The Gita according to Gandhi 151

The Gita according to Gandhi -Mahadev Desai

The Four Varnas and Svadharma The fourth defines knowledge over again, not by an assurance' of impunity to one who has knowledge, but by declaring the unique purifying power of knowledge(IV. 38) which is no knowledge unless it makes one see the whole creation in one's Self and in God (IV. 35). The fifth is a paean of praise of the transformed life where the whole mind and heart and soul of man are cleansed by all impurity and made a worthy dwelling for the perpetual abode of the Deity (V.17). The sixth repeats the comprehensiveness of the transformed vision in words unforgettable (VI. 29-32). But need we go on? We should then have to summarize the whole Gita over again. And the conditions of real knowledge are writ large on every page of the Gita [II. 54-72; XIL 13-20; XlV. 22-26; XV. 5; XV. 11; XVI (whole); XVIII. 51-55 etc.]. Not With the eye of the flesh shall one see Him, but with the eye of the spirit is the burden of every verse dealing with jnana. It is possible for one to wrench verses from their context, as Hume has wrenched texts from the Upanishads, and say that jnana is presented as the panacea for all ills. We can quote a string of such verse – IV.9, IV. 14; IV. 32; V. 29; IX. l; X. 3; XIII. 18; XIII. 23; XIV. 1; XIV. 19 and many more but will anyone have the hardihood to maintain that jnana in these verses has a narrower content than the jnana referred to in the whole contexts we cited a little while ago?