The Bhagavad Gita is a book that sometimes feels overrated, at other times fascinates me, and at most other times soothes me like an old habit. No, it’s not my lullaby. That happens to be the Sri Ramcharit Manas. But the Bhagavad Gita continues to be my go-to book when I seek counsel.
I don’t intend to write preachy stuff. Neither “50 insights from the Gita,” nor a “700 verses, 700 posts” kind of thing. If it happens, so be it. But that’s not the plan or the goal I’m chasing.
I’m simply trying to write and document my own journey — through both this life and my current version of the journey through this book. That’s all. If that’s of any use to anyone out there, great. If not, feel free to move on.
I’ve read the book in Sanskrit, studied the Hindi meaning, and gone through multiple commentaries in both Hindi and English, at least thirty-odd times. Yet every time I open it, mostly with a different commentator, the very first verse stops me in my tracks:
धृतराष्ट्र उवाच —
धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे समवेता युयुत्सवः ।
मामकाः पाण्डवाश्चैव किमकुर्वत सञ्जय॥ 1.1
Dhritarashtra said: O Sanjay, assembled on the holy field of Kurukshetra, eager for battle, what did my sons and the sons of Pandu do?
What looks like a king’s question is really a soul’s question. This much we all know. The Bhagavad Gita is, after all, a book that talks about the soul, the individual, their relationship with God, and their purpose in this life; and in the grand scheme of things, after all.
Yet one wonders, what would have happened if the king hadn’t asked this question?
If this question hadn’t been asked, would the narration of the eighteen days of battle have taken place? Would Sanjay have spoken that which Ved Vyas later documented as the epic war?
And then there is the question of what happens when we finally gather everything we know, our knowledge, wounds, ambitions, fears, on the field of duty and desire.
Does it still remain sacred? Or does it turn into something ugly, like a chakravyuh, where an Abhimanyu is killed one time too many?
I sometimes even drift into an imaginary multiverse and wonder if, somewhere in some universe, something of the sort is happening right now. As I type this, is there some king — blinded by his sons and their ambition — asking this same question to his Sanjay?
Anyway, I digress.
So, let’s get back to our personal battlefields again. What happens when we finally gather everything we know, our knowledge, wounds, ambitions, fears, on the field of duty and desire?
Does it still remain sacred? Does it turn into something ugly, like a chakravyuh, where an Abhimanyu is killed one time too many? Or does it remain sacred despite that?
What do we do in such a situation — when one feels conflicted between one’s supposed duty and one’s personal ethics?
I won’t speak for others, but I will speak for myself. I’ve stood in some of these fields, not yet big enough to impact millions, but sometimes big enough to impact the lives of at least hundreds of families, because policies needed to be advocated, social interventions designed, or decisions were to be made about layoffs.
Fields where ideals collided with insecurities, where courage met exhaustion. I’ve seen and sometimes even experienced how “dharma” (duty, inner order) and “kuru” (to act) wrestle inside all of us.
In consulting rooms, classrooms, training halls, conferences, and meeting rooms; formally and otherwise; in loss and in success, in grief and in ambition, I’ve faced this dilemma.
And the Bhagvad Gita has stood by my side. So far that is.
© Anupama Garg 2025
