| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| THE GUNAS - BUILDING UP AND BREAKING DOWN |
| While the
average Indian's expectation of life is 23 years, here we are spending 25 years in just
preparing for living. In this way a lifetime is spent in learning a trade.
Then the actual practice of the trade begins. In the result, the most
energetic and enthusiastic years of our life are wasted. The energy and
enthusiasm which should be used in the service of mankind and enrichment of life run to waste. Life
is not mere play. But it makes one sad to think that the first and most
valuable part of life is spent in searching for a means of livelihood.
It is for this reason that Hinduism has discovered for us the system
of varna.
19. Let us leave aside the system of four varnas. In every country, even where this system does not obtain, every one has his own svadharma. All of us are born into the stream, bringing with us our own special circumstances, the duty called svadharma comes into being naturally. We should not therefore adopt distant duties - it is wrong even to call them duties - however noble they may appear. Often it is distance that lends enchantment to the view. Man is drawn by distant objects. Thick mist may surround a man where he stands. But his eyes do not see it. He points to a distant spot and says. "Look, there is thick mist there." Though there is mist everywhere, we do not see the mist just about us. Distance has an attraction for man. What is by his side, lies neglected in a corner and he has dreams of what is far away. But this is a delusion and it must be abandoned. Though the svadharma that is mine in commonplace, incomplete and uninteresting, yet because it is mine, it is the best for me. It is the most beautiful to me. |
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