Life Lessons From The Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is one of Hinduism's most important scriptures.

Composed of 700 verses, it is a narrative between a young prince Arjuna and his charioteer, friend, and guide Krishna. The scene is that of a battlefield where Arjuna finds himself fighting against his own relatives, teachers, and friends.

Just as the conch shell is blown to signal the start of the battle, Arjuna has second thoughts. He begins to contemplate if fighting and killing his own brethren is worth the win.

It is then that Krishna counsels Arjuna and shares with him lessons that we can use even today as guidelines for the ethical and moral struggles of life.

Here are the main life lessons from the Bhagavad Gita.

1. Focus on your actions and not on the result

The Bhagavad Gita introduces karma yoga. Known as the yoga of action, Krishna says it is the practice of "selfless action performed for the benefit of others".

While working towards a goal, we tend to stay attached to the result. Karma yoga teaches us that we should keep our focus on taking the right actions without attaching ourselves to the fruits of labor. By dedicating ourselves to our duties, we will be able to remain neutral to the outcome, whether it is success or failure.

This is what the Bhagavad Gita says about karma yoga:
"Your work is your responsibility, not its result.
Never let the fruits of your actions be your motive.
Nor give in to inaction.

Set firmly in yourself, do your work, not attached to anything.
Remain even-minded in success, and in failure.
Even mindedness is true yoga."

2. True yoga is mental equanimity (or mental calmness)

The Bhagavad Gita lays great emphasis on maintaining equanimity under any circumstances. In fact, Krishna says that acquiring this quality is true yoga.

When we are able to accept success and failure, pleasure and pain, praise and blame as the same, we develop equanimity. It links to the first lesson of karma yoga, where we learn that we have control over our actions but not the results.

If we keep our focus on our duty and leave its outcome to the will of the Divine, then we can embrace whatever comes our way. We cannot avoid negative experiences. However, we can do away with the struggle of rejecting the negative and face our challenges while keeping a balanced state of mind.

3. The real enemy is anger

This is what the Bhagavad Gita says about anger:

"When a man thinks of the objects, attachment to the object arises: from attachments desire is born; from desire anger rises; from anger comes delusion; from delusion the loss of memory; from loss of memory the destruction of discrimination; from destruction of discrimination a man perishes."

In anger, we often say and do things that we later regret. Anger clouds our judgment. Intense emotions interfere with us using our intellect. It plays with our memory, as we tend to forget wrong from right.
We lose discernment and once that happens, we are ultimately ruined.

The way to eliminate the root cause of anger is to work on our attachment patterns.

4. Fear comes from illusion

The Bhagavad Gita teaches us to look at life from the perspective of love and not fear.

It says that fear arises from attachment. When we want something or have something, the possibility of us not getting it or losing it, is what creates fear. Again, what we forget is that everything in the universe is prone to change. We cannot control the future.

What we can do is stay focused on or actions – things that we can do. We should not let fear cripple us but continue to perform our duties and have faith in the Divine.

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