The Eternal Self: The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 18

Join us as we explore the Bhagavad Gita. This week, we will be diving into Chapter 2, verse 18. In these weekly lectures, we focus on specific ancient teachings that we can all apply to our day-to-day lives and personal spiritual journey!

Reviews

Thank you for telling an ancient story in such a relevant way. 🙏🏼

When Krishna tells Arjuna to fight, I no longer hear a call to violence.
I hear an invitation to awareness.

For a long time, the word fighting felt harsh to me. But through lived experience, its meaning revealed itself in a completely different way.

Fighting begins with seeing.
With observing what is actually holding me back.
The thoughts that tighten the chest.
The emotions that want to be avoided.
The inner resistance that quietly shapes my choices.

This first step is awareness.
Not judgment. Not action. Just seeing clearly.

The next step is acceptance.
Allowing what is there to be there.
Not pushing it away.
Not trying to fix it.
But meeting it — fully.

This is where the word embrace becomes real.
Because embracing what is there does not mean it feels pleasant.
It often means entering discomfort.
Feeling the pain that was avoided.
Staying present with what aches, trembles, or grieves.

There is nothing romantic about this step.
It requires courage.
It requires honesty.
It requires staying when every habit wants to escape.

And then, something softens.

Through awareness and acceptance, a deeper movement becomes possible.
Surrender.

Not surrender as giving up, but surrender as letting go.
Releasing the identity that was built around protection, fear, or control.
Allowing what no longer serves to dissolve.

This is the real battlefield.
And this is the real victory.

Not defeating something outside of us,
but passing through ourselves so completely
that a new way of being can emerge.

This is what fighting means to me now.
The courage to see.
The willingness to feel.
The devotion to let go.

And in that surrender, becoming someone new.

Life does require the fight, to engage in an internal fight, whenever I realize that I am struggling with something in my life. When I feel like a broken record about something. I like the word spinning or ruminating. Recently I’ve been having a series of dreams in which I am doing my very best to do everything as well as I possibly can. (I.e. it can be as banal as getting everything ready to get to the airport on time to catch a flight). And all of a sudden something catastrophic happens and somehow my “doing everything I could” wasn’t enough. Although I really feel deep down that I did my best, in my dream, I suddenly feel NOT SEEN by someone else (mostly by my ex 😂 aka my father). And then I wake up for I can’t bare the pain of not being seen by this important person in my life. That’s my fight, a big one for me. Similar to your fight of being better at fighting for others than fighting for yourself. Learning to feel that I am enough, that I am worthy, that I am loved, that no matter the mistake I make, who I am, what I think, what I know deep down, is all that matters. Trusting that my higher Self is Seeing me and that that is enough.
This talk was so inspiring to me Katarina. I’m glad you stayed focused on that one verse;)