| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| THE TWO ASPECTS OF AKARMA - YOGA AND SANNYASA |
| Outward action - a mirror of the mind 1. The world's ways are terrible. Samsara, life in the world has been compared to an ocean. In the ocean, wherever you look, you see nothing but water; samsara too, is like that. It surrounds you on all sides. If one gives up hearth and home and takes up public service, there too he finds that the same samsara pitches its tent in his mind and occupies it. If one goes and sits in a cave, one's palm's width of loin-cloth is the wrap and woof of samsara. The loin-cloth becomes for him the essence of all possessiveness. Just as a little currency-note holds a thousand rupees, the little piece of cloth holds boundless attachment. Because one renounces one's family, narrows one's circle, samsara has not, therefore, relaxed its hold on one; by reducing one's possession, one does not reduce one's possessiveness. Whether you say 10/25 or 2/5, it means the same. Whether at home or in the forest attachment is ever with us. The pressure of samsara is no lighter. If two yogis went and dwelt in the caves of the Himalayas, even there, if one comes to hear of the other's fame, he burns with envy. Even in the field of public service, one sees the same thing. 2. The universe of samsara pursues us in such a way that, even when we live within the bounds of svadharma, it never lets us go. Though one has given up all distracting activities and complications, and has retained samsara only in name, one still remains, filled with possessiveness, mamatva. Samsara, like any rakshasa (demon), can assume a larger or smaller form. Big or small, a rakshasa is a rakshasa. What is inescapable is the same wherever you are, in a palace or in a hut. |
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