| Discourses
On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses
On Gita |
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| ACHIEVING
THE GOAL - THE YOGA OF CONSTANCY |
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Thus
our days decrease, life tapers off, drop by drop the cup is emptied
- but man takes no notice of all this. Jnaneshwar says, "How
curious!" He wonders how men could be so thoughtless. Man has
become so frightened of death that he cannot bear even the thought
of it. He tries to keep off all thought of it. He sits down banding
his eyes. Soldiers going to the
front play, dance, sing and smoke, to forget death. Pascal writes,
"The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is
diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is
this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves,
and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Diversion amuses us,
and leads us unconsciously to death."
"Though he sees death
everywhere, the soldier loses himself in eating and drinking,
singing and dancing, all in order to forget it."
7. We are all like the soldier. Keeping
a round laughing face, if it is withered, applying cream and powder,
and dying gray hair - all this man does. Death is dancing on our
chest, but we try endlessly to put it out of our minds. We are ready
to talk about all other things, but not about death. You ask a boy
who has just passed his Matriculation, "What do you propose to
do?" He replies, "Don't ask me now; I am only in my first
year at College." If you ask him again the following year, he
would say, "Let me first finish the intermediate; there will be
time enough to worry." And so it goes on. But shouldn't one
think in advance of the future? Should not one see the path in front
clearly before taking a step, to avoid pitfalls? |
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