The Bhagavad Gita: A Guide to Navigating the Battle of Life [Paperback]

A new translation of the great classic--with wide-ranging, multi-traditional commentary that emphasizes its practical advice for living with integrity.

“All there is is Krishna.”
 
Upon hearing this famous and enigmatic line from the Gita’s seventh chapter when he was a boy, Ravi Ravindra embarked on a journey to understand its deep meaning.  The search led him far beyond the tradition from which the text originally arose to an exploration of world mystical wisdom, including  Zen, Christianity, Yoga, and particularly the teachings of J. Krishnamurti and G. I. Gurdjieff.  Dr. Ravindra’s  fresh prose translation with wide-ranging commentary, is the fruit of that lifelong process.  It stands out from the many other versions with its assertion that the Bhagavad Gita is at heart a universal guide to navigating the battle of life required of each and every one of us. It is through that navigation, he shows, that we can discover and connect with the Krishna deep within ourselves:  The Eternal Witness who is above the battle, and who is, ultimately and joyfully, all there is.“A commentary on the Bhagavad Gita that is in a class of its own. The background story from the Mahabharata and its characters come alive.  Almost no commentary on this ancient scripture emphasizes an historical battle but rather, all take pains to point to it as a metaphor for the battle within.  However none so superbly take us within, to the very place of the battle raging within each one of us, as Ravi Ravindra's does. In so doing he truly makes come alive the promise of Krishna in Chapter Six that, ‘Yoga is breaking the bond with suffering.”—Swami Ambikananda Saraswati, Author, Founder of Traditional Yoga AssocialóS