The reality is that modern people, even if they are unconscious of it, require consolation, a buffer against and an escape from the disappointment and turmoil of earthly life, as much as people in any other period ever did, quite possibly more so. People in the old world, at least, could admit without shame their need for consolation. More often, with the spotlight of social media invariably upon one, modern people are denied even that.
A hapless modern aspirant, mentally fatigued by ceaseless efforts to keep the wolf away from the door, and the perennial pressure of putting up a pretence of being happy through the wide array of sensory gratifications offered by consumer-oriented market forces, aided and abetted by 24×7 connectivity, richly deserves to win a reprieve for herself and her loved ones. To cast off the shackles of this new kind of slavery is not an easy task. Often, she is apt to find that of the rainbows she is chasing, one has suddenly turned and bitten her in the leg.
Bhagavad Gita excels at providing the reader with at least two important spiritual benefits: a tender consolation from the sufferings of the world, and some insight regarding why one suffers in the first place. In the end, one finds that this work of erudite scholarship is an effective balm for an anguished soul.
Project this into a future replete with technological advances, and one would realise the increasing relevance of the scintillating and wisdom-laced advice which is merely to be plucked, savoured and imbibed from the low-hanging juicy fruits which line up both sides of the sunlit streets of this scripture.
(An excerpt from my latest book, ‘Bhagavad Gita’s Guide to Corporate Dharma’)
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