The Bhagavad Gita

Book excerpt: A Guide to Navigating the Battle of Life “O Dhananjaya, do your work established in yoga and abandon attachment. Be impartial to success or failure, for yoga is equanimity.” —The Bhagavad Gita Myths offer truths that speak about the human condition and have withstood the test of time. The Mahabharata is one such magnificent saga and the Bhagavad Gita is the nectar of its distilled wisdom. The great Indian gurus and philosophers have looked at the battle of Kurukshetra as a euphemism for the struggle within – between a person’s asuric (demonic) and daivic (divine) inclinations. Eons later, the Gita is still relevant and popular. Is it because we are still fascinated about an ancient war and a philosophical discourse that happened in the middle of a battlefield a long time ago, or because we are concerned about understanding the constant tussle between good and bad in our lives and in our own consciousness? Ravi Ravindra’s fresh prose translation of the great epic stands out from the many other versions with its assertion that the Gita is, at its heart, an indispensable universal guide to help you cross the battlefield of life. Ravi Ravindra, PhD, is Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he served for many years as a professor in comparative religion, philosophy and physics. He is the author of numerous books including Science and the Sacred, The Wisdom of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and The Pilgrim Soul.