The essence of milk is the ghee in it. Even so, the ghee in sanyaasa is the
giving up of attachment. It is this giving up of attachment to the fruits of action and
not negation of action that is true giving up. It is idle to try to renounce action. What
must be renounced are desire and attachment. Do your duty only for 'loka sangraha', for
the welfare of society. Do it without thought of self-interest. Perform all your actions
in a spirit of dedication to God. That is the essence of the Gita.
All the actions that a man does are the
results of his inborn tendencies. Those tendencies function of their own accord. To try to
by-pass these native tendencies will be futile. What a man can do is only to turn them
into good channels.
Desire envelops the heart putting on
several disguises. The heart should be defended like a fort. If the enemy gets into it in
the form of desire and captures it, then all is lost. Does not the whole kingdom get into
the hands of an enemy the moment he captures the capital city? The heart is the capital
city; so, defend the heart, emphasizes the Gita in the third chapter. |