From the Gita: If It Begins, It must end. If It Ends, It Must Begin Again

We all crave finality. Closure. A sense that something is truly over so we can walk away, dust off our hands, and start fresh. But what if life doesn’t actually work like that? What if endings and beginnings are not opposites—but partners? What if every time you think something is “done,” it’s simply changed shape? The Bhagavad Gita—often called India’s spiritual guidebook—offers a quietly powerful truth: “What is born must die. What dies must be born again.” It’s not just about reincarnation of the soul. It’s about the pattern behind everything. Careers. Relationships. Chapters of self. Moments of despair. Even hope. Let’s break it down—not like scholars, but like people trying to make sense of this life while still showing up for 10 a.m. meetings and unread WhatsApp messages.
1. Endings Are Not Failures. They're Transitions
Endings create space for something new to begin.
We’ve been conditioned to treat “the end” like a kind of defeat. The job didn’t last. The relationship broke. The dream changed. But the Gita suggests something else entirely: that endings are simply necessary closures that make space for the next beginning. It’s not personal. It’s not punishment. It’s process.
You wouldn’t keep turning the same page and call it reading. Life moves when you let go. So when something ends—mourn, reflect, but don’t grip. Because the moment you accept its departure is the moment you make room for its return in a new form.
2. Patterns Return Until You See Them Differently
Lessons repeat until your response to them changes.
Ever notice how you keep ending up in similar situations, just with different characters or locations? Same kind of boss. Same kind of heartbreak. Same lesson, dressed better. That’s not coincidence. That’s the loop calling you back.
The Gita’s wisdom isn't that life repeats because you're slow—it's that life repeats because you’re being refined. What you call stuck might actually be sacred repetition—until your response changes. Until you respond with clarity, not compulsion.
3. Death Is Not Always Physical. Sometimes, It’s Internal
Parts of you must die for growth to happen.
We talk about letting go as if it’s a neat thing. A quick unfollow, a box in storage, a deep sigh. But real endings aren’t always external. Sometimes, what ends is a version of you—an idea, a need, an identity. And that's good.
Because if that version stayed, you wouldn’t grow. You’d just repeat. The Gita doesn’t ask you to detach out of coldness. It asks you to let go so that something higher, fuller, truer can take its place.
4. You Are Not The Chapter. You Are The Book
You’re the observer—not your roles or experiences.
This is one of the deepest truths hidden in the Gita's simplicity. The self—the real self—is not what begins and ends. The real self witnesses beginnings and endings. You’re not your breakup. Not your promotion. Not the role you play or the pain you survived. You're the one watching all of it.
The one who existed before it started. The one who will remain after it’s gone. This is power—not because it makes you untouchable, but because it makes you deeply, quietly free.
5. Life Doesn’t Owe You Permanence. It Offers You Renewal
Change is constant. Growth comes from accepting life’s rhythm.
We chase forever. We want jobs that last, people who stay, days that feel just right. But life doesn’t operate on permanence. It operates on movement. Cycles. Seasons. The Gita never promised stillness. It promised rhythm. And when you really see this—not just understand it, but feel it—you stop fighting the flow.
You stop demanding things stay. You start becoming someone who can lose well. And live better.
Final Thoughts: The wisdom of “If it begins, it must end. If it ends, it must begin again,” isn’t a warning. It’s a reassurance. That the heartbreak will pass. That the joy will return. That what breaks will bloom again. That you will bloom again. And not as who you were. But as someone who knows how to end well, how to begin wisely—and most importantly, how to stay rooted through it all. Because beginnings and endings? They’re not opposites. They’re a conversation. And you—you’re the silence in between that makes the meaning. Let it flow.