The Divine Song

The Bhagavad Gita, tranlated by and with commentary for by Eknath Easwaran. One of the books I borrowed from my yoga teacher, this is a famous and very significant text, dating back a good few thousand years. Essentially, it's a dialogue between a soldier and his chariot-driver, who just so happens to be an avatar of sorts; the soldier is having a crisis of whether or not to fight, as he can see across the battlefield (which has incidentally been discovered as a battle that actually occurred in real life) his friends and relatives on the opposing side. So, the avatar lays out in a kind of Matrix-moment of suspended time his entire plan for living a happy life, and how to decide what the right thing to do is, in that or any situation. I wasn't actually so interested in the text itself (if for no other reason than I'm often frustrated with anything translated) as the commentaries that go to lengths to explain each chapter, and difficulties in translation. In any case, I certainly think it's an interesting and moreover refreshing text to read (I think I might get a copy to just to have to cool me down when I'm angry or upset), but unless one's really interested in yoga, it's probably not for them.