Srimad Bhagavadgita-Rahasya OR Karma-Yoga-Sastra -Bal Gangadhar Tilak
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CHAPTER XII
THE STATE AND THE ACTIVITIES OF THE SIDDHA (PERFECT)
I have, in the second chapter of this book, touched on the questions of how a conflict arises between Non-Violence and Truth, or Truth and Self Protection, or Self -Protection and Peacefulness etc., and how, on that account, there arises at times a doubt as to what should be done and what should not be done. It is clear, that on such occasions, saints make a careful discrimination between 'ethical principles,' 'ordinary worldly affairs,' 'self interest', 'benefit of all created things' etc., and then arrive at a decision as to what should be done and what should not be done; and this fact has been definitely stated by the syena bird to king Sibi in the Mahabharata; and the English writer Sidgwick has, in his Book on Ethics, propounded the same principle in great detail, and by giving many examples; but ithe inference drawn from this fact by several Western philoso phers, that the accurate balancing of self-interest and other's interest, is the only basis for determining ethical laws, has never been accepted by our philosophers ; because, according to our philosophers, this discrimination is very often so subtle and so 'anaikantika', that is, so productive of so many conclu sions, that unless the Equability of realising that 'the other man is the same as myself, has been thoroughly impressed on one's mind, it is impossible to arrive at an invariably correct discrimination between what should be done and what should not be done, merely by inferential reasoning; and if one does so, it will be a case of 'the pea-hen tries to dance because the the peacock dances'. This is the main drawback in the arguments of Western Utilitarians like Mill and others. If 'because an eagle, swooping down, takes a lamb in its claws 'high up in the air, a crow also attempts to do so, he is sure to come to grief; therefore, the Gita says, that it is not sufficient to place reliance merely on the outward devices adopted by saints; and that one must depend on the principle of an equable Reason, which is always alive in their hearts; and that Equability of Reason is the true root of the philosophy of Karma-Yoga. Some modern Materialistic philosophers maintain that SELF-INTEREST is-.the basic foundation of Ethics; whereas others give that place to PHILANTHROPY, that is, 'the greatest good of the greatest- number'. But I have shown above in the fourth chapter, that, these principles, which touch merely tie external results of Action, do not meet all situations; and that one has necessarily to consider to what extent the Reason of the doer is pure. |
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