As I currently teach an elective on the ’Wisdom of the Bhagavad Gītā’ at SPJIMR SP Jain Institute of Management & Research for our MBA students, I often find that our classroom conversations move far beyond the text itself. They touch questions that many thoughtful, capable people quietly carry: Why does life feel so demanding even when we are doing many things ‘right’? Why does a sense of strain or isolation persist despite success, ethics, and self-awareness? The reflections shared in this article emerge from those conversations. Drawing from the Bhagavad Gītā as understood within the Advaita Vedānta tradition, I explore a simple but powerful idea: much of our psychological struggle may not stem from personal inadequacy but from how we understand life itself.
A great deal of human suffering does not arise from extraordinary misfortune or dramatic crisis. It arises quietly and persistently from a basic misunderstanding of the kind of universe we are living in. Traditional Advaita Vedānta points out that long before questions of liberation or self-knowledge arise, the human mind is already struggling, often unknowingly, with life itself. This struggle is not accidental. It is rooted in a failure to appreciate Īśvara as the grand, intelligent, lawful order that pervades and governs the whole of existence.
