The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling (3 page)

The first time I heard the story of Krishna and Arjuna was in a World Lit course in college. I read the book. I listened to all the lectures. And I probably even did well in the class. But quite honestly I never got what all the fuss was about. All that has changed. Deep in middle age, I
get
it. Reading a book like this is as important to me as breathing oxygen.

The Bhagavad Gita expounds an unequaled method for bringing forth dharma. At the beginning of the story, Arjuna is paralyzed by doubt. Like Hamlet, he cannot act. Arjuna has tried to live a good life up to this point—has tried to live out his warrior-dharma as best he can. But at the beginning of our story, the world has momentarily crushed him. Luckily for Arjuna, Krishna is at his side at the very moment of that crunch. The handsome Krishna is disguised as a charioteer, and he becomes Arjuna’s spiritual teacher, his psychoanalyst, his coach, his goad, his mentor. But we—the reader—know that Krishna is actually none other than God.

As the tale opens, our friend Arjuna has collapsed onto the floor of his chariot. Arjuna is undone by the doubts and conflicts he faces about his own actions—his own calling—on the field of a great battle that is about to be engaged. “What am I really called to
do
in this circumstance?” he asks Krishna. “Do I fight this battle, or not?” How do I act in such a way that I do not destroy my own soul and the soul of the world? How do I act in such a way that I fulfill my dharma?

The Bhagavad Gita is a brilliant teaching on the problems of
doing
. There is so much talk these days about
being
. (And for good reason.) But what a treat to discover a great scripture about
doing
. “
All that is worthwhile,” says the great Jesuit scholar and paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin, “is action.” In fact, there is no being in this world without doing. Let’s get real: Most of our lives are spent in doing. From the point of view of the Gita, the most sublime kind of doing is really a perfect expression of authentic being. Does this sound a little abstract? It will become very concrete as we sort through the argument of the Gita.

Arjuna has many excellent questions for Krishna—questions to which we, too, would like answers: Who am I, for God’s sake? And how can I authentically express all that I truly am?

Over the course of eighteen enchanting chapters, Krishna and Arjuna sort through these questions. Krishna gives some awesome talks about action versus inaction, about doubt and faith, about knowledge and love. Arjuna hedges his way from chapter to chapter, until about halfway through the book, when Krishna at last has to really get stern with him. In the famous Chapter Eleven, Krishna pulls out his big guns—and one of the world’s most stunning theophanies explodes into the consciousness of a bewildered Arjuna. Now Arjuna really understands who he is messing with. From here on out tumble some of the world’s most inspiring teachings about devotion, love, work, and duty.

By the end of the book, these two friends have sorted out the Truth. We readers feel sorted out, too.

If you look around, you might notice that suddenly you’re seeing the Bhagavad Gita everywhere. Everyone still reads it in World Lit courses, naturally. But more than that. I’ve heard that it is rapidly replacing
The Art of War
on the bookshelves of corporate executives.

I hope this is true. It indicates that we’re finally beginning to bring spiritual practice into the center of our everyday lives—moving away from the misapprehension that spiritual life only happens in church, or on the meditation cushion, or on retreat. Or that full-time spiritual pursuits are strictly the province of those living a so-called religious life. No. Arjuna is the archetype of the spiritual man
in action
.

In fact, the Bhagavad Gita was written precisely to show us how to make the world of action (the marketplace, the workplace, the family) an arena for spiritual development. Indeed, it portrays the “battlefield” of life—real life, everyday life—as the most potent venue for transformation.

Reading the Gita brings into stark relief a misapprehension we have about our everyday lives—a mistaken belief about the nature of fulfillment itself. Our fantasies about fulfillment often center around dreams of wealth, power, fame, and leisure. In these fantasies, a fulfilling life is one in which we acquire so much freedom and leisure that we no longer have to work and strive. Finally, once we’ve worked most of our lives to extricate ourselves from the demands of ordinary life, we can relax
by our own personally monogrammed swimming pool—with the gates of our country-club community firmly locked behind us—and there, at last, find true happiness, and real fulfillment, perhaps contemplating the clear blue sky.

