| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| PRAPATTI OR SURRENDER TO GOD |
| We
have no higher ideal in life than looking after our family. In the
seeker after wisdom, there is an irrepressible hunger for knowledge,
an eagerness to know the truth. He will investigate the nature and
qualities of everything. As one by following the river comes at last
to the sea, the seeker after knowledge reaches the Lord.
15. The third kind of bhakta seeks meaning and purpose (artha) in all things. "Artha" here does not mean money or wealth, it only means welfare and happiness. The test he applies to every action, the touch-stone is, "how will society benefit? Whatever he speaks, writes or does, he would make sure that is does good, not harm to the world. He would never agree to anything that is useless or harmful. One who wishes for the world's welfare is indeed a mahatma. His whole happiness is in the welfare of the world. The first kind of bhakta, the afflicted one, looks at the whole world through eyes of love, the second kind, the seeker of knowledge, through the eye of discovery, and the third, the seeker of meaning, from the point of view of the world's welfare. 16. Though these three kinds of bhaktas are all desireless, still their approach is not integral. One reaches the Lord through karma, the second through love, the third through knowledge. What remains is the perfect bhakta, and he may be called the jnani-bhakta, the seer-saint. All that he sees he regards as forms of God. |
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