| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| THE TWO ASPECTS OF AKARMA - YOGA AND SANNYASA |
| 5.
A man goes and sits in a cave, cut off from all human contact. He
imagines that he has attained perfect calm of mind. But let hi
leave the cave and go out to beg for his food. A mischievous little
boy rattles the bolt of a door, and is absorbed in contemplating the
noise it makes, but the yogi cannot bear the music that the innocent
child makes and enjoys. By living in a cave, he has made his mind so
weak that he cannot stand the slightest jolt. A
little rattling noise shatters his peace of mind. It is not good
that one's mind should be in such a weak state.
6. To sum up, karma is a very useful thing to enable us to understand what our minds are like. When defects come to light, we can get rid of them. If they are hidden from sight, progress is obstructed and growth comes to an end. When we act and discover our own defects, we are impelled to employ vikarma to remove them. When this effort of vikarma goes on day and night within, then we shall learn in due time how, while performing svadharma, one can remain unattached, and get beyond kama and krodha, (craving and anger), lobha and moha (greed and delusion). If we endeavor constantly to keep action free of impurity, then later, pure karma will go on of itself. When once actions do not distort the mind, but take place naturally, one after the other, we do not notice that they have taken place at all. When karma becomes natural and normal (sahaja), it becomes akarma. As we have seen in the Fourth Chapter, it is this sahaja karma that we call akarma. How karma is transformed into akarma, and how we can learn this art at the feet of the saints, this too the Lord has taught at the end of the Fourth Chapter. Words cannot describe this state of akarma. |
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