from wise traditions

By SAROJA SRINIVASAN

Most of us who have lived in India have heard the Bhagavad Gita being mentioned in many contexts. The ancient Hindu text teaches us to see even our everyday conflicts as a product of our own mind, however much we may point the finger at others around us or at situations. It begins with a vision of man as intrinsically happy and the fundamental solution to our feelings of insecurity lying within our own mind: “You can be your own best friend or your own worst enemy” (Bhagavad Gita, Ch 6 V 5).

Our mind is the ‘kurukshetra and the ‘dharmakshetra’. The emotional turmoil of Arjuna represents the conflict between one’s values and the actions one has to perform. The student Arjuna’s mind is in turmoil, while the teacher Krishna’s mind is in resolution. The chariot is the body pulled by the five horses, the sense organs. All of these reflect three things that one has to come to terms with: one’s attitude towards God, the world and oneself. Once this is reflected upon and resolved, the individual is better placed to deal with conflicts and crises.

In my teens I understood the teaching to be as making the effort to do one’s duty, without expecting a reward. This was, of course, hard to accept at a young the bus to work on time? Of course you will get it provided you have given enough time to your morning routine. But all the same, there may be unexpected delays on many occasions and the same effort does not produce a guaranteed result. What this kind of mindset does is to make it possible to be accepting when things do not go the way we want them to go.

The mind-set that is required to pursue this line of thought is often quite alien to people who look at life as being entirely within their volition. Even if we lived in an island with no others around, we would still be under the mercy of natural elements that are beyond one’s control. Hence one’s desired effect.

Life as we know it is an interrelated phenomenon. The famous English poet John Donne quite beautifully expressed it in his poem, No man is an island. What one does, effects another, however small the effect or however distant that effect is in time and space. What we have to accept is one of the lessons from the Geetha, that making the effort is ours but the desired result may not be entirely in our hands. Secondly, we have the capacity to deal with our problems provided we seek the solution at a fundamental level, and not just at a topical one. There is always an ‘unknown’ in the equation. Whether they may be major events or trivial everyday accustomed to predictability in many everyday things. Compared to 200 years ago, if we open a tap, water comes out, or if we turn on a switch, the light comes on and we also have timetables for most things that helps us plan and predict.

This seems to make us expect the same in everything else. Yet, in interpersonal relationships the unknown crops up ever so regularly, unsettling our predictability. If we are not prepared for these unknowns, we become quite distressed or angry. As the essence of the Gita so brilliantly illustrates, it is our duty to make the effort without focussing only on the reward that we want to obtain.

The Bhagavad Gita teaches us to see even our everyday conflicts as a product of our own mind, however much we may point the finger at others around us or at situations