For most of us the Gita evokes an image of Krishna addressing Arjun who is dutifully kneeling with folded hands, with a chariot and a battlefield as a backdrop. We’ve seen versions of this image on wall calendars, diaries, amateur paintings, and on walls of religious places. Year after year, our exposure to the Gita remains limited to these fleeting visual engagements as they become part of our muscle memory as we go about attending to our chores.
It’s fascinating though, how no one in this part of the world needs to be told of what is depicted in this image beyond the familiar scene of a battlefield. We seem to know the context instinctively and are quite content to accept it for what it is – a pictorial depiction of something sublime.
The eternal questions regarding why things happen the way they do, all the ‘why me’ questions, good things happening to not so good people, innocent lives being cut short, charlatans being rewarded while good Samaritans find themselves in the dock…why?
The Bhagawad Gita comprises 18 chapters and 700 verses in all.
To call it a storehouse of knowledge would be to undervalue it.
To equate it with any other text in the world would be a futile exercise.
To consider it to be a text that belongs to a particular religion or culture would be to de-universalize it.
The Gita is a guide to be befriended, a text to be comprehended, and a way of life to be adopted. Very simply put, it is a text which amongst other more exalted descriptions, must be seen as a handbook on life skills containing detailed lessons on self-improvement.
The Bhagawad Gita – A Life Changing Conversation is an interpretation of the Gita put together in language as we speak it, and contextualized with situations as we confront them on a day-to-day basis. In a conscious effort made at simplifying the reading of this multi-layered discourse, cross-referencing with other preceding Vedic texts and scriptures has been consciously avoided. This has also been done in support of the conviction that the Gita is a standalone study of the human mind and behaviour that does not require a database of existing knowledge, or further acquisition of it, in order to understand what it has to say.
The Bhagawad Gita is a world unto itself that needs no props to roll it out and be understood. Read it, internalize it, apply it to your day-to-day existence and be ready to wallow in the satisfaction that is bound to follow. Believe me, it’s possible.
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