I keep saying sorry for things that aren't my fault — I apologise for existing, and I can't stop.

Look at the two halves of the verse. The first is an instruction: do not abandon what is sahaja (सहज) — born with you, natural to you, the work and the place that are yours. Even though it has faults. Sa-doṣam api: the Gita does not pretend your contribution is spotless. It grants the flaw and then says: stay anyway.

The second half is the reason, and it is a picture. All undertakings are covered by defect the way fire is covered by smoke. Not some undertakings. All of them. The question, the email, the opinion in the meeting, the fact of you standing there — each comes with a little smoke. So does everyone else's. The person who never apologises is not producing smokeless fire. They have simply stopped apologising for the smoke.

That is the first thing the reflex gets wrong. It treats the ordinary smoke of being a person — needing a moment of someone's time, having a view, taking up a chair — as a defect that belongs to you specifically and must be paid for each time. The verse says the smoke belongs to fire. It is not a debt. It is what warmth looks like from the outside.

The tradition's commentary on these verses draws one line clearly: fault does not live in the action itself; it lives in selfishness and pride behind the action. A surgeon's cut and an assault look the same on the skin. What differs is what the hand wanted. By that measure, your question in the meeting carries no fault at all. Nothing in it was for you alone. There is nothing to be sorry for.

Which means the reflex has quietly emptied the word. An apology is a serious thing — it is what you offer when you have actually harmed someone and want to put it right. Spend it eleven times a day on doorways and long emails and it stops being available for the moment it is needed. The person who says sorry for existing often finds it hard to say sorry for the thing they did. The coin has been worn smooth.

Be honest about how hard this is, though. Arjuna heard this verse and had a hundred more questions. The reflex is old, it is fast, and it was built to keep you safe in rooms where you were not sure you were welcome. You will not switch it off by deciding to. But you can start telling the difference between fire and smoke, and that changes what comes out of your mouth.

First, count. For one ordinary day, make a mark every time you say or type sorry. Do not try to stop; just see the number. Then go through the list and ask of each one: was that a harm I caused, or was it smoke? Most people find one or two real ones and a page of smoke.

Second, replace the cushion with the sentence. 'Sorry, quick question' becomes 'Quick question.' 'Sorry for the long email' becomes the email. Where a courtesy is actually owed, give the true one: 'Thank you for waiting' instead of 'Sorry I'm late.' Thanks names the other person's gift. Sorry names you as a fault.

Third, keep the word for its work. When you do cause harm this week — and you will, because all undertakings come with smoke — apologise properly, once, with your whole attention, and then stop. A real apology has a shape: what I did, what it cost you, what I will do differently. Give it that shape, and it will be worth something again.

Fourth, take the room. Once a day, say one thing without any softener at all, and let the silence after it be. That silence is not the sound of you having done something wrong. It is the sound of fire, giving off its ordinary smoke.