Bhagavad Gita is a spiritual text appreciated alike in East and West. Let us benefit from the nuggets of wisdom and share with others, writes Radhanath Swami
We live in an age of gadgets and networks. They have become an integral part of our routine — from communication to socialisation, recovering health to earning wealth. A slight disconnection can prove to be a disaster at times — an aircraft disconnected from the control tower, a patient disconnected from a life support system. A weak, flaky connection during our work or recreation can cause a great irritation, stealing away our peace of mind. We need a stable and strong network connection on our Smartphone, PC to work with a calm and focused mind.
On the same line, we need a strong, stable and satisfying connection at our heart. Every one of us wants to truly love someone and wants to be truly loved by someone. It is a constitutional nature of every one of us irrespective of what we are in the worldly terms — rich, poor, literate, illiterate, white, black etc. We need a strong connection with someone where we can invest our true love and wherein we can receive true love. Because of lack of such a connection, we lack peace in this world. And we lack happiness in our lives. Bhagavad Gita (2.66) corroborates this — “One who lacks a stable connection, his/her intelligence is confused and emotions are scattered. Such a person lacks peace and consequently happiness”.
Our lives are ridden with anxiety, stress, anger, insecurity etc. Our advancement in the last few centuries considerably solved some problems. But it was not able to address this issue. The major health problems changed from physiological in the past to psychological in the present. According to Cigna Health Insurance, 89% of Indians are afflicted by stress. There is one suicide attempt every 3 seconds. But if we take a look into our lives, we do try to connect with others at different levels in different ways. Where are we going wrong? Bhagavad Gita guides us to the root cause.
If we look in the world around, we find that things in the world are not permanent. They have a beginning and an end. Everything in this world is withered by the harsh winds of time. The buildings we construct, the wealth we accumulate, the gadgets we purchase and even our bodies too. Bhagavad Gita (5.22) explains — “A wise person does not take delight in external happiness. It has a beginning and end. Hence it is a source of misery”. We are basing our happiness on the ever-changing and temporary things of this world alone. Our objects of pleasure in this world are temporary therefore we are tormented with fear, anxiety and insecurity. From Bezos to a beggar on the street, everyone goes through this experience. No one is exempt. As a result the net happiness we get in this world is very minute. We need an everlasting and ever increasing happiness. Trying to be happy in this world is similar to a weary, desert traveler trying to satisfy himself with a drop of water. It is not going to be sufficient. It seems we have reached a dead end. Do we have a solution? Yes. Bhagavad Gita provides us the solution. It does not leave us empty handed.
Bhagavad Gita (2.13) states that “we are spirit souls and we pass through youth, adulthood, old age and death”. We are not just the physical body that we see with our fleshy eyes. Our gross physical body is like hardware, the subtle body consisting of mind, intelligence and ego is like software and we the soul is like a user. During sleep, our physical body is inactive, the subtle body is active in the form of dreams. In the dream, mind is the screen, the seer is the soul. We are a spiritual being covered by material body and mind. We are basing our happiness completely on the connections with our material body, mind and the matter around us. We are relating to others considering them as products of matter ignorant of the spirit. This is the reason for our lack of peace and happiness. Unlike matter, spirit is eternal, changeless and endless. Only the spiritual platform we can acquire everlasting happiness that is our inherent longing. Therefore the solution is to re-establish our lost spiritual connection.
We as spiritual souls are part and parcel of the Supreme Divine God who is all attractive and all Merciful. The lost spiritual connection with God can be established by the process of Yoga. The first step in Yoga is to make ourselves aware of the reality of the temporary world, our true self, our lost relationship with God and the science of reviving that relationship. This can be achieved by regularly reading spiritual literature like The Gita and association with other practitioners. The second step is to practice the process of meditation, worship and devotion to God (BG 9.34). This step helps us in reviving our spiritual connection. This stable spiritual connection gives us focus, motivation in our worldly duties and fulfilment in life amidst the turbulent and unstable, ever changing world around. 5000 years ago Bhagavad Gita was first spoken by Lord Krishna to His warrior-friend Arjuna at Kurukshetra. Bhagavad Gita is a spiritual text appreciated alike from East to West, from Einstein to Gandhi. Let us take benefit of the nuggets of wisdom of Gita and share it with the world that is in dire need of this wisdom.
The writer is a spiritual guru at the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON)
