The Gita according to Gandhi 16

The Gita according to Gandhi -Mahadev Desai

B. THE GITA VIEW 2. THE GUNAS Here, says the Gita, let not man wrestle with nature, but obey the law of his being, of course, casting all on Him (111.33). But there is the other part, viz. the moral part of his nature where man may not rest content until he has thoroughly cleansed himself. 'Lust, wrath and greed form the triple gateway to hell' says the Gita. 'Flee from that fiery hell.' (III. 34; III. 37; XVI. 21). Shakespeare, who had the heavenly gift of knowing what man's nature is, seems to make this distinction over and over again. The royal nature and material valour of King Cimbeline's sons living in captivity as barbarous rustics from their very childhood, are described as clamouring out again and again, while Hamlet tells his mother that "Use almost can change the stamp of nature And either curb the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency. The doctrine of gunas as the constitutive stuff of man, at least in its ethical aspect, was not quite unknown to thinkers and philosophers in the West, though they did not visualize it in all its aspects and certainly did not work it out in any detail, except perhaps Plato. His division of the springs of human behaviour into three main sources desire, emotion and knowledge, would seem to be a recognition of the three gunas in another name.