The teachings of the Gita point to a much more interesting truth: People actually feel happiest and most fulfilled when meeting the challenge of their dharma
in the world
, when bringing highly concentrated effort to some compelling activity for which they have a true calling. For most of us this means our work in the world. And by work, of course, I do not mean only “job.” For many of us—as for Arjuna—the challenges of our vocation in the world require the development of a profound degree of mastery. Those who have had a taste of this kind of mastery have experienced moments when effort becomes effortless: joyful, gifted, and unbounded. These moments of effortless effort are so sublime that they draw us even more deeply into the possibilities of our vocations. At the end of life, most of us will find that we have felt most filled up by the challenges and successful struggles for mastery, creativity, and full expression of our dharma in the world. Fulfillment happens not in
retreat
from the world, but in
advance
—and profound engagement.

The two-thousand-year-old Bhagavad Gita brings us a series of surprising principles for living an optimal life, and for transforming skillful action into spiritual practice.

In 2005, I became director of a new institute at Kripalu, called The Institute for Extraordinary Living. Our goal was to do rigorous scientific research on fulfillment—to understand skillful living of the Gita brand and to examine the ways in which it may show up in our time. Are there some people who really
do
live their dharma authentically, and in a fulfilling fashion? Do we know them? Are there any characteristics that consistently mark their lives? Do these people, in fact, jump out of bed in the morning? What might Krishna and Arjuna’s teachings on dharma mean for us?

Our quest to understand these things has led me to an intensive study of so-called “great lives”—the lives of those who have obviously brought forth their genius into the world. You’ve heard briefly from a
few of these characters already in this introduction—Thoreau, de Chardin, Merton—and you’ll hear much more from them and many other such “greats” throughout the course of this book. I have learned a tremendous amount from my study of these well-known exemplars of dharma, including the very reassuring fact that the whole lot of them had just as many doubts and neuroses and fears as the rest of us. Often more.

Along the way, I have looked, too, at what we might call “ordinary lives.” You and me. And what a bonfire of inspiration came from this study of ordinary lives. It turns out that among so-called
ordinary
lives, there are many, many
great
ones. Indeed, for me there is no longer really any distinction at all between great lives and ordinary lives.

I must admit that this surprised me at first. If it surprises you as well, I suggest that you look carefully about your own neighborhood. There are people all around you right now living out their vocations—strange vocations you never even imagined. It is not so easy to tell from the outside whether someone is fully engaged in his dharma. This is because dharma draws forth an ardency so deep—and sometimes so secret—that it often cannot be detected by ordinary eyes. Perhaps the neighbor who you think is profoundly strange because he stays inside and collects stamps and sometimes forgets to put out his garbage and doesn’t come to the annual block party—perhaps he is utterly involved in his sacred calling. Perhaps his single-minded efforts have lifted stamp collecting to an entirely new level of genius. Perhaps he has penetrated the mystery of stamps, or is about to do so. Inside he glows, but you cannot see it. But I tell you this: You are more likely to have X-ray eyes for such things if you are also pursuing your own dharma with the same ardency.

And this brings us to you: Do you fear that you may have missed the boat? That you’ve become unmoored from your true calling and are drifting aimlessly out to sea?

Here is another surprise that may buoy you up. Most of the ordinary people whom I have studied, when first confronted with the notion of dharma, imagined that for them to claim their dharma probably meant inventing an entirely new life. Giving up their job selling insurance and moving to Paris to paint. Quitting their job as a hospice nurse and sailing around the world solo. Not so. As it turns out, most people are already
living very close to their dharma. Really. Within spitting range. What is the problem, then? These same people, close as they are to the deepest mystery of dharma, know very little about it. They don’t name it. They don’t own it. They don’t live it intentionally. Their own sacred calling is hiding in plain sight. They keep just missing it. And, as we will see, when it comes to dharma, missing by an inch is as good as missing by a mile. Aim is everything.

Come with me, then, and with my fellow students of fulfillment as we tell the story of Krishna and Arjuna, and as we tell stories of great lives that vividly reflect the principles of living as they are laid out in the Bhagavad Gita. Bring your fears and neuroses and doubts; do not leave that excellent fodder behind. Bring your desperation and your most ardent wishes for a full life. Gather ’round the fire with the rest of us ordinary human beings, as we investigate the not-so-far-fetched possibility of becoming fully alive.

As the curtain rises on Chapter One of the Bhagavad Gita, we are at the scene of an impending battle—the fabled battle of Kurukshetra, in the North Indian Kingdom of Kuru. Krishna, the charioteer, and Arjuna, the young warrior, have driven their chariot to the edge of the battleground. Arjuna surveys the scene, and speaks urgently to his charioteer: “
I see omens of chaos, Krishna.” As we survey the battlefield in our mind’s eye, we feel—with Arjuna—a visceral sense of foreboding. The narrator has already told us that the forces of light and the forces of darkness are about to collide, and that this battle will tear the fabric of the world.

