Brian Johnson reflects on watching Avengers: Endgame and connects its themes to the Bhagavad Gita (via Eknath Easwaran’s biography of Gandhi) and Socrates. He emphasizes the idea of life as a battlefield within the human heart, the call to action for reluctant warriors, and that love is the hero’s secret weapon in confronting inner forces of light and darkness.
Chapters
Hi, this is Bryan. Welcome Back to another optimize +1. The other day I went to see the new Avengers Endgame movie. Of course I'm a fan of superhero stories and I also love flipping my brain off as I enjoy a well produced movie with a well told story. In fact, number one, as we've discussed, movies are my preferred way to get a nice little dose of recovery mode entertainment. In fact, number two, Alexandra and I haven't had a TV for the entire 12 years we've been together as I know my pickled brain well enough and refuse to get sucked into the vortex of never ending cliffhanging TV shows. Movies provide the perfect discreet escape without the risk of falling off one of those irresistible cliffs. Note to self, get out to see a movie more often and remember Tal Ben Shahar's great wisdom. It's not that we work too hard, it's that we don't recover enough. So as I'm watching the Avengers confront evil on an epic battlefield, I was reminded of another epic saga that took place on a different mythical battlefield. Now, the day or so before I watched the movie, I read Eknath Eswaron's wonderful biography, Gandhi the Man. As we've discussed, it's amazing. I highly recommend it. Now do you know what Gandhi's spiritual handbook was? Although he studied the Bible and the Quran, his go to guide was the Bhagavad Gita. Now do you know what that book is all about? It's about a reluctant warrior who needs to show up on the battlefield of life. Here's how Eknath puts it. I quote the battlefield where the narrative is set represents the individual human heart, where the forces of light and darkness, love and separateness, war incessantly for mastery over our thought and actions. In the dialogue which unfolds, Arjuna, the warrior prince who represents every man or woman, seeks to learn the art of living from Sri Krishna, the Lord of Love, who is the outward manifestation of Arjuna's deepest self. Arjuna is a man of action. He is not interested in metaphysics or airy theories. He wants to know if how to make every moment of his life count, free from anxiety and fear. Eknath continues by saying his questions are practical inquiries into the problems of living, and Sri Krishna's answers are simple and to the point. We are born to fight, he tells Arjuna. There is no choice in the matter. Our desire must bring us into conflict, but we can choose how and whom we will fight. We can turn our anger against others, or we can turn it against what is selfish and angry in ourselves, we can use our hands to strike at others or to wipe tears away. It is a call to action. And that is why Sri Krishna describes the heroes and heroines of the Gita's way of love in the language not of sentiment, but of war. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about as I watched that Avengers movie, which, by the way, if you watch it, closely parallels a lot of the same themes. The most important theme, the fact that love is the hero's secret weapon. And that's today's plus one. Here's to showing up as warriors on the battlefield of life and listening to our inner daimons as we face the forces of light and dark within our own hearts and use love as our ultimate weapon. And a little PS Here, anytime I think of the Gita and its emphasis on that battle, and I think of Socrates and his parallel wisdom. He tells us, I quote, I desire only to know the truth and to live as well as I can, and to the utmost of my power. I exhort all other men to do the same. I, he says, exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life and greater than every other earthly conflict. I say what he said.
