NOTHING IS LEFT IF RITUALS ARE REMOVED FROM YOUR LIFE
- Madhukar Dama
- 16 hours ago
- 6 min read
A Mirror You Cannot Unsee
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INTRODUCTION: THE EMPTINESS WE DARE NOT TOUCH
If you removed all the rituals from your life —
not just religious ones, but habitual ones, social ones, professional ones —
what remains?
Would you still know how to live?
How to relate?
How to wake up without a purpose handed to you by someone else?
How to eat without a calendar?
How to love without a festival?
How to die without a framed photo?
Most people wouldn’t.
Because most human lives today are not designed around awareness, presence, or truth.
They are designed around ritualized repetition —
a script that nobody remembers writing, but everyone is scared to stop reading.
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SECTION 1: WHAT IS A RITUALIZED LIFE?
A ritual is anything done repeatedly without questioning —
out of fear, habit, identity, or social pressure.
In today’s world, almost everything is ritualized:
Waking up and checking your phone before you check your own breath.
Brushing teeth not because it’s needed, but because “everyone does.”
Wearing shoes indoors, even in homes with clean floors.
Wishing “Happy Birthday” to people you don't remember.
Eating at fixed hours even when there’s no hunger.
Commuting to a job that doesn’t require your presence, only your compliance.
Drinking tea twice a day not for health, but for emotional numbness.
Attending weddings out of fear of social isolation.
Joining family video calls you don’t enjoy, just to avoid questions.
Lighting lamps and chanting prayers even if you’ve never paused to ask what they mean.
These are not choices.
They are loops.
The modern human is a loop on legs.
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SECTION 2: THE REAL FUNCTION OF RITUALS — FILLING THE VOID
Why do people cling to rituals?
Because without them, life feels empty.
Rituals:
Give structure to a meaningless routine.
Provide an illusion of control in a chaotic world.
Allow people to feel “normal” without ever being whole.
Let people outsource meaning — “I did the right thing because the ritual says so.”
Help people avoid silence, rest, spontaneity, and presence — all of which feel like danger to the conditioned mind.
Rituals are emotional painkillers.
They’re like chairs — we sit on them instead of growing a spine.
And so, the deeper truth is this:
Rituals are not our habits.
They are our hiding places.
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SECTION 3: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU REMOVE RITUALS?
Let’s take a few examples.
Remove religious rituals:
Many realize they never truly believed. They were just performing.
They don’t know how to feel faith without a puja.
They don’t know how to be still without incense.
Remove food rituals:
Most people don’t know when they’re actually hungry.
Without breakfast-lunch-dinner routines, they panic.
Because they have no relationship with their body — only with the clock.
Remove relationship rituals:
Take away anniversary gifts, mandatory greetings, Valentine’s Day.
Most couples realize they’ve never really connected.
They were following a script of obligation, not sharing life.
Remove schooling rituals:
Stop morning assembly, uniform, exams, boards.
Children suddenly begin learning faster — but teachers collapse.
Because the system wasn’t built for learning. It was built for obedience.
Remove corporate rituals:
Take away meetings, emails, HR events.
Employees feel lost.
The absence of structure reveals the absence of soul in their work.
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SECTION 4: WHY THIS IS TERRIFYING FOR MOST
A life without ritual feels naked.
There’s no schedule to blame.
No religion to fall back on.
No party, no deadline, no holiday, no excuse.
You are face-to-face with your raw self.
And most people are strangers to that self.
They don’t know what they like, what they fear, what they believe, or what they want.
So they run back to rituals.
Because in ritual, at least you don’t have to think.
You only have to perform.
This is why entire societies collapse when rituals are questioned.
They were not built on awareness.
They were built on repetition.
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SECTION 5: BUT... WHY IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF TRUE LIFE?
Because when everything fake is removed — only the real remains.
And in that terrifying silence, you may finally hear:
What your body is asking for
What your heart is tired of pretending
What your relationships truly feel like
What the soil under your feet wants to teach you
What your child really needs — not what the world told you to give them
What joy tastes like when it’s not scheduled
Only from this uncomfortable emptiness can a new life emerge —
Not a life of ritual, but a life of rhythm.
Not tradition, but truth.
Not habit, but harmony.
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SECTION 6: HOW TO MOVE FROM RITUAL TO RHYTHM
You don’t need to rebel violently.
You only need to stop lying.
Ask:
Do I want to do this, or am I doing it to avoid judgment?
Do I feel alive when I do this, or just "normal"?
Does this connect me to life, or make me feel less?
Am I feeding my fear, or nourishing my freedom?
Then one by one —
let go of what is hollow.
Let it rot.
Let it stink.
Let it break.
And what remains…
will be yours.
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CONCLUSION: WHAT IS LEFT WHEN RITUALS ARE REMOVED?
At first, nothing.
Just air.
Just trembling hands.
Just awkward silences.
But slowly —
you begin to feel.
You begin to choose.
You begin to listen.
You begin to live.
And that
is the beginning of a life no ritual can ever give.
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AND THEN THERE WAS NOTHING
they woke up
at 6:30
brushed their teeth
while looking at a screen.
coffee.
newspaper.
scroll.
scroll.
shit.
shower.
shirt.
tie.
robot.
they said a prayer
but they didn’t know who they were talking to.
they lit a lamp
but forgot their own face.
they said
“today is thursday — good for money.”
they said
“next week is full moon — good for buying a fridge.”
they said
“my son’s birthday — time to post something fake.”
they had
no god
only gestures.
no love
only anniversaries.
no hunger
only 1 pm lunch.
no rest
only exhaustion they mistook for success.
no silence
only noise from habit.
and when you asked them:
“what if you stopped all this?”
they laughed.
or trembled.
because
without rituals,
there was nothing left.
not because rituals were life.
but because they never built one.
they filled their days with
performances.
with routines.
with ceremonies that meant nothing
but gave just enough meaning
to not collapse.
they didn’t know what they liked.
they didn’t know how to be free.
they didn’t even know
how to eat
when not told to.
so they clung
to rituals like an old dog
clings to a worn-out master.
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and then one day,
a job was lost.
a death came too fast.
a belief cracked.
a silence fell.
and everything they once called life
disappeared like cigarette smoke
from a trembling hand.
and in that silence —
no temple.
no calendar.
no holidays.
no messages.
no plans.
just
air.
just
the unbearable weight of not knowing who the hell you are.
and they cried.
not because of the emptiness,
but because they finally saw it
for the first time.
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but
listen —
some of them
survived that moment.
some of them
didn’t go back.
they stayed.
in the crack.
in the collapse.
in the dust of the broken routine.
they let the silence grow teeth.
they let the hunger return.
they let the fear boil.
and when it passed —
they saw something.
something that didn't need
a uniform.
or a puja.
or a checklist.
or a badge.
they saw a child
playing barefoot in mud
not because it was sunday
but because he felt like it.
they saw a woman
cutting her hair
not because she broke up
but because it no longer made sense.
they saw a man
watching a tree
for one full hour
with no goal.
they saw
life.
not the type
you dress up for.
the kind
you undress into.
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and now when someone says,
“isn’t it time for the evening ritual?”
they smile.
and say:
“i already lived.
i don’t need to perform it.”
and when someone says,
“you’ve changed…”
they nod.
“yes.
i ran out of rituals
and began instead.”
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