Suppose an accident has broken our bones. To function properly, we need to first become healthy and whole.

Our functioning can be impeded not just by physical brokenness, but also by emotional brokenness. We can be broken emotionally by life’s adversities. For example, if a relationship or a career in which we have heavily invested our emotions falls apart, we may feel utterly disheartened: “What am I living for? Why am I doing anything at all? What really counts?”

Arjuna was similarly dispirited at the start of the Bhagavad-gita (01.30). The impending war compelled him to fight against elders whom he venerated. But if he didn’t fight, his immediate family members would remain in destitution or even meet with destruction. Finding no feasible course of action, he broke down and quit (01.46).

Amidst his brokenness, he surrendered to Krishna (02.07). And Krishna spoke the Gita to reveal the timeless way to wholeness. The Gita highlighted his essential identity, “You are a soul; you are a part of the whole; your fundamental function as a soul is to serve the whole.” When Arjuna understood that he was a part of a divine plan to establish dharma – a plan that would ultimately work for the good of everyone – his confusion was dissipated and his composure, restored (18.73).

Similarly, when adversities break us, we can surrender to Krishna. Through the Gita and through his representatives who teach the Gita, Krishna will help us see beyond the immediate situation to the bigger picture. When we contemplate that we are indestructible souls and that Krishna is always with us, we feel peace and strength seeping into us, and can thereafter calmly discern a way ahead.

Thus, when we see our brokenness as an impetus for surrendering to Krishna, he will reciprocate and reinstate us in spiritual wholeness.

Think it over:

  1. What makes us feel emotionally broken?
  2. How did the Gita reveal the way to wholeness for Arjuna?
  3.  Amidst adversities, how can surrendering to Krishna help us?

 

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