The Gita and Me

Two years ago in April I took a yoga teacher training at The Bhakti yoga Shala in Santa Monica.   Part of our required reading was the Bhagavad Gita, the book that tells the tale of Lord Krishna and Arjuna. The translation by Eknath Eswaran was my introduction to this spiritual classic. His translations made sense to my Western mind and captured the relevance for today's world in which we, too, strive to maintain a spiritual life and do what is right.

The War Within

 Krishna says ,“Remembering me, you shall overcome all difficulties through my Grace.  But if you will not heed me in your self will, nothing will avail you.  If you egotistically say “I will not fight this battle”, your resolve will be useless; your own nature will drive you into it.
Therefore remember me at all times and fight on.  With your heart and mind intent on me, you will surely come to me.”

I love this passage.  It's about surrendering to a higher power (whatever or whoever your higher power is), knowing that you will come through this, whatever "this" is.  "This too shall pass". And you are not alone. You have the strength within, the power of the Universe.  We just forget that.  Or our ego comes marching in and says "I can't win!  This always happens to me.Poor me!  Why bother?" In the Tao of Pooh, that would be Eeyore.

The Bhagavad Gita is not a book of commandments.  It is  a book of choices. There is  no Original Sin but Original Goodness. There are nor rules to follow in order to go to a Heaven after you die.  Heaven and hell are here and now, depending on how you choose to live.
 The story takes place on a battlefield, before a war.  The soldier Arjuna is overwhelmed.  He sees before him his own family members pitted against him and each other.  He is disheartened and does not want to fight.  Why must he fight?

Krishna is his charioteer.  Krishna is the Divine form, God, if you will, who comes as a lowly charioteer to help guide Arjuna.
This battlefield is The War Within.

To live our authentic life, or to live the life someone else wants for you,. to listen to our heart or to listen to society, to make a choice because of fame or money or to choose because it feels like the right way to go, to draw a  boundary or continue to live in an unhealthy situation.  All of theses could be this battlefield .  And if we refuse to even look at it, to just walk away from the battlefield, then we will come back to it again and again.  The same problems, people, and issues will haunt you for the rest of your lives, unless you really start to address that war within.

If we are lucky, there comes a time in our lives where it becomes too much.  Maybe we are faced with a problem that seems so large that we just give up.  Or maybe we think “is this all there is?  Suffering?”  Do I want to live like this?  Is this really living?  So you resign yourself to what is in front of you and ask for guidance.

Arjuna says “My will is paralyzed and I am utterly confused.  Tell me which is the better path for me.  Let me be your disciple.  I have fallen at your feet:  give me instruction.  What can overcome a sorrow that saps all my vitality?  Even power over men and gods or the wealth of an empire seem empty.”

Roughly translated.  “I can’t take anymore. Nothing makes sense anymore.  I don't even know what I want. I give up.  Now what do I do? Help me."
Have you ever been there?

Yay. Now you are getting somewhere.
Because when you let go, offer it up, ask for help, almost immediately there is a shift and  you feel lighter.  The weight of the world is no longer  on your shoulders.  You don't have to DO anything right now. You've opened up the doors to Divine intuition and answers can start to come to you. You are not running away.  you stayed on the battlefield, you just released the struggle.

Half the people I know, first came to yoga because of a challenge in their life, a break up or a health crisis or loss of direction.  Myself included.  I could never make it through pigeon pose without crying.  (They say we hold a lot of trauma in our hips.)  But I learned to breathe, really breathe, and stay in whatever was happening.  And I started to feel a  little lighter, a little less overwhelmed.
It took some time but I started to relax, to enjoy the ups and downs of the ride a little more. With practice I could find that middle path where I became more of the observer of all the events and stopped feeling like I was fighting against life. By staying in a difficult situation instead of running away or trying to make it better or control it, I stopped fighting and suddenly there was no more fight.

When you keep practicing, nothing can ever affect you like that again.  Sure you can get rattled.  yes life will throw you for a loop or turn you upside down.  But you will always know that this is part of the ride.  There is a lesson in it somewhere.  And as a spiritual warrior you are armed with the tools you need to say Yes!  to all of it.

Namaste!

"Only the person who is utterly dedicated and utterly detached,"  said Gandhi, "is free to enjoy life."