When dark dreary dangerous clouds of perplexities and
adversities start darkening the sky of our life, we become disheartened, hoping
to find a silver lining somewhere.
Thankfully however, our life is not like the vast sky
somewhere up there, about which we can do very little. Yes, there are factors
beyond our control in our life, factors than can drastically change things for
us. Yet our own responses still remain in our control.
The Bhagavad-gita (01.46) begins with Arjuna dejected,
casting aside his bow, losing his resolve to fight. In despair, he turns to
Krishna for help. And Krishna gives him the immortal, transformational,
empowering wisdom of the Gita.
And the Gita centers on a call (11.33) for Arjuna to take
action, to arise and act, for attaining victory in the virtuous cause of
establishing dharma. And as the non-combatant Krishna helped Arjuna, he too similarly
helps us by empowering us to help ourselves.
Arjuna heeds Krishna’s call, by determinedly resolving to do
Krishna’s will (18.73) and lifting his bow aloft in readiness to fight (18.78).
This illustrates that the Gita’s onus for action is on us.
It certainly gives us a positive message that goes far beyond platitudes to the
power of spiritual love which infuses our aspirations and actions with a vision
of higher reality. At the same time, the Gita doesn’t just reassure us that
there is a silver lining beyond life’s dark clouds — it urges us to become the
silver lining, by resolving to devotedly and determinedly to our part in the
whole, as did Arjuna. When we thus take up the initiative and the
responsibility to become the silver lining without passively waiting for it to
appear mysteriously, we accelerate its appearance and become engines and
harbingers of positivity and change.
No comments:
Post a Comment