The Dharma in Difficult Times Finding Your Calling in Times of Loss, Change, Struggle, and Doubt

The sequel to the bestseller The Great Work of Your Life shows us the way through our darkest times to our truest calling.

How do we make sense of our lives when our world seems to be falling apart?
This beautifully written guide from scholar and teacher Stephen Cope shows that crises don’t have to derail us from our purpose—they can actually help us to find our purpose and step forward as our best selves.

In this sequel to his best-loved book, The Great Work of Your Life, Cope again takes the ancient yogic text the Bhagavad Gita—the epic narrative of the warrior Arjuna’s odyssey of self-discovery—as a roadmap for our journey to our own true calling. Then he builds on that foundation using the stories and teachings of famous figures, as well as stories of ordinary people and his own rich personal experience. Along the way, we find striking examples for finding meaning and purpose in our lives:

Gandhi shows how to tap our spiritual resources and listen for our inner voice

Sojourner Truth and Henry David Thoreau inspire us to seek out the unmistakable signs of dharma in the midst of chaos

Marian Anderson and Ruby Sales shed light on dharma’s mystic power and how we learn to trust in it

And more

In the spirit of Pema Chödrön’s When Things Fall Apart, this book is required reading when you find yourself forging a path through crisis—or seeking a way through your darkest times to your truest self.

Stephen Cope is Scholar Emeritus at the renowned Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the founder and former director of the Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living. He is a Western-trained psychotherapist who writes and teaches about the relationship between Western psychological paradigms and the Eastern contemplative traditions, and is the best-selling author of such books as The Great Work of Your Life and Yoga and the Quest for the True Self. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his work.