Creativegarh Retreats

One who is happy within, who rejoices within, who is illuminated within - that yogi attains the supreme liberation. ~ Bhagavad Gita 5.24

On the spiritual path, the biggest shift happens when you realise that joy is an inside job.

But we are trained to live the other way around. We keep changing the outside in the hope that the inside will finally settle. A new job, a better boss, a more exciting city, a different partner, a better holiday, a fresh plan, a new aesthetic, another version of life. We keep rearranging the furniture of our outer world, hoping the inner room will feel more beautiful. And sometimes it does, for a while. But that kind of excitement is short-lived. One day you realise you have run out of things to change outside, and still something within remains restless, dull, unsatisfied.

This is where Krishna’s teaching becomes deeply practical. He speaks of the person who is happy within, who rejoices within, who is illuminated within. He is not describing someone who rejects the world or stops enjoying beauty, love, food, friendship, music, or success. He is describing someone whose main power source is no longer external. Their peace is not entirely outsourced. Their joy is not waiting for life to finally behave.

This becomes most important on those days when mornings do not feel like mornings, when grief still sits in the chest like a stone, when old pain seeps into the bones, when uncertainty invites anxiety to perform its circus, when nothing seems to be going according to plan. Even then, you still have free will. You can still choose. And one of the most sacred choices available to you is to choose joy.

Not the joy of pleasure, stimulation, dopamine hits, likes, applause, goals achieved, cars bought, or holidays taken. But the quieter, stranger joy that is intrinsic to your being. The unreasonable happiness caused by nothing but your own aliveness. Joy that becomes your inner compass, your spiritual GPS, the true north star you had misplaced while living by everybody else’s map.

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One of three foundational principles of Sikhism is Kirat Karo which simply means - do honest work or earn through righteous labour. But like all living spiritual instructions, its depth goes far beyond its surface meaning.

Kirat Karo points towards the sacred nature of action itself where work is not something separate from worship. Work itself, when done with honesty, attention, and devotion, becomes worship. It is not work followed by prayer. Work itself becomes the prayer.

When you begin to think of work as worship, the smallest task changes texture. Folding laundry is no longer a chore but a meditation in care. Writing an email becomes a practice in presence. Making a cup of tea becomes an act of devotion. Preparing a class, designing a presentation, sweeping a floor, cooking a meal, writing a page, raising a child, stitching a garment, building a business, all of it becomes spiritually alive when done with attention and integrity. The quality of your consciousness while working becomes the true offering.

This is why ‘work is worship’ carries more truth than we usually grant it. When you make tea as though the Divine himself will be the first to sip it, when you write as though the Almighty is reading every word as it arrives, when you tell a story as though Krishna is listening from the audience, when you prepare a meal as though the Source is seated at the table, then your attention becomes reverence, presence becomes devotion and excellence stops being perfectionism born of fear and becomes love made visible through action.

And then Kirat Karo goes one step deeper. What is your true work, your purpose, your svadharma? How are you using your unique gifts in sewa? How are you giving away your divine endowments in the service of the universe, its creations and its beings. How are your honouring this beautiful life that you have been given with your youness?

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There’s another beautiful gem in Sikhism - one of the spiritual tenets - and it’s called Vand Chhakko.

Vand means to divide, to distribute, to share. Chhakko means to eat, to consume, to partake. So the deeper ask is to share what you have, and have it together.

Vand Chhakko means sharing your food, your earnings, your table, your roof, your resources. It means not consuming life as if everything you hold is a private possession. It means understanding that what comes to you was never meant only for you.

It says, If I eat, let me see who can eat with me. If I know, let me see who can learn with me. If I rise, let me see who I can lift with me. If I heal, let me see where that healing can become shelter for another.

It’s a gentle reminder that abundance is not what you accumulate but what you can circulate. Because the deepest wealth is not possession but participation in the flow of life.

Also, Vand Chhakko is not only about material things. You can Vand Chhakko your attention, your kindness, your listening, your encouragement, your network, your seat at the table, your faith when someone else has lost theirs. Sometimes, the most needed sharing is not food or money but hope, warmth, and someone holding your hand and softly saying, come, sit, eat, breathe. You do not have to carry life alone today.

