| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| THE GUNAS - BUILDING UP AND BREAKING DOWN |
| Both are
necessary. Vairagya, non-attachment, is itself a kind of self-control, a kind of renunciation.
The Fourteenth Chapter describes the directions in which we should exercise self-control. The oars
propel the boat, but the rudder, direct it. The oars and the rudder are both needed. In the same way,
for separating the Self from the pains and pleasure of the body, both discrimination and self-control
are needed.
3. Just as the physician examines the patient's body and prescribes medicine, the Lord in the Fourteenth Chapter examines and analyses the whole of nature and diagnoses its maladies. Here nature has been neatly classified. There is a principle of division in statecraft. If you can divide the forces of the enemy in front of you, you can readily gain victory. The Lord does the same here. In you and me, in all beings, in all things moving and unmoving, nature is made up of three strands. Just as there are three things in ayurveda, kapha (phlegm), pitta (bile) and vata (wind), nature is made up of three gunas - sattva, rajas and tamas. Everywhere there is a mixture of these three. A little more here and a little less there, that's all the difference. If we separate the Self from these three, we can separate it from the body. To examine and conquer these three gunas, is itself the way of separation the Self from the body. Throught self-control one should conquer these, one by one, until the approaches in the end the most important thing, that which is beyond the gunas. |
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