The Gita according to Gandhi 163

The Gita according to Gandhi -Mahadev Desai

VII. SOME CONTROVERSIES There is perhaps a difference between their conceptions of the perfected man or man-God, but it is after all a question of difference in temperaments due to the different ages in which they livid. But in Spite of this difference I cannot conceive them differing as to the ultimate ideal that the Gita sets up before us. Another controversy pertains to the efficacy of selfless action. The followers of Shankaracharya contend that even selfless action cannot lead to Freedom, it leads to self-purification only, and knowledge alone can lead to Freedom. The followers of the Tilak school contend, on the other hand, that selfless action leads directly to Freedom. Now this controversy is equally futile, inasmuch as one school has in mind the intermediate steps leading up to the final goal, the other thinks only of the final goal and omits the intermediate steps. An earnest aspirant will throw all the energies in the pursuit of the goal, absorbed in the means and not even thinking of the goal. And what after all is self-purification in the highest sense, but just the last step to, if not almost the same thing as, Knowledge and Freedom? The Gita asks us over and over again to be anchored in perfect purity.