Gita Rahasya -Tilak
|
CHAPTER XI
RENUNCITATION AND KARMA-YOGA
Nevertheless., this lokasamgraha must not be performed, entertaining any Hope for Fruit (phalasa); because, if one entertains the Hope for Fruit, though it may be about lokasamgraha, one cannot but suffer un- happiness, if that hope is frustrated. Therefore, a man should not entertain the proud or desireful thought that ' I shall bring about lokasamgraha , and a man has to bring about lokasamgraha merely as a duty. It is for the same reason that the Gita has used the rather longish phraseology of: " lokasamgraham evapi sampasyan", i. e., "you must perform Action, keeping in sight ( sampasyan ) public welfare" [1], instead of saying that ' lokasamgrahartha' means, "for obtaining fruit in the shape of public welfare ". It is true that lokasamgraha is an important duty; hut it must not be forgotten that the advice given by the Blessed Lord to Arjuna in the previous verse [2] that all acts should be performed being free from Attachment, applies equally to lokasamgraha. If it is proved by logical argument that the opposition between Jnana and Karma is an opposition between Jnana and Desireful Karma, that there is no opposition between Jnana and Dasireless Karma from the Metaphysical point of view, and that as Karma is unavoidable, and is also essential from the point of view of lokasamgraha, even a Jnanin must, so long as life lasts, continue to perform the duties of the four castes, accord- ing to his qualification, and without Attachment; and if the Gita says the same thing, a doubt naturally arises as to what becomes of the Samnyasa (ascetic) state, out of the four states of life, which have been described in the Smrti tests of the Vedic religion. In the Manu-Smrti and other Smrtis, the four states (asrama), namely, celibacy, householdership, living in the woods, and asceticism have been mentioned; and it is there stated that after the Mind has been gradually purified by carrying out the duties of education (adhyayana), sacrificial ritual, charitable gifts etc. which befall a person according to the arrangement of the four castes, as prescribed by the Sastras, in the first three states of life, a man should in the end literally give up all Action and renounce the world, and attain Release [3] From this it follows, that according to all the writers of the Smrtis, though sacri- ficial ritual and charitable gifts etc. are proper to the state of a householder, yet, their only purpose is the purification of the Mind, that is to say, to bring one to the stage of Realising that there is only one Atman in all created beings, by the gradual elimination of one's Attachment to objects of pleasure, and of one's self-serving Reason, which (elimination) results in the gradual increase of the desire to do good to others; and that once this mental state has been acquired, one must in the end literally abandon all Action and take to the fourth state of Samnyasa (Asceticism) in order to obtain Release. |
|
