There comes a time, sometimes regularly, where we may feel, Oh, Krishna. I can’t do this anymore. This ‘this’ will be different for everyone. It happened to Arjuna in the Gita – he wanted to give up, not to fight, and go off to the forest to be alone. He did not want to deal with people and life’s problems. He told Krishna: I’m not fighting, I can’t do it, I can’t see the point, better if I don’t act and move to the side.
If it can happen to Arjuna, who had everything going for him, including talent, skill, health, family, and especially friendship with Krishna, it can certainly happen to all of us. The struggle for existence, as daily life is described in our teachings, can sometimes just be too much. We will feel like Arjuna and have a desire to give up and go away.
Arjuna was a good person. He did nothing wrong and still he felt despondent. Of course that was connected to him not wanting to do anything wrong; the impending war and killing was something he was having grave doubts about. And he was a warrior! In his blood was the natural desire to protect the innocent and ensure good leadership in the world. Still he was overwhelmed, doubtful, and unsure of his next steps.
Our fight may be with an illness, a slow recovery, mistakes, a sudden death, a mountain of bills or debts, a challenging work environment, tension in relationships, a loss, a failure, a breaking of the law. Or it maybe we see how broken the world is and feel helpless to help. The list is endless.
How to respond to such feelings of inadequacy? How to work through them, gathering our resolve, and moving forward? We need to be able to do this otherwise such feelings will wear away at our energy and we will slowly grind to a halt.
By the end of the Gita, Arjuna has found his understanding, found his sense of self in relationship to the context of his life. Here are three of Krishna’s teachings in the Gita that helped him recover and re-energize:
We have to do something:
We are a soul with a body. One one level, spiritually, we have nothing to do with this world. The soul remains untouched. One another level, while in the body, we are connected to the world and must move within it. We are forced to act, even if all we do is breathe and eat. And every move has an impact on our future – both action and inaction. Be careful Arjuna, Krishna says. Running from difficulty may seem like a good move, but will solve nothing.
Reda More https://www.dandavats.com/?p=32678
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