Vand Chhakko also goes far beyond sharing the material world and your love. It also means sharing your dreams with the world and not hiding them in the dark corners of self-doubt.

Share your art. Share your poems. Share your books. Share your ideas. Share your gifts. Share your talents. Share the music that came through you. Share the story that chose you. Share the business idea that could change someone’s life. Share the healing that softened you. Share the light that visited you.

Because you never know when your creations become healing for someone out there. You will never know how expression shows light to someone who is in the midst of depression.

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Losing people is rarely the real problem.

Losing yourself in the process of keeping certain people in your life - that is where the fracture begins. That is where the quiet separation from your own authenticity starts.

It happens slowly, quietly, subtly, you don’t even notice how you become this person.

You become the one who always keeps the plan, even when something inside you is begging to say no. You become everyone’s favourite because you do not want to upset the apple cart of a relationship that has already outlived its truth. You keep saying yes because you do not want to be the reason someone goes to bed angry. You hold yourself back because someone else is threatened by the size of your dreams, and instead of letting them deal with their own smallness, you shrink to make them comfortable.

And little by little, you disappear - one self betrayal at a time, one boundary erased at a time. One truth abandoned in the everydayness of keeping the peace.

At the lowest, one day, you decide that enough has been enough. And you refuse to dim your light. Because there comes a point when you get tired of giving your all to people who never really intended to hold it with care. You get tired of over-explaining, over-giving, overthinking, over-functioning, over-loving from a place of fear.

And then little by little, you start appearing - one act of self acceptance at a time, one boundary protected strongly, one truth reclaimed at a time.

And on a fine day, the sun shines. You realise you have become someone who takes too long to respond, who withdraws when something feels off, who no longer chases conversations or begs to be understood.

If someone wants to stay, they will. If they want to leave, let them. If they misunderstand you, let them sit with their own story. If they cannot meet you where you are, you do not drag yourself down to where you no longer meant to be.

Being alone is not a tragedy. Losing yourself is. And maybe that is healing or self-love or whatever name you want to give it. Not learning how to keep everyone but learning how not to abandon yourself to be kept.

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There is another beautiful phrase in Punjabi called ‘Chardi Kala’.

A phrase that is often misunderstood. People often think it means being cheerful all the time, always smiling, and in high spirits, always ‘thinking positive’, which in itself is a covert way of not sitting with the pain.

Chardi Kala is not the denial of pain but the refusal to drown in it. It does not mean you have no pain. It simply means that you do not allow that pain to bring you to your knees. It does not mean your heart has never broken, your hope has never thinned, your body has never tired, your spirit has never been tested.

It means that if life bends you, you do not let it define your final direction.

You then rise.

Not with noise, performance or hollow positivity but with grace and faith that Waheguru is by your side. It’s a deep and fierce inner knowing that says that this too shall pass through me, but it will not finish me.

Chardi Kala is not pretending everything is fine. It is knowing that even when everything is not fine, something in you is still stronger than the storm.

The direct translation of Chardi Kala from Punjabi means - the ever-ascending spirit.

It is high spirit, yes, but not the fragile kind that depends on perfect conditions. It is the kind that survives bad news, betrayal, loss, exhaustion, uncertainty, illness, delay, heartbreak, humiliation, and the thousand unnamed aches of being human.

It is the spirit of Shraddha - never-diminishing faith. The kind of faith that doesn’t ask, ‘what if’, but stays grounded with ‘even if.’

It is the spirit of Sabr - unabated patience - not the one that asks you to do nothing but just wait and watch, but the one that asks you to do what you have to, have the forbearance for pain, be an active participant in your life, make the difficult choices that you have to and then surrender to the divine - totally, wholly, unquestionably, inexhaustibly, devotedly.

I may cry. I may grieve. I may feel shaken. I may need to rest. I may need to pray harder. I may need to lean on others. But I will not surrender my soul to despair, I will surrender to God. That is Chardi Kala.

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