When Love Comes to Light: Bringing Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita to Modern Life

Yoga teachers Freeman and Taylor (The Art of Vinyasa) offer a complex, demanding reflection on and translation of the Bhagavad Gita. They open by setting the scene of Arjuna questioning Krishna about correct action on the eve of battle and argue that the myth’s purpose is to show love as “open acceptance and connection to everyone and everything.” The authors uphold yoga as the path toward developing this love, and press against westernized adaptations of yoga that uphold alternatives like mindfulness as a “curiosity without a motive to solve.” They also unpack paradoxes, such as that happiness arises not from clinging to stabilizing attachments but from letting go of those attachments. Freeman and Taylor’s own translation of the Gita appears at the end. More advanced practitioners will be rewarded by this deep commentary on the Gita, but those new to the source material will find it too challenging.