The Great Work of Your Life, by Stephen Cope
“In his third book, The great work of your life, Stephen Cope uses the Bhagavad Gita to talk about Dharma. We often feel overwhelmed by the realities of daily life and about how to realize your life's true purpose—what spiritual teachers call dharma. He writes that in order to have a fulfilling life you must, in fact, discover the deep purpose hidden at the very core of your self. In The Great Work of Your Life, Cope describes the process of unlocking the unique possibility harboured within every human soul. The secret, he asserts, can be found in the pages of a two-thousand-year-old spiritual classic called the Bhagavad Gita—an ancient allegory about the path to dharma, told through a timeless dialogue between the fabled archer, Arjuna, and his divine mentor, Krishna.” If you are interested in reading the Bhagavad Gita, I really enjoyed Eknath Easwaran’s interpretation (also in book-club).
Stephen Cope writes beautifully and I truly loved his previous books; “Yoga and the Quest for the True Self” and “The Wisdom of Yoga”, which Mona recommended to me. This third book however is even better still; based on the Bhagavad Gita it is about the pillars of Karma Yoga (the yoga of Action) and finding your Dharma or calling in life;
Discern your calling
Do it full out
Let go of the outcome
Give it to God
His books really are fantastic books for yogis; this book on the Great Work of Your Life however can be read by anyone as he uses the philosophy of Karma yoga in historic people who found their true calling (Walt Whitman, Jane Goodall, John Keats and Harriet Tubman to name some).
Reading his books (which he wrote while at Kripalu in the USA) aspired me to do my yoga therapy teacher training at Kripalu and it was as magical as I had imagined. I was lucky enough to meet him on my second visit, where he kindly signed his latest book for me.
“People actually feel happiest and most fulfilled when meeting the challenge of their dharma in the world, when bringing highly concentrated effort to some compelling activity for which they have a true calling. For most of us this means our work in the world. And by work, of course, I do not mean only ‘job’.”
