Page:Essays On The Gita - Ghose - 1922.djvu/327

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THE GIST OF THE KARMAYOGA
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to things too great as yet for the mind of the human disciple.

Arjuna, himself, if the Teacher were to break off his discourse here, might well object;* You have spoken much of the destruction of desire and attachment, of equality, of the conquest of the senses and the stilling of the mind, of passionless and impersonal action, of the sacrifice of works, of the inner as praferable to the outer renuncia- tion, and these things I understand intellectually, how- ever difficult they may appear to me in practice. But you have also spoken of rising above the gunas, while yet one remains in action, and you have not told me how the gunas work, and unless T know that, it will be dificult for me to detect and rise above them. Besides, you have spoken of bhakti as the greatest element in Yoga, yet you have talked much of works and knowledge, but very little or nothing of bhakti. And to whom is bhakti, this greatest thing, to be oftered? Not to the still impersonal Self, certainly, but to you, the Lord. Tell me, then, what you are, who, as bhakti is greater even than this self-kgowledge, are greater than the immutable Self, which is yet itself greater than mutable Nature and the world of action, even as knowledge is greater than works. What is the relation between these three things ? between works and knowledge and divine love ? between the roulin Nature and theimmutable Self and that which is at once the changeless Self of alland the Master of knowledge and love and works, the supreme Divinity who is here with me in this great battle and massacre,my charioteer in the chariot of this fierce and terrible action?” It is to answer these questions that the rest of the Gita is writteh, and in a complete intellectual