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The Bhagavad Gita of India is about courage: of all kinds. This sacred text says that to live courageously is the only way to live. And what it really requires to become courageous is to unburden oneself of those situations which do not allow us to be dynamic, which do not allow us to move ahead.
In other words, leave aside your burdens like you would dust off dirt on your clothes. Move ahead dynamically! That is Krishna's divine message to Arjuna. It is all about being fresh in your approach to life. About being adventurous, and not to look for security in life. In fact life itself cannot be guaranteed by any measure. We live in a very precarious existence. Dynamic living means the ability to flow on, to move on. And in that very movement comes about the happiness of the human spirit.
The Gita teaches that great joy and great peace cannot come about by being stagnant. They always come about by the ecstasy of participating in whatever circumstances life presents us with. So the way to the divine, the way to God, the way to Higher Being, is always through the doorway of movement of spirit. In a manner where you are completely spontaneous. In a manner where you are completely open to whatever is presented to you as a human being. You are to have a relaxed attitude about things, to not get stuck by fear. And not getting stuck by fear is essentially what real bravery in life is all about.
These principles apply to every situation in life. Be that of our relationships - we are always insecure about whether a person will stay with us or not. Be it about a job - being insecure about whether we will be retained by the company tomorrow or not. Insecure about our health - whether we will survive healthily to a good old age. All these fears make man retarded in the spiritual sphere as well as the material sphere. And before you know it, life has been destroyed by this fear. To live in fear is the only betrayal of the divine.
The taste of the divine lies in fearlessness. This is what Krishna is trying to remind Arjuna again and again. Because only through such fearlessness and courage does the spirit find bliss. And Krishna also shows Arjun that there is nothing to fear because Arjuna is not alone! The Divine Energy which is perfectly beautiful is always with Arjuna. He just has to spontaneously realize it in the very moment.
Through this stance of understanding - that one is not alone - one shrugs off confusion. One shrugs off worry. And therefore does not become too tense, does not keep moving in the same rut of one's old fears. But is able to come out of this rut with a great deal of dynamic energy. And thereby to blossom into what one truly is, to what is one's true potential. To fulfil oneself.
Human existence is often seen to be a state where one is continually frightened by outside goals and outside pressures. But real spontaneity begins with the realization that ultimately all wisdom is in becoming almost as if one is a child. Where one has a spiritually adventurous nature. You see, an infant has so much courage to explore the new, such curiosity and wonder towards the new, such disconnectedness with the past and a fresh approach towards life. And that is what Krishna is teaching Arjuna: have such a fresh approach towards the circumstances that are facing you that you are not bound up in fear.
In a modern context this is very important. Because we live in a very uncertain world, where everything can be interrupted by new developments and new happenings. In the world of work, in the world of business, disruption has become the norm. In ecological and environmental terms, we are facing more and more situations like floods and other natural calamities such as earthquakes and so on. Everything is in a flux, everything is uncertain. But in the midst of uncertainty, it is the power of stillness which allows us to explore the possibilities of our own potential. It is the power of being alertly meditative: that is at the very foundation and basis of the mystic attitude. And this is what leads to an inner affluence of being, an inner affluence of understanding. And through this inner affluence of understanding comes about an unshakable courage, which in the end is the foundation of all good things that we do in life.
