Stephen Cope’s book, The Great Work of Your Life is a wonderful introduction to the ancient text, The Bhagavad Gita. His book introduces and explores the concept of dharma. He switches from the Bhagavad Gita’s narrative following Arjuna, and the sage Krishna, to stories of those who have lived out their dharma. I really enjoyed the introduction to this profound text, and how Cope tied the stories of people like Robert Frost, Henry David Thoreau, and Harriet Tubman among others to the principles of dharma.
First let’s define dharma. Dharma, roughly translated, is your sacred duty. I like to think of it as your purpose, or how you are meant to realize your life.
Lesson 1: Trust in Your Gift
All of us are unique, and have special gifts. We need to nourish the gifts we are given. He uses the life of Jane Goodall, and particularly how she was nourished at a very young age to explore her curiosity of animals. She would watch them for hours at a time. Sometimes our gifts are nurtured as children, and sometimes they’re not. Look to nurture children’s gifts, and find and nurture your own dormant gifts.
Lesson 2: Doubt and Indecision Take You Away From Dharma
Spending time doubting, or vacillating on a decision take us away from realizing who we are. They lead to inaction, and dharma is all about taking action.
Lesson 3: Living into your Dharma will save you, avoiding it will destroy you
If you lack faith in your talents and and don’t heed the call of your dharma, you will be in conflict with yourself. This will lead to suffering. We see this illustrated with the main character Arjuna lying on the floor of his chariot before battle, not knowing which side to fight for at the open of the book.
Lesson 4: There are Four Pillars of Dharma
These Pillars are
- Look to Your Dharma
- Do it Full Out!
- Let Go Of the Fruits
- Turn it Over to God
The first pillar is a call for introspection, naming your dharma, and defining it. The second pillar is all about doing it with your full effort and spirit. There is no good way to partially live out your dharma. The third pillar reminds us to let go of the outcome, and not be tied to results. When we focus on the results, we split our attention between the present and the future. Lastly the fourth pillar is all about having faith that if you’re living your dharma the universe will align to help you, and it will all work out. Cope illustrates this last point telling the story of Harriet Tubman. She navigated several miraculous trips to the south to free slaves and her special sense, powered by faith, allowed her to avoid capture.
Lesson 5: Be Yourself
Henry David Thoreau used the Bhagavad Gita while he was at Walden Pond and often quoted it. Before his prolific time writing at Walden Pond he went to New York City to try and become a successful writer there. He never fit in with the writers of the time, and left New York feeling like a failure. But later he learned to follow his own intuition, and the writing flowed.
Lesson 6: Listen for the Call
Cope writes about Walt Whitman and how he became a helper of the sick and wounded during the Civil War. He found his Dharma giving solace and companionship to people who were suffering and lonely. His path began by searching for his own wounded brother. By being exposed to the field hospitals, he was called to help in the way he felt best doing. He listened to the call of the times to find his dharma.
Lesson 7: To Do It Full Out, You Need Deliberate Practice Every Day
Cope, dives into a scientific investigation of deliberate practice, which includes, spending every day at your craft with the intention of improving, getting feedback from those better than you, and doing this for years. “You love what you know deeply.”
Lesson 8: Focusing on the Reward Leads to Misery
“Those who are motivated only by the desire for the fruits of action, are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do.” Cope discusses desire and how desire in itself is negative. However, there is a positive kernel within desire which is aspiration. The key is to distill aspiration from all of the baggage around desire. When we latch on to “gross objects of desire,” whether it be be alcohol, sex, or television, we feel empty without them, and this attachment causes suffering. “When you move free from attachment there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you live in the wisdom of the Self.”
Lesson 9: Difficulties in Life Can Be Your Dharma
Difficulties can also be a calling to your dharma. Cope writes about how Psychologist Marion Woodman’s diagnosis with cancer, led her closer to her dharma. First she had to accept and integrate it as such. In her book Bone, she describes her battle with cancer, and describes coming to grips with it as an Initiation, with the following steps:
- Invitation into the unknown
- The placing of trust in the situation and in one who initiates
- The loss of the known in the entry into the unknown
- The loss of personal identity
- The fear of the initiation
- Facing the fear
- Active surrender
- The Epiphany
- The restoration of personal identity
- The return to the known world with more understanding and lived knowledge
- The long integration of the experience into ordinary life
Lesson 10: Failure is a Part of Every Dharma Story
Cope looks at the life of Ghandi, and highlights how unsuccessful Ghandi was early on. He dropped out of college and did not have early success as a lawyer in the courtroom. It was only once, “he began to look on every difficulty as an opportunity for service, a challenge that could draw out of him greater resource of intelligence and Imagination.”
There is a lot of gold in this book, and Cope does a really exceptional job of illustrating these principles with stories from some of the greats who exemplify living a life aligned with dharma.