Posted by Radiant Life Foundation
2025! The year that everyone (actually survivors only) will be walking around at year’s end wearing the classic t-shirt “I Survived 2025 on Planet Earth” It truly has shaped up to be the year of the GREAT challenge, hasn’t it? Maybe we ought to take a closer look at what is really going on here. Perhaps there is a great – really GREAT – opportunity that we don’t want to miss. Challenges and opportunities always do come in pairs, you know.
Many of us know of the distant battlefield (in both time and space) known as Kurukshetra on the plains of India back in the 3000 B.C. The context revolves around one fierce and mighty warrior known as Arjuna. He, the most skilled archer in all the land, was ushered into the very middle of the greatest battlefield of all time during the Bronze Age, also known as the Dwapara Yuga. His charioteer – Lord Krishna – had brought him there to view both warring parties arrayed against each other in the final battle that was to determine the fate of kingdom.
Dark Night of the Soul
Quite out character, Arjuna has loses his courage, and will, to fight. However, it was his dharma to fight; his responsibility to uphold the order. It was his destiny and he could not avoid it. He was born into the warrior or ruling class as a Kshatriya and, therefore, to shirk this solemn responsibility would mean that he would forfeit his very soul. Nevertheless, he faced a great dilemma. He was directly confronted by the very demons that chased him throughout his life. They had him cornered at his “weakest” moment. And Lord Krishna himself had come to his aid to see him through his very dark night of the soul.
Very interesting story, isn’t it?! Especially when the two sides of the battle are represented by your very own family — one side of the family being virtuous; the other a family of vices. Wait, the plot thickens.
So, Arjuna is in quite a quandary, which only he can resolved by facing his fears, and by praying for the divine grace. For it is only the grace of God that will dissolve his doubts and allay his very serious and legitimate concerns about the future of the whole kingdom.
Sound familiar? It sure does to most of the people in our talking circles. You know, like ALL of our friends, family, distant relatives, neighbors, business associates, long lost acquaintances, etc. Did we leave anyone out?
What in God’s Great Name is going on in 2025. May we call it the Year of the Wood Snake, because it is?! Hence, it is destined to be nothing less that earth-shaking. And the resulting earthquakes will inevitably occur on the physical, mental, emotional or spiritual levels. Quite unsettling, hasn’t it been? Like the very foundation is being rocked and rolled by a 12.0 on the Richter Scale.
Back to Arjuna
Let’s revisit our very instructive tale about Arjuna – the archetypal warrior who faces up to, and who ultimately overcomes … himself. But, wait, how did he get to a point of resolution so quickly in the frenzied environment of the start of an epochal mega-war? Only by reviewing the sage counsel that was provided quite compassionately by the Lord may we come to truly understand what amounted to the most consequential and greatest turnaround in world history.
“Who Am I?’
The most profound and fundamental existential question here is, “Who am I?” Arjuna had already spent a lifetime contemplating this classic challenge of self-inquiry, and was therefore ripe during his counseling session with the Lord, even if it was on the middle of the greatest battlefield of the era.
Surely many of us can relate to this predicament. Most of us reading this are currently situated on the most challenging battlefields of our lives. 2025 has exempted no one that we know.
Likewise, many us have been examining life’s deeper questions like “Who Am I?” for many years, if not decades.
Of course, the key and indispensable ingredient here is our relationship with the Lord. Quite fortuitously, many of us have had the great good fortune to have crossed paths directly with the Lord in this very lifetime. Our worthiness and yearning drew Him into our lives for this very moment in time.
The Bhagavad Gita
One of the greatest religious scriptures of all time is the Bhagavad Gita. Each letter of this sublime divine revelation is pregnant with meaning so profound and relevant to this moment in time that we could easily end this essay right here and simply defer to its awesome text by suggesting a thorough reading. It’s not very long and really quite pithy. Every one of its many spiritual teachings have come to be known as the most powerful and transformative teachings of the era – the Kali Yuga – where we now find ourselves.
The entire Bhagavad Gita is actually spoken to Arjuna by Lord Krishna in the form of a Socratic dialogue. But how does a chariot-bound discourse on the ancient battlefield of Kurukshetra contain the most relevant wisdom for the here and now?
Each of us modern-day yogis is now called upon to step into our true yogihood. Because the whole of Earth has been literally transformed into a planetary battleground, we are all summoned to take our respective places on our own battlefields, wherever that may be.
After all, being a yogi does not mean going to the yoga studio for a couple of hours a week and meditating every morning before dawn. Yes, those are excellent yoga practices but far from the calling to live every day of our lives fully engaged and fighting the many battles that now surround each and every one of us 24/7.
Here in the USA, which has been in the midst of a profound existential crisis for at least 10 years, there is an epic war raging everywhere one looks. And yet, many so-called yogis continue to live their lives in a most self-centered fashion and self-absorbed manner.
It’s as though their indifference to the plight of others in their own back yard is a badge of honor of their of yogic detachment and dispassion. It’s as though their apathy to the agonizing predicaments throughout foreign lands need not concern them. Their whole orientation towards life is: “Out of sight, out of mind”. Hence, they are notoriously known as NIMBYs (as long as it’s not happening in their back yard, they couldn’t care less).
NIMBY = NOT IN MY BACK YARD
These weekend yogis, subsumed by their NIMBY consciousness as they are, really feel that the whole world revolves around them and the maintenance of their comforts and luxuries. They literally ooze with a “NOT IN MY BACK YARD” attitude while everything around them crumbles and deteriorates.
Just look at all the major cities across the America to understand how the supposedly most enlightened and educated and empowered among US permitted those hellholes to descend into extremely dangerous and downtrodden urban jungles. Wow. Just WOW!!!
Instead of playing the brave part of Arjuna on their respective battlefields, many of these nominal yogis simply folded like a house of cards. Others slank away like a wounded sparrow or cut the profile of a wilted lily, exhibiting far from the courage and prowess that our heroic Arjuna displayed.
This, people, has been the true scourge of our generation. For when even the dharmic yogis fail to rise to the occasion to save the present race of humanity from itself, what else can be expected but what occurs during the depths of the Twilight of every Kali Yuga.
