| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| THE GUNAS - BUILDING UP AND BREAKING DOWN |
| Sattva and how to deal with it 21. What now remains is sattva. We should approach this matter with special care. How to distinguish the Self from sattva? This is matter for very subtle analysis. We should not altogether destroy sattva. While rajas and tamas must be utterly destroyed, the case of sattva is somewhat different. When a big crowd is to be dispersed, the police are ordered to shoot below the knees. The idea is that people are not to be killed, but wounded. In the same way, sattva should be wounded, not killed. When rajas and tamas have disappeared, what remains is pure sattva. So long as we have a body we have to take our stand on something. Then how long can we stand aloof from the sattva which remains after the disappearance of rajas and tamas? When we begin to identify ourselves with sattva, it drags down the Self from its nature of pure being. If the light of the lanterns is to spread in all its brightness, the carbon deposit inside the glass has to be wiped off; if there is dust outside, that too should be washed. In the same way, the smoke of tamas surrounding the light of the Self should be wiped off. And then the dust of rajas should also be removed. At last the transparent glass of sattva wil remain. Remove sattva - does it mean braking the glass? No, for the lantern would become useless if the glass is broken. The glass is needed to spread the light. |
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