| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| THE GUNAS - BUILDING UP AND BREAKING DOWN |
| We are never at peace unless we are breaking and mending. This
is just like a child cutting up a piece of paper and making it into something else. Mixing this with that, drowning
one thing in another, making something fly, changing one thing into another - these are the endless
games played by rajas. "The bird flies in the air. Why should I not fly
too? The fish lives in the water. Why should I not make submarine
and live in water too? Thus, having got a human body, we find satisfaction in competing with
bird and fish.
Man wants to migrate to other bodies and experience their fun. Someone says, "Come, let us go to Mars and see how people live there." The mind wanders all the time, as if innumerable desires, like so many demons, possess it. We cannot bear to see things being where they are. We need some commotion, some excitement. We think, "when with all my greatness, I am here, how could creation remain what it has always been?" We behave like a wrestler who, through excess of energy dashes against a wall and kicks against a tree. Such excitement springs from rajas. Under its influence man burrows deep into the earth, brings out from its bowels a few stones and calls them rubies and diamonds. Possessed by the same agitation, he dives into the sea and, bringing up the rubbish from the depths, calls it a pearl. But because it has no hole, he pierces one through it. Now, where it is to be worn? So he gets the goldsmith to pierce his nose and ears for him. Why does man fuss about in the fashion? All this is due to the power of rajas. |
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