The Gita according to Gandhi 14

The Gita according to Gandhi -Mahadev Desai

B. THE GITA VIEW 2. THE GUNAS The Western reader will perhaps understand the distinction between the changing gunas and the unchanging Self, the shadows and the substance, much better from the following memorable lines from Julius Caesar: "Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream; The Genius and the mortal instruments Are then in council; and the state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection." Shakespeare, as I have said more than once, had his grip on the fundamentals of things, and in this passage he sensed the distinction between the Genius (i.e. in the language of the Gita, the unchanging, imperishable atman or Self) and the "mortal instruments" (i.e. in the language* of the Gita, the gunas). And no word could be happier than the word "instruments", which indeed all gunas are, in the hands of the Genius, or the Master, or the Self. The self- controlled, the selfpossessed, the tattoavid, does have an experience of the insurrection, but he quells it by making the "instruments" gunas act according to his will.