How is the Gita relevant amidst today’s stress-filled times?

Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
when things have become very dicey and stressed out yes the purpose of Bhagavad Gita is to offer as a guide for living just as the sun and the moon they will always provide light whether we live in ancient times or medieval times or modern times or post modern times we may have artificial systems of lighting but even these systems ultimately depend on natural sources of light similarly we all depend for inner illumination for the illumination of wisdom on timeless sources of wisdom and the Bhagavad Gita offers us knowledge about ourselves in today’s world there is a lot of knowledge about external things but there is a shocking lack of knowledge about our inner world and that is why we as you said life has become so stressed out the main reason for stress is not just that there are so many things to do but rather there are so many thoughts going wild in our mind because of which we are not able to focus on anything constructive so science and technology may help us to make things better in the outer world but the Bhagavad Gita can provide us guidance which will help us to make things better in our inner world Martin Luther King said that we have guided missiles and misguided men so we have what the Bhagavad Gita offers us is the inner guidance by which we can tap our full potential the Bhagavad Gita’s essential teaching is it illumines who we are and what we are meant to do so Arjuna was also actually in a very stressful situation he had to fight a war against his own relatives, a war which he just did not have the heart to fight and at that time his question was who am I? these are my loved ones I am their loved one, how can I fight against them? what should I do? so Arjuna asked Krishna the question please tell me, what am I meant to do? what is Dharma? Dharma refers in the Bhagavad Gita not just to religion Dharma refers to the course of action that brings us in harmony with nature so that action, there is a natural order to everything sugar is by nature sweet snow is cold so everything has its nature and to the extent everything is in natural situation to that extent things are orderly so what is our nature? how can we harmonize with the orderliness of nature? that is the question of the Bhagavad Gita and this question of enduring relevance the Bhagavad Gita’s question is not about something 5000 years old, the Bhagavad Gita’s question is about a timeless issue, the timeless issue is what are we meant to do in our life? what is Dharma? and that is the question which all of us face sooner or later, especially in today’s world when there are hundreds of things to do unless we have a system of prioritizing things and not just a system of prioritizing based on practicality, you know I have to do this first, this second, this third but we have a system of prioritization based on principles based on truly understanding that both in the immediate and the ultimate analysis what is it that is most important based on that understanding when we make decisions then we will be able to bring out our best and the Bhagavad Gita helps us to recognize the short-sighted impulses the negative passions, the self-defeating urges that are there inside us and helps us to overcome them so it helps us to bring out the best within us and it helps us to resist and reject the impulses within us which often make us act in negative ways. In this way in today’s world where we are stressed out with multiple things to do, Bhagavad Gita is an indispensable guide for enabling us to put first things first.
Thank you.