To explain; in the bhagavad gita Krishna describes the goal of life as detachment from the cycle of Karma. He goes on to describe the cycle of Karma as one being on the recieving end of either good Karma or bad Karma depending on how you live your life but giving into this game much less trying to win it leads to nothing but pain. Because to seek blessings and avoid punishments leads to a very dramatic life-look at the Greek Gods for example or throughout the major figures of western history for examples and you will find an infinite number of them.
This is because these people are doing nothing but what modern psychologists refer to as pleasure seeking and this can lead to the repitition cycle where one repeats the same old mistakes with new faces and in new places but with the same archetypal characters. It often leads to addictions of one sort or another.
Krishna prescribes a life dedicated to non-attachment, when we detach from our simple addictions to whatever pleasures we become truly free, then the world can fall down all around us and we will stay strong, pick up the pieces and re-build rather than falling apart.
We remain healthy in an unhealthy world but more importantly irregardless of the world so we are then free to enjoy the bliss and joy to be found in the good times and endure well the tumultuous times.
We master what Krishna and Buddha call non-attachment.
This is important because the pleasure pain cycle is so unhealthy-it is the natural state of the natural man. Pain is the shadow of pleasure, pleasure never goes anywhere without its shadow and on the brighter the days the darker the shadow.
The Bhagavad Gita was written down as a portion of the Mahabarta between the 5th and 2nd centuries BCE and describes how and most importantly why detachment from the pleasure pain cycle or the Karmic cycle is so important, healthy and leads to true wisdom and it has dones so for about 2,500 years.
Sigmund Freud articulated the pleasure/pain cycle and the repetition cycle in modern psychology and modern doctors feel the need to assert that there is no metaphysical element to this, but that is historically and factually inaccurate therefore their argument is invalid.
A great over view of Hindu scripture is Windows into the Infinite by Barbara Powell. The Bhagavad Gita can be found here and a great article by Phil Mclemore called The Yoga of Christ.
I share this with you because of its potential benefit if incorporated into your own life because I know of its power in that it has bettered my own life.
And in the spirit behind the words of Joseph Smith when he said "We should gather all the good and true principles in the world and treasure them up, or we shall not come out true Mormons." Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 316
It was true thousands of years ago in India and it remains so now here in Utah and all over the world. Because it has always been true, it was realized because of someone's closeness to God; afterall only by removing ego, selfishness, and removing your attachments to worldly things can you be one with God. These are the obstacles that need to be removed from yourself to be one with God yet again. And Krishna says as much in the Bhagavad Gita.
He is echoing sentiments to be made by Jesus hundreds of years later and thousands of miles away.
And I believe this is because God spoke to the people of India personally through certain people. Remember 2nd Nephi 29:11-12?
"For I command aall men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall bwrite the words which I speak unto them; for out of the cbooks which shall be written I will djudge the world, every man according to their works, according to that which is written.
For behold, I shall speak unto the aJews and they shall bwrite it; and I shall also speak unto the Nephites and they shall cwrite it; and I shall also speak unto the other tribes of the house of Israel, which I have led away, and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto dall nations of the earth and they shall write it."Good advice any man may come up with but true insight, wisdom is from God alone.
