Talks on the Gita -Vinoba 62

Chapter 7 PRAPATTI OR SURRENDER TO GOD 32. The Magnificent Vision Of Bhakti 1. Brothers, Arjuna, deluded by the sense of ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’, was seeking ways to evade swadharma when the situation demanded adherence to it. The First Chapter describes his vain delusion. The Second Chapter sets out to remove it. It states three basic principles: the Self is imperishable and has an all-encompassing presence, the body is transient and mortal, and swadharma should never be given up. It also spells out the idea of renunciation of the fruit of actions as a key to realise these principles. While expounding this karmayoga, three concepts have emerged—karma, vikarma and akarma. In the Fifth Chapter, we have seen two types of akarma which result from the confluence of karma and vikarma. From the Sixth Chapter onwards different types of vikarma are being explained. The Sixth Chapter tells about onepointedness of mind necessary for spiritual pursuit. Today, we are going to deal with the Seventh Chapter This Chapter opens before us the gallery of a magnificent new vikarma. Moving through the broad expanse of a forest, the temple of the Goddess of nature, we are enthralled by a great many captivating scenes. It is the same with the Gita. It now unfolds before us a new vista. 2. Even before unfolding this vista, the Lord reveals the secret of the structure of this world which creates illusions. An artist paints a variety of pictures on the same type of paper and with the same brush. A sitarist creates different ragas out of the same seven notes. In literature, a variety of thoughts, ideas and feelings are expressed through a few letters of the alphabet. Same is the case with the creation. We find in it innumerable objects and propensities. But all of them are products of only two things—the eternal Self and the eight-fold prakriti. The anger of the angry man, the love of the lover, the agony of the sufferer, the happiness of the happy one, the drowsiness of the idler, the activity of the industrious man—all these are manifestations of one and the same Cosmic energy. These different emotions and urges, although they are often contrary to each other, spring from the same source. As the Cosmic energy within is one and the same in all, the outer bodily cover of all is also the same in nature. The Lord is telling at the very outset that the conscient Self and the inconscient prakriti are the twin sources from which all creation has come into being.