As early readers of the Gita would have been all too aware, this is indeed no ordinary battle. The battle of Kurukshetra is the definitive struggle of its age. It marks the end of one great mythic era (
yuga
, or world age) and the beginning of another. The battle of Kurukshetra ushers in the Dark Age—the
Kali-yuga
—the last of the four great eras foreseen by the Seers of ancient India.

Imagine our two heroes as they prepare for this world-shattering conflict.

Krishna, the charioteer, is dark-skinned and handsome. He is steady. Regal. Unwavering. We’ll find out later, of course, that he is God in one of his many disguises.

Arjuna, our bold warrior, too, is handsome. But not so steady as
Krishna. He is young and brash and immature. He is highly prized by his family, and idealized by the common people. He is something of a golden boy. (Do you have one of these in your family? They can be terribly irritating.) There is no doubt, from the very outset, that Arjuna is an exceptionally brave warrior, though he does not yet possess the supernormal powers of the yogi. All that is yet to come.

“Krishna,” says Arjuna as the narrative opens, “
halt my chariot between the armies! Far enough for me to see these men who lust for war …”

Arjuna surveys the scene of the impending battle. And what does he see? A sight that undoes him. Arjuna sees his own kinsmen arrayed against him. He sees, as he says to Krishna, “
fathers, grandfathers, teachers, uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons, and friends” gathered in the opposing army.

His own family has taken up arms against him? How did we get to this disastrous crossroads?

We need a little background here. The Kingdom of Kuru has been ripped apart by a now-generations-old conflict between two different but closely related lines of the royal family: the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The Pandavas, as you have probably guessed, are Arjuna’s family, and they have come to be known as “the forces of light.” The Kauravas—their conniving cousins—have by this point earned their name as “the forces of darkness.” They have illegally usurped the throne of Kuru, and destroyed the peace and well-being of the people.

As Arjuna surveys the impending conflict between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, he sees “omens of chaos.” He sees the breakdown of the harmony and order of family and kingdom—an order highly prized for the peace and well-being that it fosters. He sees, too, his own family deeply stained by the forces of disorder—by avarice, and the lust for power, land, and fortune. The forces of greed, hatred, and delusion are the destroyers of the world order and purveyors of suffering.

Arjuna, observing all of this, is loath to become part of the pernicious disorder infecting the kingdom. He is reluctant to take his part in this battle, even though it is manifestly his sacred duty.

“
Conflicting sacred duties confound my reason!” Arjuna cries to Krishna.

A cry of doubt! Arjuna is split down the middle. How should he act?

As a great warrior, Arjuna has always known that his sacred duty is to fight on the side of “right” in a just war. And according to the rules of war so clearly laid out in the scriptures—rules that are as close to Arjuna as his own heart—this is, indeed, a just war. The peace of the kingdom has been profoundly disrupted by the unjust usurpation of the throne. The forces of greed and disorder have triumphed. The people of the realm will suffer as a result of this unjust usurpation. It is Arjuna’s duty to fight.

And yet. He is confronted with a problem above and beyond the ordinary challenges of war. He sees that his own people are standing against him. Will he kill them? If he does, he will have committed the heinous sin of fratricide, and he will take on the karma of this act, and suffer for many lifetimes to come.

However, if he does
not
act, he will betray his “code”—the sacred duty that has given his very life meaning.

Arjuna is caught on the horns of a vicious dilemma. “
We don’t know which weight is worse to bear,” Arjuna says to Krishna, “our conquering them or their conquering us.”

Arjuna feels the conflict viscerally. “Krishna,” he says:

“
My limbs sink,

My mouth is parched,

My body trembles,

The hair bristles on my flesh.

The magic bow slips

From my hand, my skin burns,

I cannot stand still,

My mind reels.”

Arjuna sees clearly that having executed his sacred duty, having slain his own kinsmen, he will not himself be able to go on living: “We will not want to live if we kill the sons of Dhritarashtra assembled before us.”

What should he do?

Arjuna does, perhaps, the most sensible thing possible: He falls to the floor of his chariot.

“
I cannot fight this fight,” he cries to Krishna.

And then Arjuna falls silent.