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Arjuna's Last Question > Page1
1. My brothers, now by the grace of the Lord, we have reached the Eighteenth Chapter. In this world of chance and change and mutability, the fulfillment of any resolve depends on the will of the Lord. And in jail, at every step, one experiences uncertainty. To start anything in jail and to expect to conclude it here is far-fetched. When we started this study of the Gita, we did not expect that it would be possible to finish it here. But by the will of God we are approaching the end.
2. In the Fourteenth Chapter life, that is all our activity, was divided into three classes, saattvik, rajasik and tamasik. Of the three, we learnt that we should give up the rajasik and the tamasik and take to the saattvik. Then, in the Seventeenth Chapter, the same was treated in a different way. Yajna, dana and tapas, sacrifice, gifts and austerity, or, in one word, yajna, sacrifice, is the essence of life.
Then, in the Seventeenth Chapter, it was suggested that actions like eating, which are ancillary to sacrifice, should be accepted only as a form of sacrifice, and only after making them saattvik. We should accept only those actions which are saattvik in nature and come to us in the form of sacrifice; it is proper that we give up all other kinds of action. We have also seen why we should constantly remember the mantra, 'om tat sat'.
About Author : Acharya Vinoba Bhave
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