Wrestlemania

I have spent the last two years reading the Bhagavad Gita as part of my daily meditation. To be perfectly honest, it is not so much the allegoric poetry of the Gita as much as it is the interpretation of Paramahansa Yogananda. In the synchronicity of life, my revisiting of this text began right about the time I heard that one could choose to live in your soul and not your ego. A fact I have pontificated upon in this blog.

Imagine my surprise when I had the epiphanic realization that this book I was reading again after 19 years was simply about the battle we all face between our ego and our soul. Talk about lining up!!

I have read the two volumes straight through and now I drop in to various chapters by simply opening them up to see where they take me. This verse cropped up for me today and has prompted this blog.

With heart absorbed in Me, and by My grace, thou shalt overcome all impediments; but if through egoism thou wilt not heed Me, though shalt meet destruction.*

I was communicating with a friend who pointed out that the Gita is about war. My take on it is slightly different. It is about a battle which is described as a war, but it is a war within us. That being said, most of us battle daily all our worries, concerns, fears and damage. The constant streaming of chatter in our minds is unsettling and anxiety producing. We are constantly on the lookout for the enemy outside yet spend little time on the destructor within.

As I thought about my exchange with this friend, it came to me that the current kerfuffle between the President and the Pope could be seen as a type of cosplay enacting the essence of the Gita. Ironic that the Hindu Bible would be the basis for this performance. It does allow us to see what we all do daily within ourselves on the world stage. Wrestling for control between the ego and the soul.

If one sees ego as control, then I can tie it all back to a form of codependence. In the end, trying to tell other people that you know better than they do, or that they are incapable of solving their own issues is all ego costumed in caring. Yet it is important to care about others and our human community. It is all a bit confounding, confusing and a conundrum.

What is your balance? Where do you spend most of your time? Are you having fun there? Let me know in the comments or you can feel free to keep it to yourself. It is all perfect, however it turns out.

*Bhagavad Gita – Chapter XVII, Verse 58