India’s Bhagavad-Gita (the Lord’s Song) is a seminal work illuminating our path to inner wholeness of mind, spiritual wisdom, and a life fully lived. It begins as Arjuna, a handsome prince and the best archer of his time, must choose between two different courses of action and their equally unsatisfactory consequences. Either he causes the deaths of a great many kinsmen by fighting to win back his stolen kingdom, or he lets evil prevail by refusing to fight. Faced with the same heart-wrenching dilemma today, which path would we choose and why?
Bewildered, Arjuna refuses to fight and asks Lord Krishna, his best friend and charioteer, to advise him. Lord Krishna begins by admonishing him to fight the unrighteous in order to protect the righteous. Krishna goes on to tell Arjuna why his grief over the impending deaths of allies and adversaries alike is misplaced and, in any case, a waste of time. Finally, Krishna describes how Arjuna and the rest of us can do what is right in our lives and achieve lasting happiness. The key is cultivating a mental state of union with the part of ourselves that neither lives nor dies and yet lends each of us the conscious awareness needed to perceive, think, act, and live in this world.
In Nectar of the Eternal, author Eric Hutchins brings together the work of several renowned scholars including Mahatma Gandhi, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Vladimir Antonov, Eknath Easwaran, and Sir Charles Wilkins (the first to translate the Bhagavad-Gita into English in 1785). Their translations of thirty-eight key verses along with the author’s five decades of deep, introspective practice provide depth and clarity regarding how we may achieve more joyful lives, better enrich the lives of others, and help build sustainable communities and a peaceful world.
