Greetings Reader -

The first thing I remember wanting to be when I grew up was a mad scientist.

I was 3 years-old. I was watching a Superman cartoon.

I didn’t think Superman himself was very interesting. But the villain, the mad scientist? I thought, “Yeah – that’s who I want to be!”

It wasn’t long before I decided that what I really wanted to be was a drummer in a rock ‘n roll band. I was 7, The Beatles were blowing up the airwaves, and Ringo Starr awakened the sleeping drummer within.

By the time I was 9, I was obsessed with comic book illustrations (Jack Kirby!) and I knew that what I really wanted to be was an artist.

Comics didn’t just inspire a desire to be an artist; thanks to Dr. Strange, they inspired me to want to learn how to project my consciousness into higher dimensions of reality.

The fashionability of "cosmic consciousness" in the sixties made the idea seem all the more plausible: by the time I was 11, I knew that what I really wanted to be was a mystic yogi.

Then I went back to drumming.

Then I went back to visual art.

Then I went back to mystic yoga.

Then I went back to mad scientism. Minus the death ray. And the science.

None of which added up to a clear idea of who and what I was or any real sense of purpose.

Or put me on track for having a marketable skill by the time I needed one.

I don’t think my experience was unique. Plenty of people get to the cusp of adulthood (or beyond) still feeling confused about what they want to be when they grow up.

Why is that?

The Bhagavad-gita offers us an explanation.

As the Gita begins, the hero, Arjuna, expresses his fear that a descent into social disorder that will follow in the wake of the battle that’s about to commence:

The phrase that usually gets people’s attention here is “unwanted children,” corresponding to the words varṇa-saṅkaraḥ in the Sanskrit.

These words are also sometimes translated as “confusion of castes,” which makes it sound like Arjuna is defending the modern caste system (trust me—he’s not), or “disorder between classes,” which makes Arjuna sound classist (trust me—he’s not).

So how do we make sense of these meanings in a way that has relevance to our lives in the here and now?

By asking, “what is it about these children that makes them unwanted?”

The answer: they’re conflicted and confused. And confused children grow up to be confused adults, which leads to a confused and conflicted society.

In other words, if men and women with conflicting natural aptitudes and inclinations produce children during the course of fleeting or unstable relationships, the children who are born to them will have inner conflicts.

The result for those children will be lack of clarity about their sense of identity and purpose in the world, as well as competing ideas about what choices they should make in order to find satisfaction in their lives.

So, if we were to translate the verse according to the consequences that Arjuna is anticipating, it could read,

This may help us understand why conflict and confusion abound, within ourselves and in the world around us.

Fortunately, the Gita also sheds some light on how to navigate our inner conflicts, dissipate our confusion, and find our path to a meaningful and satisfying life.

But more on that later.

For now, what do you think? Does this shed any light on the origins of conflict and confusion?

Reply to this email to let me know.

Wishing you all good fortune,

- Hari-k

P.S.: A Special Workshop for Yoga Teachers! If you’re a yoga teacher and you want to learn how to teach yoga philosophy in your classes without sounding like you’re giving a lecture, without taking up too much time, and without any possibility of triggering feelings of imposter syndrome, please join me for “How to Give a Great Dharma Talk,” a special live online “Pop Up” workshop on Sunday, March 30^th @ 12:00pm. CLICK HERE for complete info and registration.​