Talks on the Gita -Vinoba 42

Chapter 5 TWO-FOLD STATE OF AKARMA: YOGA AND SANNYASA 22. Two Analogies: Geometry And Mimamsa 20. How are we to compare the two? It will have to be done with the help of some analogies. While doing so, one does have a feeling of falling down from the high altitude of these ideas, but it cannot be helped. In fact, absolute karma-sannyasa and absolute karma-yoga are ideas too magnificent to be expressed in a living person. These ideals cannot be fully realised when one is confined within the body. An attempt to live these ideals here in this world would shatter the body. Hence we have to take illustrations from the lives of great men who had realised these ideals to the extent possible. Analogies are never perfect, but for the time being one has to assume that they are. 21. It is said in geometry, ‘Let ABC be a triangle.’ Why is the word ‘let’ used here? Because the lines forming the triangle are not really lines according to the definition of a line. A line, by definition, has length but no breadth. How to draw such a line on a blackboard? Breadth invariably accompanies length whenever one attempts to draw a line. Hence one has to use the word ‘let’. One has to assume that what has been drawn is a line. Is not the same thing applicable in bhakti-shastra—the science of bhakti (devotion)? There too the devotee says, ‘Let this tiny idol be the Lord of the universe.’ If someone calls it idiocy, you may ask him, “Is there idiocy in geometry? We are seeing quite a thick line and you are asking us to assume that it has no breadth!” 22. Just as certain postulates are made in geometry, certain postulates are made in bhaktishastra too. It asks us to assume that there is God in an idol. If one says that God is indestructible, but the idol could break on being hit, it would not be a thoughtful statement. If postulates are valid in geometry, why cannot they be so in bhaktishastra? Geometry asks us to assume a point also. Definition of a point is akin to that of Brahman. A point is defined as having neither length, nor breadth, nor thickness. It is without any dimension; still we try to draw it on a blackboard. What we draw is practically a circle, but it is assumed to be a point. A true triangle and a true point exist only in definitions. Yet we have to proceed on the assumption that they actually exist. In bhaktishastra too, we have to postulate the existence of the indestructible allpervading God in an idol.