| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| THE TEACHING IN BRIEF : SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND EQUANIMITY |
The purpose of life: Awareness of the Self that transcends the body.6. In this situation, it is not enough to perform one's svadharma with determination. Something more is required; It is necessary to be awake to two other principles also. One is : "I am not this mortal body; the body is only the outer covering." The other is : "I am the spirit that never dies, that cannot be cut up, that pervades everything." When these two principles are combined, one attains the perfect truth.The Gita considers a knowledge of this truth so essential that it invokes this truth first, and brings in svadharma only later. Some people wonder why these verses about the ultimate truth occur in the very beginning. But to me it seems that if there are any verses at all in the Gita whose position can never be changed, it is these. If this much knowledge is stamped on our mind, then svadharma will not seem hard to us. Not only that, but anything not svadharma will seem hard. It is not at all difficult to realize the indestructibility of spirit and the transience of the body, because both these are true and real. But then, we have to reflect upon
them. We should turn them round and round in our minds. We should
train ourselves to belittle the flesh and exalt the spirit. |
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