What are the characteristics of a warrior? How would you define yourself as an everyday warrior?

These questions came to my mind when I was planing an asana class where the main poses were the different variations of Virabhadrasana or Warrior pose.

In the yoga tradition, and as far as I know, the most famous warrior is Arjuna who is one of the main characters in the Bhagavad Gita. We meet him right before the battle of his life, the battle of Kurukshetra. Luckily for him, he has Sri Krishna as his charioteer and closest friend.

What I like about the Gita is that although it is known that Arjuna is a great warrior, the first we learn about him is that he is in despair. He is invaded by doubt and maybe even fear and he doesn’t know if he wants to fight this battle or not. What? A warrior that shows weakness right before the battle of his life? How come? How can we relate to that?

Arjuna teaches us that a warrior isn’t always on top of everything. A warrior experiences moments of doubt, of despair and fear, but what makes Arjuna an exceptional warrior is that he acknowledges these feelings and seeks for advice from Krishna.

Krishna then has a long conversation with him where he seeks to encourage Arjuna to make his own decision, but this decision should not be based in fear and distress. Arjuna needs to calm his emotions and see the whole picture. He needs to look inwards and find out what his duty is regardless of the outcome of the battle. Running away is most probably not the best solution because the issues that led to the battle will continue hunting Arjuna and his people.

I believe, there are many ways to interpret this story and make parallells with our lives, but what I have been reflecting about lately is the importance of doing what we can with what we have, with the best of intentions, and allow the result to be as it needs to be. Sometimes, we are put in situations where we feel helpless, where we don’t know what to do. It is wise to pause, calm down, and then proceed. Sometimes, we make the wrong choices or we make mistakes, but what makes us an everyday warrior is that we learn and move forward.

We don’t have all the answers, and that is perfectly fine. If we had them, we most probably wouldn’t be here…