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INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
12. The Way of Action: Karma-marga
The emphasis of the Gita on lokasamgraha, world-solidarity, requires us to change the whole pattern of our life. We are kindly, decent men who would be shocked and indignant if a dog is hurt, we would fly to the protection of a crying child or a maltreated woman and yet we persist in doing wrong on a large scale to millions of women and children in the comforting belief that by doing so, we are doing our duty to our family or city or the state. The Gita requires us to lay stress on human brotherhood. Where-ever the imperative to fight is employed, Samkara points out that it is not mandatory (vidhi), but refers only to the prevailing usage.[1] The Gita belongs to a period of upheaval through which humanity periodically passes in which intellectual, moral, social and political forms are at strife and when these are not properly adjusted, violent convulsions take place. In the conflict between the self-affirming law of good and the forms that impede it, force is some-times necessary to give the law of good a chance of becoming a psychological fact and an historic process. We have to act in the world as it is, while doing our best to improve it. We should not be defiled by disgust even when we look at the worst that life can do to us, even when we are plunged in every kind of loss, bereavement and humiliation. If we act in the spirit of the Gita with detachment and dedication, and have love even for our enemy, we will help to rid the world of wars.[2] If we cultivate the spirit of detachment from results and dedication to God, we may engage in action. One who acts in this spirit is a perpetual samnyasin.[3]
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