Smarana: Remembering With Discernment

Smarana means to remember, to call to mind. In bhakti practice, smarana is devotional: remembering the divine, recalling teachings, keeping alive what truly matters. Applied to identity grief, smarana is the disciplined practice of remembering who you were without either romanticizing that past or denying its reality. This is subtler than it sounds. Nostalgia distorts memory, coating the past in false sweetness. Denial erases it entirely. Smarana is clear-eyed remembrance: acknowledging what was real, what you learned, what you genuinely valued in that former identity, while also recognizing what was false, limiting, or harmful about it. Mirabai did not deny her royal birth or her marriage; she remembered these facts and consciously chose a different path. Your examined heart practices smarana by asking: What in my past identity was true to my nature? What was imposed? What do I honor, and what do I release? This discerning remembrance integrates the past rather than leaving it as either an idealized loss or a shameful erasure.