Dear Revolution Community,
There are seasons of life when it feels like the storm has no end.
Sometimes those seasons arrive through illness, grief, loss, financial strain, uncertainty, broken relationships, or simply the weight of carrying more than we ever imagined we could.
The yogis recognized this state thousands of years ago. They called it moha, the bewilderment that comes when we become so identified with the storm that we can no longer see clearly. The yogis teach not to make permanent decisions from a mind clouded by moha. Not because we are weak in our suffering, but because suffering can narrow our vision until we mistake the storm for ourselves.
Recently, a friend shared a story with me. After multiple deeply painful hospitalizations, he found himself sitting alone in a quiet hospital room. The television was off. The lights were dim. He stared at the wall for hours, feeling as though he had reached the very bottom.
Then a simple image came to him.
He imagined a ladder.
He realized he didn’t need to leap to the top. He didn’t need to solve his entire life before leaving that room. He only needed to reach for the next rung.
Just one.
In Bhagavad Gita when Arjuna stands on the battlefield, in his anguish he desperately wants certainty. He wants the war to disappear right then and there. He wants to know how everything will unfold before taking a single step.
Instead, Krishna gently brings him back to the present moment.
“You have a right to action alone, but never to its fruits.” (Bhagavad Gita 2.47)
Life will always contain moments we did not choose. We cannot control another person’s choices. We cannot rewrite the past. We cannot always understand why certain circumstances arrive when they do. What we are given is this moment, and the freedom to choose how we meet it.
Sometimes karma asks us to do the hardest thing we have ever done. Our dharma (the action that aligns us with truth) is how we respond.
The most terrifying teaching is that dharma is not always gentle.
Sometimes dharma looks like
Leaving or staying in a relationship.
Apologizing and forgiving someone.
Setting boundaries.
Grieving instead of distracting yourself.
Standing up for someone.
Allowing someone else to experience the consequences of their own actions.
In these moments it is easy to become consumed by the storm itself. We are tossed from side to side by fear, anger, sadness, or uncertainty. We lose our footing. We lose our breath. We search frantically outside ourselves for solid ground. Deluding ourselves that avoiding the battle is compassion when it is mere avoidance of discomfort.
Yoga invites us to do the opposite.
Rather than chasing the storm, Krishna says calm down, find your center, then act.
“Established in yoga, perform your duty.”- Gita 2.48
When the storm becomes overwhelming, we instinctively identify with the frightened, grieving, exhausted part of ourselves. Yoga gently asks, “Who is aware of all of this?” That witnessing awareness has not been broken by the storm. Returning to it is what allows us to act from clarity instead of reactivity.
Throughout the Gita, Krishna is asking Arjuna to stop identifying with the temporary self that’s terrified of loss and to remember the deeper Self that is never harmed.
“Weapons do not cut It. Fire does not burn It. Water does not wet It. Wind does not dry It.” (Bhagavad Gita 2.23) That witness is the true self and identifying with that is the deepest teaching of yoga.
From that place, the next rung of the ladder appears.
Not the entire climb.
Just the next step.
The ladder isn’t the opposite of the storm.
The center is.
Dharma doesn’t require us to discover our life’s grand purpose right now.
Dharma asks, What is yours to do…
Today?
Right now?
Not five years from now or after everyone agrees with you. Not after certainty arrives.
The next rung.
That’s dharma and right action.
Krishna reminds Arjuna that pleasure and pain, gain and loss, success and failure all come and go. They are impermanent. Our work is not to wait until life feels easy. Our work is to remain anchored enough in the center of self (the true meaning of yoga) to take the next right action.
Sometimes that single step is enough to begin climbing out of what once felt impossible.
“Let one lift oneself by oneself; let one not lower oneself. The Self alone is the friend of oneself, and the Self alone is the enemy of oneself.” -Gita 6.5
The ladder doesn’t appear because the storm stops.
The ladder was always there.
What changes is our capacity to see it.
The Gita is constantly pointing toward this. Krishna doesn’t remove Arjuna from the battlefield. He removes the confusion (moha) that prevents Arjuna from seeing clearly. The world outside hasn’t changed. Arjuna’s vision has.
That, to me, is the miracle of yoga.
Peace and Love,
Amanda and the good folks at Revolution Yoga
Originally shared in our July 2026 newsletter.