Arjuna and the meaning of victory
Last Friday I started my first training, weights and bag work, trying to get my strength back after 10 days of inactivity and bed rest. This morning’s WBC Saturday training was one I felt I was completing with half lung capacity and a third of my regular strength, the rest of it burnt yesterday on the benchpress.
Yet, it was clearly the physical weakness rather than the mental one I need to work on. In two seeks from now, I will be fit again – and my right arm, for which I got Voltaren from the doctor, is holding much better. And having survived all the dangerous side effects of this drug I am overseeing the battlefield ahead of me, like an assured Arjuna not quitting the fight (to spare my opponent):
Your enemies who have harbored you a grudging respect for your prowess in battle will slander you and ridicule your bravery. Do you really think they will believe you withdrew out of love for kith and kin? Those who used to shudder at the thought of fighting you will crack insolent jokes about your faintheartedness. Failure to do your duty will destroy the well-deserved reputation you built over many heroic battles.
Lord Krishna in The Bhagavad Gita (chapter 2, vers 36)
How low can I sink – associating old Indian true wisdom to my path to a boxing ring on September the 5th? Well a little bit lower. I brought my son in the ring this morning, only 4 years old, smelling the sweat and blood of a gym.
And heed this important point about life in general: the way to win [this] great war is to react alike to both pain and pleasure, profit and loss, victory and defeat.
Well, if it is all equal, may my son be happy, prosperous and victorious in the rest of his life, after I win the fight.
David,
my friend
it is fun to read your articulate journals.