The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling

by Stephen Cope

Thomas Merton says, “What you fear is an indication of what you seek.”

temperature on the dial has been inched up. Something new: I’ve become a voracious reader. I am hungry to hear other people’s answers to my questions—particularly

Q

Gnostic Gospel of Thomas. “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you; if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy

Yogis insist that every single human being has a unique vocation. They call this dharma.

The Gita is the one book Gandhi took with him to prison, and one of the few that Henry David Thoreau took to Walden Pond.

The Bhagavad Gita is a brilliant teaching on the problems of doing. There is so much talk these days about being.

The teachings of the Gita point to a much more interesting truth: People actually feel happiest and most fulfilled when meeting the challenge of their dharma in the world, when bringing highly concentrated effort to some

Q

Fulfillment happens not in retreat from the world, but in advance—and profound engagement. The two-thousand-year-old Bhagavad Gita brings us a series of surprising principles for living an optimal life, and for transforming skillful action into spiritual practice.

W

problem of vocation. How do we know, finally, to what actions we are called in this life? The author knows that we’ll identify with Arjuna’s dilemma: How do we choose between two difficult courses of action? What are the consequences of an inability to choose, or of choosing poorly? Who

Arjuna’s central affliction as the problem of doubt.

Qw

fourth chapter, Krishna will state the principle clearly: “Doubt

R esse d

doubt is often called “the paralyzing affliction.” Paralysis is, indeed, its chief characteristic. It follows, then, that doubt is the central affliction of all men and women of action. The Catholic Encyclopedia weighs in convincingly on this issue. Apparently, doubt is an issue for Catholics as well as Hindus: “Doubt,” it reads, “[is a] state in which the mind is suspended between two contradictory propositions and unable to assent to either of them.” Catholics and yogis are apparently in agreement about this phenomenon of doubt.

Doubt

by your grace I have regained memory; I stand here, my doubt dispelled,

Grac

“Dharma” can be variously, but incompletely, translated as “religious and moral law,” “right conduct,” “sacred duty,” “path of righteousness,” “true nature,”

Dharma

The word dharma in this teaching, then, refers to the peculiar and idiosyncratic qualities of each being—those very

D

And so, the authors of the Gita have placed their protagonist—the exemplar of the seeker of dharma—on a field of battle. The stakes are high. The decisions are complex. There are countless moral gray areas. And yet, there is no escape from choice and action.

Das

you can only expect a fulfilling life if you dedicate yourself to finding out who you are.

Qaw

Thomas Merton came to precisely this conclusion after decades of spiritual practice. He wrote: “Every man has a vocation to be someone: but he must understand clearly that in order to fulfill this vocation he can only be one person: himself.” This quote is enshrined as the Epigraph

Merton

order to ignite the full ardency of dharma, The Gift must be put in the service of The Times.

Gift

Nor the bayonet stab what you really are; the Soul! Yourself I see, great as any, good as the best, Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill, Nor the bayonet stab O friend. Whitman gave no indication in his journal that he had studied the Bhagavad Gita. But in his poetry he declared over and over again the very same truth that Krishna taught to Arjuna on the field of Kurukshetra:

Qwe

Dharma is born mysteriously out of the intersection between The Gift and The Times. Dharma is a response to the urgent—though often hidden—need of the moment. Each of us feels some aspect of the world’s suffering acutely. It tears at our hearts. Others don’t see it or don’t care. But we feel it. And we must pay attention. We must act. This little corner of the world is ours to transform. This little corner of the world is ours to save.

Save

Ludwig van Beethoven is the apotheosis of the dharma project. If you bring forth what is within you it will save you. If any man was ever saved by his dharma, it was surely Beethoven.

Beethov

“I have run the race,” said St. Paul toward the end of his long career as an Apostle. “I have kept the faith.” Beethoven might have made the same declaration.

Paul

And now a surprise: Beethoven was deeply inspired by his reading of the Bhagavad Gita. (When I discovered this I almost fell off my chair. Beethoven knew about yoga? My worlds had collided. This discovery caused me to call a dharma buddy in Paris out of the blue—and practically in the middle of the night—to tell him this news.) In his search for psychological and spiritual survival, Beethoven had combed the world’s great literature. And perhaps not surprisingly, he had bumped into the Bhagavad Gita. He read it intensively. He made notes

Beet

Beethoven’s particularly vivid dharma story is the way in which authentic dharma turns suffering into light. Dharma did not end Beethoven’s suffering. He suffered until the end of his life.

Beeth

When I think of Beethoven as I have come to understand him, I cannot but see in my mind’s eye those vivid Catholic images of Christ with his palms and side oozing blood and light. Both blood and light, mind you. Beethoven’s relentless—and often bloody—pursuit of his dharma gave light to the world. It saved him. But it also saved the world. More about this strange fact later.

Beethoven and Christ

“Every moment of Gandhi’s life is a conscious effort to live the message of the Gita.” We might say that M. K. Gandhi engaged in deliberate practice of the Bhagavad Gita. He mastered it in just the way that Corot mastered landscape painting, or that Beethoven

Gandhi

mantra has a powerful effect on the brain. It gathers and focuses the energy of the mind. It teaches the mind to focus on one point, and it cultivates a steadiness that over time becomes an unshakable evenness of temper. The cultivation of this quality of “evenness”

Mantra