My Interpretation of the Cover of My Book “Sammary of the Bhagavad Gita”

Cover Image of the Book Sammary of the Bhagavad Gita written by D. Samarender Reddy

My cousin asked me, “What is the cover picture?”, referring to my book “Sammary of the Bhagavad Gita”: https://www.amazon.in/Sammary-Bhagavad-Gita-Samarender-Reddy-ebook/dp/B0GT7313VL/

I replied as follows:

Well, the Bhagavad Gita is famous for exhorting one to act.

So, I chose the cover picture to suggest that the purpose of all action is to enjoy life.

Because what are the 4 purusharthas? Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha.

Now, where does action fit in? Although action itself can be enjoyable and meaningful (flow / kama) and can also lead to moksha if done in the form of Karma Yoga as pointed out by the Bhagavad Gita, and action itself in and of itself is dharmic (“action is better than inaction”) and the action that Arjuna is being asked to undertake by Krishna is Dharmic because the Kuruskshetra battle is for the establishment of Dharma or righteousness, but for the majority of us, action or karma usually is to acquire artha (wealth or money or resources) whereby we can use the artha to possess and enjoy kama (desires, from our getting married, to our houses, cars, vacations, dining out, entertainment, and what have you), so the cover picture points out that precise aspect of the end of karma whereby people are enjoying the lesiure of a vacation or an outing (the guy carrying a guitar signifies that to a large extent).

Kind of like, leisure is also equally important and forms the goal of all action for the majority of us.

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” as someone said.

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