The Bhagavad-Gita

“I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-Gita. It was the first of books. It was as if an empire spoke to us. Nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence, which in another age and climate, had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.”

— RALPH WALDO EMERSON

The Bhagavad-Gita is the finest introduction to the philosophical and spiritual tradition of India. The Gita is special among Eastern philosophical teachings because it demonstrates how the experience of our own essence can be found in the day-to-day actions of our lives. 

The dialogue between Krsna and Arjuna is set on a battlefield just before the onset of a great fratricidal war. The moral dilemma that Arjuna faces of whether a war can in fact be fought for a just cause is apropos for the socio-political climate of our age. The perspective offered through the discourse of the Gita is all at once poetic, nuanced, and applicable, not only to the macro setting of a war, but to the quainter setting of our human affairs.

Inspiring many of the world’s greatest thinkers, including Einstein, Huxley, and Gandhi, among others, the Gita is now being taught at business schools as a “self-mastery” course in leadership.