| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| THE TEACHING IN BRIEF : SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND EQUANIMITY |
| 10.
But instead of using the body as an instrument, we lose ourselves in
it, and stunt our spirit. Thus the body, which already was of little
intrinsic value, becomes even more worthless. That is why the saints
say firmly, "It is wrong to be attached to the body and those
related through the body; dogs and pigs too are worthy of affection.
This body and those related to you through this body - do not
worship these alone, day and night, my friend. Learn to recognize
others too as belonging to you." The saints teach us thus to
grow.
Do we ever take anything of ourselves to anyone not a close relation or friend? Do we ever take anything of ourselves to anyone not a close relation or friend? Do we ever do anything "to mingle soul with soul, to make self meet self?" Do we let the swan of the spirit go outside this cage and breathe free air? Does it ever occur to you to break through your accepted circle and say to yourself, "I will make ten new friends tomorrow?" Making fifteen friends today and fifty tomorrow, shall I one day feel that the whole world belongs to me, and I to the world? We write letters to our relations from the jail; what is there so wonderful about that? But would we write to a new friend released from prison - not a political prisoner, but a thief? 11. The self is impatient to pervade the world. It wants to encompass all creation. But we shut it up in a cell. We have made a prisoner of it. We are not conscious of it. From morning till evening we are busy minding the body. Day and night we worry about how fat or how thin our bodies have become. One would think that there was no other joy in the world. Even beasts experience the pleasures of sense. Will you not now taste the joy of giving away and of controlling the palate? What joy there is in giving away your full plate of food to a hungry man, though you too suffer from hunger! Taste the joy of this experience.
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