The journey of life

Imagine this: you are in middle of a crisis, feeling anxious and deeply saddened and you poured your heart out to your best friend and he replies: “ C’mon, grow up!” Shock, anger, disappointment, will probably flood you. However, that is the first response which Arjuna gets from Krishna at the beginning of the 2 nd chapter leaving him totally confounded. Half belligerent & half sulking he tells Krishna that he is ready to walk off the battlefield. Smilingly Krishna delivers an overarching message before starting his teachings: Never play the victim . If we want to end Vishaadas & start our journey to bliss, we need to start with an entry ticket of complete accountability. Understanding that both the problem and solution lie within you: not with an irrational boss, not with a pugnacious relative, not with the dreadful situation but you and you alone. As is beautifully said: Blame is the water in which many dreams drown! Once Arjuna is shaken out of his self-pitying wallow, ...

BG starts by breaking conventions. As followers of BG know, its 18 chapters are broken up into 3 sections of 6 chapters each*. The first 6 chapters talk about “You”, the second 6 chapters about “That” (A Supreme power/God/whatever you want to call it) and the last six chapters talk about the equality between the two (You and the Supreme). So what sets it apart? All religious texts start with understanding whatever definition they give to the concept of God. BG starts by defining You , the basic premise being that if you cannot understand yourself, you have no chance of getting anywhere on the spiritual journey. The same applies to Happiness, the only path to be happy & blissful is by understanding your true self. As is said, you live most of your life between your ears. The twist does not end there. Unlike most religious texts, BG starts its first chapter by defining Vishada (loosely translated as unhappiness + restlessness) as Arjuna the warrior is drowned in Vishada at seei...

As of the last count (per the omniscient search engine!), there are more than a thousand commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita (BG). Hence, there isn’t really a need for another, apart from just adding one more personal perspective to this age-old scripture. So here goes… BG is a manual for life, not after-life. It is one of the best coaching manuals on leadership, an amazing guide for building relationships and an absolute must do for parenting. Various commentators talk about the teenage years being the best time to learn the beautifully layered messages in this text. After all, if it is the manual of life, it’s better to read the manual at the outset rather than at the sunset of our life (which is what most people do & then regret). It is almost like saying that I will read and understand the manual of my electronic gadget once the gadget is about to expire! What sets it apart from other texts is the context. It is not delivered nestled in the foothills by a riverbank nor is it ...