forgetting me, scared of not being enough?
I sat on the steps and tried to steady my breath, like Baba had taught me. “Each breath,” he told me once, “is a piece of the universe returning to itself.”
I remembered a line he’d sung, once, while cleaning lentils — from the Chandogya Upanishad, I think: “Tat Tvam Asi” — “You are That.” That the same spirit that made the stars, the wind, the fire in the mountains, it also lives inside me.
I didn’t think I understood it then, but that night something clicked.
My breath — shaky, cold — still came and went. In and out. My chest rose like waves.
And weren’t the Vedas filled with that idea? That life moves in cycles. That nothing ends. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna — an avatar of Vishnu, the protector — tells Arjuna, “I am the Self seated in the hearts of all beings.”
I hadn’t held that in my heart before. But now, listening to the universe quietly pulse through my breath, I felt it. Quiet. Not heroic. Just... steady.
The cold night didn’t change. Nobody came to comfort me. But I stayed on those steps for a while longer.
I wasn’t nothing. My skin, my heartbeat, my breath — they all belonged. I remembered from the Taittiriya Upanishad: “From bliss all beings are born... and to bliss they return.”
Even if I’d never win awards at school, even if my voice shook when I spoke in class — the stars above didn’t need me to prove anything. And still, here I was.
Later, when Baba found me half-asleep on the steps, he only smiled and covered me with his shawl.
He didn’t ask what happened.
He knew.
Sometimes, knowing we are part of something eternal doesn’t need words.
It just needs silence — and breath.
I was twelve when I first saw the Himalayan stars.
My chappals — thin, already tearing at the heel — barely held as I stepped out of the little ashram where Baba had brought me for the summer. My parents thought I’d be quieter here, away from the school where I always felt like I wasn’t big or smart enough to matter.
Baba was a quiet man, not my real grandfather, but I called him that. He didn’t tell stories often, but sometimes he sang verses from the Rig Veda when he was cooking rice.
That night, everyone had gone to sleep after the evening aarti — the ritual of waving lamps to the Divine. I had crept outside, restless, filled with some tight ache I didn’t understand. The sky above was endless. Black and burning with stars I couldn’t count even if I tried all night. I stood, frozen, on the cold stone path, looking up. My throat felt dry.
“I’m so small,” I whispered, though no one could hear. “Too small for any of this to matter.”
Something in my chest twisted. Why did the stars exist? Why was I so scared all the time — scared of failing exams, scared of people forgetting me, scared of not being enough?
I sat on the steps and tried to steady my breath, like Baba had taught me. “Each breath,” he told me once, “is a piece of the universe returning to itself.”
I remembered a line he’d sung, once, while cleaning lentils — from the Chandogya Upanishad, I think: “Tat Tvam Asi” — “You are That.” That the same spirit that made the stars, the wind, the fire in the mountains, it also lives inside me.
I didn’t think I understood it then, but that night something clicked.
My breath — shaky, cold — still came and went. In and out. My chest rose like waves.
And weren’t the Vedas filled with that idea? That life moves in cycles. That nothing ends. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna — an avatar of Vishnu, the protector — tells Arjuna, “I am the Self seated in the hearts of all beings.”
I hadn’t held that in my heart before. But now, listening to the universe quietly pulse through my breath, I felt it. Quiet. Not heroic. Just... steady.
The cold night didn’t change. Nobody came to comfort me. But I stayed on those steps for a while longer.
I wasn’t nothing. My skin, my heartbeat, my breath — they all belonged. I remembered from the Taittiriya Upanishad: “From bliss all beings are born... and to bliss they return.”
Even if I’d never win awards at school, even if my voice shook when I spoke in class — the stars above didn’t need me to prove anything. And still, here I was.
Later, when Baba found me half-asleep on the steps, he only smiled and covered me with his shawl.
He didn’t ask what happened.
He knew.
Sometimes, knowing we are part of something eternal doesn’t need words.
It just needs silence — and breath.
