Browse by feeling
Start where you are.
A long, slow read for each feeling — twelve voices, gentlest first.
डर
Fear · Afraid
The Gita to the Upanishads, by way of Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram, on what to do when you are afraid — and why courage was never the point.
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गुस्सा
Anger
Twelve traditions on the gap between the spark and the act — and how to widen it.
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उदासी
Sadness · Low
Twelve traditions on the weight that has no edge — from the Gita naming its first chapter after a breakdown, to Tukaram measuring joy against sorrow and singing anyway.
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अकेलापन
Loneliness · Alone
Twelve traditions on being alone in a crowd — from Arjuna among everyone he knew, to Tukaram on a hill calling the trees his kin, to the Upanishad's One who found no joy alone.
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थकान
Tired · Drained
Twelve traditions on being tired — the Gita that legislates sleep, the Buddha's old cart held together with straps, Tukaram asking who will ask after him, the Upanishad's sleeper gone home. Even the Gita, so often quoted to make tired people get up, stops to talk about sleep.
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घबराहट
Anxious · Restless
Twelve traditions on the restless, anxious mind — Arjuna's wind, the Buddha's fish on dry land, Seneca's mind in suspense, Tukaram's "who makes the milk for the infant?" Not one of them says calm down.
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घुटन
Overwhelmed
Arjuna asking the universe to put itself away, the Buddha's salt in the Ganges, Marcus fencing off the hour, Tukaram putting the load down. Twelve traditions on being overwhelmed.
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सुन्नपन
Numb · Feeling nothing
Twelve traditions on feeling nothing — Arjuna's silence, the Buddha's "contracted mind", Kabir's sunn, Tukaram's prayer with no juice in it, Jung's soul gone off like a dog in the night.
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उलझन
Confused · Tangled
Twelve traditions on the tangle — the job and the parents' plan, two lives, is-it-them-or-me, I don't know who I am. Not one says just decide. The Gita begins with "I am confused", and near its close says: reflect, then do as you wish — and then asks for surrender. Both are in the text.
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मात्रास्पर्शास्तु कौन्तेय शीतोष्णसुखदुःखदाः ।
आगमापायिनोऽनित्यास्तांस्तितिक्षस्व भारत ॥
आगमापायिनोऽनित्यास्तांस्तितिक्षस्व भारत ॥
mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ · āgamāpāyino 'nityās tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata
"The touch of the senses brings heat and cold, pleasure and pain. They come and they go; they are anitya — not permanent. Bear them, Arjuna."
— Bhagavad Gītā 2.14
One way of reading it today: this feeling is real, and it is also weather. The word for “not permanent” here is the word this place is named after.
Browse by voice
Sit with one teacher.
Each voice, gathered across every feeling — with a little of who they were.
How we label lines: verbatim · our translation · paraphrase · rendering (e.g. Coleman Barks) · attributed (oral tradition) · as recalled — so you can always tell their words from ours.
गीता
Bhagavad Gita
c. 2nd c. BCE (dates debated)
It begins with a man who could not stand. Near its close: "reflect on all this, then do as you wish" — and then a call to surrender. Both are in the text.
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बुद्ध
The Buddha
~500 BCE
Two arrows: the one that lands, and the one the mind adds.
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लाओ त्ज़ु
Lao Tzu
trad. 6th c. BCE
Nothing is softer than water. Nothing surpasses it against the hard.
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स्टोइक
The Stoics
3rd c. BCE – 2nd c. CE
What disturbs us is not events, but our opinions of them. Our wise man feels it.
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कबीर
Kabir
15th c.
"The whole world eats and sleeps, content. Kabir stays awake, and weeps." The poem is about that one.
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रूमी
Rumi
13th c.
Sell cleverness, buy bewilderment. Cleverness is opinion; bewilderment is seeing.
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ज्ञानेश्वर
Dnyaneshwar
13th c. · Maharashtra
Will the gale stop because you told it to? True, said the teacher — and then taught the return.
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तुकाराम
Tukaram
17th c. · Maharashtra
Stay as God placed you, everyone quotes. Put the load on him, he meant.
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युंग
Carl Jung
1875–1961
Never solved. Only outgrown. A Swiss clinician, cited here as company, not foundation.
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ओशो
Osho
1931–1990
In his telling, sadness gives roots; loneliness is the other's absence, aloneness your own presence.
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कृष्णमूर्ति
J. Krishnamurti
1895–1986
"Time is fear," he said in Saanen. A teacher who refused to be one — and argues with this site.
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उपनिषद्
Upanishads
~800–300 BCE
Who could breathe, if the joy were not there in the space? Carry me across.
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Read Tukaram in his own words — his life, the mind, sorrow, longing, joy — in full Marathi with the meaning line by line, and the whole Gāthā to search. Read Tukaram → · sources