| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| THE YOGA OF ACTION |
| At the Pandavas' Rajasuya
sacrifice, He clears the leaf-plates after the feast. He goes out into the
forest to graze cows. If the Lord of Dwaraka went back to Gokul again,
He
would tend cows, playing on His flute. So the saints have pictured a
karma-yogi God who rubs horses down, takes cows out to graze, drives a chariot, cleans dishes and
mops up floors. And they themselves have done the work of a tailor, or a potter, or a weaver, or a
gardener, or a trader, or a barber or a cobbler. Doing these things, they
have found themselves and become free.
12. People slip from the religious observance of karma-yoga for two reasons. In this connection, we must remember the specific nature of our senses. Our senses are caught up in qualities, such as likes and dislikes. For the things we want, we feel an attachment or fondness, and an aversion for other things. Thus attachment and aversion, desire and anger gnaw into a man and eat him up. How noble, how beautiful, how infinitely rewarding karma-yoga is! But desire and anger tie round our necks this perpetual rattle. "Take this, and leave that", and we trail this behind us day and night. That is why, at the end of this Chapter, the Lord rings the warning bell, so that we may shake off this encumbrance and save ourselves. That karma-yogi should become, like the sthitaprajna, an embodiment of self-control. |
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