06.22: When life tornadoes and torpedoes us…

Life confronts us with challenges both externally and internally. Life’s external upheavals – economical and political, for example – are like tornadoes that twist and topple the familiar landscape of our settled daily routines. Life’s internal upheavals – emotional and intellectual, for example – are like tornadoes that puncture and rupture our enthusiasm and faith. Even one of these challenges is tough enough to endure. However, when both of them confront us simultaneously, enduring this double assault may seem almost impossible: our very survival externally and our sanity internally may seem to be in jeopardy.

Times like these offer us precious opportunities to gain personal realization of the inestimable value of Gita wisdom. Of course, the Bhagavad-gita can offer us solace and strength at all times. However, when things seem normal in our lives, we don’t feel the need for its help. So, we neither seek it seriously, nor experience it tangibly.

When life tornadoes and torpedoes us, Gita wisdom escorts us on a journey to the innermost core of our being: our spiritual essence and our relationship with Krishna. There we discover a level of living that is beyond life’s worst tornadoes and torpedoes. We recognize that Krishna is ever-available for us in the innermost core of our hearts; no tornado or torpedo can make him leave our side even when everyone and everything else leaves us. Our divine relationship with him is the platform of our real life, our supreme joy and our ultimate love. This platform, the Bhagavad-gita (6.22) indicates, makes us realize that life can never offer us anything better. Once we have experienced the tornado- and torpedo-proof reality of Krishna’s love, no loss can ever shake us.

Life’s tornadoes and torpedoes are disguised invitations to make that level of living as our own.