Gita Rahasya -Tilak 357

Karma Yoga Sastra -Tilak

CHAPTER XI RENUNCITATION AND KARMA-YOGA Public benefit does not mean 'making societies of men' or 'making a farce of performing Action like other people, though one has the right to abandon Action, in order that ignorant people should not give up Action, and in order to please them'; because, the object of the Gita is not that people should remain ignorant, or that scients should make a farce of performing Action, only in order to keep them ignorant. Far from any hypocrisy being advised, when Arjuna was not satisfied by arguments which would have been conclusive for ordinary people, such as, "people will sing YOUR disgrace" etc., the Blessed Lord goes on to give more weighty and philosophically more powerful arguments. Therefore, the word 'samgraha', which has been defined in dictionaries to mean 'protecting,' 'keeping', 'regula- ting' etc., has in this placate be taken in all those meanings according to tbe context; and when that is done 'lokasamgraha' {public benefit) means "blading men together, and protecting, maintaining and regulating them in such a way that they might acquire that strength which results from mutual co-operation, thereby putting them on the path of acquiring merit while maintaining their good condition. " The words 'welfare of a nation' have been v-A in the same sense in the Manu-Smrti (7. 144) and the wed 'lokasamgraha' has been defined in the Samkarabhasya as meaning "lokasyonmar gapravrttinivaranam" (i. e., "weaning men from the tendency to take to the path of wrong"); and from this it will be clear, that my interpretation of that word as meaning "making wise, those persons who behave recklessly as a result of ignorance, and keeping them together in a happy state, and putting them on the path of . self-amelioration" is neither strange nor without authority The word 'samgraha’ has been explained in this way. I must now make it clear that the word 'loka' in 'lokasamgraha' does not indicate only mankind. It is true that the word 'loka- samgraha' ordinarily means 'the benefit of human beings', as man is superior to the other created beings in the world" Yet, in as much as the Blessed Lord also desires that the bhurloka, satyaloka, pitrloka, devaloka, and the several other loka or worlds, which have been created by Him, should also be properly maintained and go on in a proper way, I must say that the word ' lokasamgraha ' has, in this place, the comprehensive meaning that the activities of all these various spheres should go on properly in the same way as those of mankind, (lokasamgraha=lokanam samgrahah, i. e., the main- tenance of various worlds).