Many of my friends, students, and colleagues are telling me how overwhelmed they feel by everything that’s going on right now: the horror and hostility, the parade and the protests, confrontations, assassinations, and a wannabe king’s unprecedented disdain for the rule of law.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, too, you’re in good company.
Yoga wisdom tells us that moments like these—when the stakes are high and the path forward seems uncertain—are not new: they’re part of an ongoing cycle that calls for truth and justice to be repeatedly defended and reclaimed.
One of the clearest examples of this tension plays out at the opening of the Bhagavad-gita:
When Arjuna, the hero of the Bhagavad-gita, looked out across the vast field upon which the armies of the Kuru dynasty were arrayed in battle formations, he saw that he and his brothers were out-financed, out-organized, and outnumbered by the forces of his deceitful cousin, Duryodhana.
Arjuna’s vision filled him with despair, not because he was worried about losing, but because he foresaw the devastating toll that the warfare would take.
He knew that his cause was just, yet he wondered if abandoning the fight would be better than engaging in the battle.
Confused about his duty and desiring only to serve the greatest good, Arjuna turned to his trusted friend and charioteer, Krishna, for guidance.
Krishna encouraged Arjuna to banish all feelings of weakness from his heart and breathe fire on his foes!
But Krishna didn’t encourage fighting for the sake of victory, glory, or dominion. His reasons were based on deeper truths; the truth about the eternal nature of the soul and the inevitability of the body’s demise.
The truth about how fighting in defense of truth and justice never invites misfortune, irrespective of the battle’s outcome.
The truth about how a warrior whose doubts have been severed by transcendental knowledge, and who has thus regained the composure of self-reflection, is liberated from reactions to their actions and has no cause for fear.
Krishna told Arjuna to slash the doubts that had arisen in his heart with the sword of knowledge and, armed with yoga, stand and fight.
Although it appeared as if Arjuna’s evil-minded adversaries had a clear military advantage, there were factors beyond numerical strength, martial virtuosity, and strategic superiority that were sure to influence the outcome of the battle.
One such factor is that Arjuna was fighting in defense of dharma: virtue. Arjuna and his brothers are the personifications of moral excellence.
And the setting for the battle, the “field of dharma,” favored morality over duplicity. This didn’t bode well for the duplicitous Duryodhana.
At the outset, Arjuna couldn’t see any of this. He’d forgotten the essence of dharma and, in the process, lost track of his own dharma; his duty as a warrior.
With Krishna’s help, Arjuna’s illusions were dispelled, his memory was restored, and he stood ready to act in accordance with his dharma: to protect justice and serve the common good, even in the face of overwhelming odds.
And as yogis, it’s our dharma to do that, too.
The battlefield looks different for each of us. For some, “fighting” might mean organizing, educating, or marching. For others, it might mean creating space for healing, telling the truth in a hostile environment, or simply refusing to normalize what we know is wrong.
What matters is not whether we’re in the spotlight or behind the scenes, but that we act—according to our conscience, our capabilities, and our connection to the divine.
Because the end has not been written. The forces that shape the outcome of this world are not just political—they are moral and spiritual.
The Gita reminds us that wherever Krishna and those aligned with dharma stand, so too stand strength, victory, and justice.
Even now.
Wishing you all good fortune,
– Hari-k