5. Why should rajasik and tamasik actions be given up? Because they are not pure. Being impure, they leave a mark on the mind of the doer. But on further thought we find that even saattvik action has some defects. Indeed in all actions there is some imperfection. Take even the svadharma of agriculture. It is pure and saattvik. But even in agriculture, which, as svadharma, is all yajna, there occurs unavoidably some himsaa, violence.

So many lives are destroyed in ploughing and some other operations. So too when to prevent the surrounding of a well from becoming slushy, the ground is hardened and plastered. When we open the doors and windows in the morning and the sunlight enters the house, innumerable lives are destroyed. What we call cleaning up turns out to be large scale murder. If even in saattvik action performed as one's svadharma there is some flaw, what then are we to do? That is the question.

6. I have already said that we have yet to develop to the full all the good qualities. We have tasted so far only a drop of qualities like jnana, bhakti, sevaa, ahimsaa - knowledge, devotion, service, non-violence - and so on. It is not as if we really know them fully. Life progresses by experience. In the Middle Ages there was a theory that, because of the violence in agriculture, non violent person should not take to it. He could be a merchant.

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