| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
 |
| Discourses On Gita |
| THE YOGA OF ACTION |
| 2. The ordinary man puts up a bristling hedge around his fruits; but by doing so, he loses the infinite fruit that
should have been his. The worldly man, after endless toil receives a small reward; but the karma-yogi, though
he may do little, receives immense benefit. The difference is due only to a bhavana (an inward attitude). Tolstoy
says somewhere: People talk a lot about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ; but no one knows how much the worldly
man runs about every day of his life and grows dry within! He carries on his back the burden of two donkeys and
capers about. Is not his suffering much greater, his plight far worse, than Jesus
Christ's?
3. The worldly people also put in arduous labor; but it is in pursuit of low aims. We reap what we sow; as is the desire, so is the fruit. The world will not pay more for our wares than the price we ourselves mark on them. Sudama went to the Lord Krishna with a gift of flattened rice. The handful of rice may not be worth even a pie, but to Sudama it seemed invaluable, for his devotion went with it. It was charmed rice. Every grain of it was charged with his love. However cheap a thing may be, the mantra, the charm (words charged with power), increases its value, its power. What after all is the weight of a currency note? If we burn it, we might perhaps, be able to warm a drop of water. But the stamp on it gives its value. This is the whole beauty of karma-yoga also. Action is like the currency note. Its value is that of the bhavana (the feeling behind it), the stamp it bears, not that of the karma or outward action, the piece of paper. |
|
|
