Gita Rahasya -Tilak
|
CHAPTER V
THE CONSIDERATION OF HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS
(SUKHA-DUHKHA-VIVEKA) Reading the exposition made above regarding the happiness and unhappiness of worldly life, some follower of the Samnyasa school will retaliate : " although you do not accept the doctrine that there can be no peace unless one gives up all Thirst-prompted Actions on the ground that happiness is not some actual entity, yet, if even according to yourselves, dissatisfaction arises from Thirst and unhappiness later on springs from dissatisfaction, why do you not say that man should give up Thirst and, along with Thirst, all wordly Actions — whether those Actions are for his own good or for the good of others — at any rate for removing this dissatisfaction, and then remain perpetually satisfied ?". In the Mahabharata itself, we find statements like: " asamtosasya nasty antas tustis tu paramam sukham", i. e, " there is no end to dissatisfaction, and contentment is the soul of bliss."[1] and both the Jain and Buddhistic religions are based on the same foundation ; and in the Western countries, Schopenhauer has maintained [2] the same opinion. But on the other hand, one may ask whether one should cut off the tongue altogether because it sometimes utters obscene words, and whether people have discontinued the use of fire and given up cooking food on the ground that houses sometimes catch fire. If we make use of electricity, to say nothing of fire, in daily life, by keeping them under proper control, it is not impossible for us to dispose of Thirst or dissatisfaction in the same way. It would be a different matter, if this dissatisfaction was wholly and on all occasions disadvantageous ; but on proper consideration we see that such is not the case. Dissatisfaction does not mean merely craving or weak-kneedness. Such a kind of dissatisfaction has been discountenanced even by philosophers. But the dissatis- faction which is at the root of the desire not to remain stagnant in the position which has fallen to one's lot, but to bring it to as excellent a condition as possible by gradually improving it more and more, with as peaceable and equable a frame of mind As possible, is not a dissatisfaction which ought to he discoun- tenanced. It need not be said that a society divided into four castes will soon go to rack and ruin if the Brahmins give up the desire for knowledge, the Ksatriyas for worldly prosperity, and the Vaisyas for property. With this purport in view, Vyasa has said to Yudhisthira: — " yajno vidya samutthanam asamtosah sriyam prati " [3], i. e., "sacrifice, learning, effort, and dissatisfaction in the matter of worldly acquisitions", are virtues in the case of Ksatriyas. |
|