gita is very tough on that you can try and find as many excuses as you like to justify shirking your responsibilities as a worker a dad a student a writer or as arjuna tried as a soldier but none of them will wash the gita sees through all of them second was the idea of karma not as some fatalistic destiny that you should resign yourself to but as an incentive to work hard be good and earn brownie points for your next life for your children and for the greater good because really you are a product of your lineage of all the good and bad choices your ancestors made so you owe it to your children and to the universe to make good choices every time even if it doesnt seem to directly impact them or you in the present moment what are your thoughts on cultural appropriation in our ignorance of ancient indian wisdom are we allowing our heritage to be hijacked by those with ideological agendas i certainly think so the way to wrest the advantage away from people who choose to use the text for their own ends is not to rubbish the text itself but to educate yourself about it so that you can challenge them in their own space confidently the way to counter those who would presume to be the sole interpreters of a sacred text is not to hate them or fear them or turn your back on them but to offer an alternative interpretation which you can do only if you have taken the trouble to familiarise yourself with it i have to say that this is a recent epiphany though not something i would have said two years ago