Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
Man meete tlH! battle of life iiT ^e maimer most consonant with the e^ntial quality most dominant in his nature. There are, according to the Sankhya philosophy accepted in this respect * Ahimsft. MAN AND THE BATTLE OF LIFE by the Gita, three essential qualities or jnpdes of the world-energy and tHSrefdre ^Is^of huiiun nature, sattv^^ the_mode of poise, Tiinowledge and satisfec- tion,£^^, the mode of^assmn^ ^dqn and iTtfuggling emotion, t amos, the mode of ignorance „and inertia. Dominated by tamos, man does not so much meet the rush and shock of the world-energies whirling about him and converging upon him as he succumbs to them, is overborne by them, afflicted, subjected ; or at the most, helped by the other qualities, the tamasic man seeks only somehow to survive, to subsist so long as he may, to shelter himself in the fortress of an established routine of thought and action in which he feels himself to a certain extent protected from the battle, able to reject the demand which his higher nature makes upon him, excused from accepting llielfiecessity of farther struggle and the ideal of an increasing effort and mastery. D^inated m^ fliijgs himself into the battle and attempts to use the smuggle of forces for his own egoistic benefit, to slay, conquer, dominate, enjoy ; or, help^ 6^ a 7:ertain measure of the sattwic quality, the rajasic man makes the struggle itself a means of increasing inner mastery, joy, power, possession. The battle of life becomes his delight and passion partly for its own sake, for the pleasure of activity and the sense of power, partly as a means oJLhis^ -increase and . natural self-development. _ Do- minated by" sdtiwa, man seel« in ^the jaickt of the s trife for a principle o^law, right pois e, harmony, peace, satisfactionu Tfie purely sattwic man tenS& to seek this within, whether for himself alone or with an impulse to communicate it, when won, to other human minds, but usually by a sort of Jnner detachment from or else an outer rejection of the sTrife and turmoil of the active world-energy ; but if the sattwic mind accepts partly the rajasic impid^, if^ seeks rather to impose this poise and harmony upon the struggle and apparent chaos, to .vindicate a victory for peace, love and harmony over Ae principle of war, discord and struggle. ^1 the attitudes adopted by the human jnind towards the ^blem of life either derive from the domination 3 f one or other of these qualities or else from an ittempt at balance and harmony between them.
But there comes also a stage in which the mind recoils from the whole problem and, dissatisfied witET the solutions given by the threefold mode^ Nature, traigunya, seeks for some higher solution outside of it or else above it. It looks for an escape mtfiS into something which is outside and void of all qualities and therefore of all activity or in some- thing which is superior to the three qualities and master of them and therefore at once capable of action and unaffected, undominated by its own action, in the^nir^una or Ae trigundtita- It aspires to an absolute peace and unconditioned existence or to a dominant calm and superior existence. The natural movement of the former** attitude is towards the renunciation of the world, sannydsa ; of the latter towards superiority to the claims of the lower nature and its whirl of actions and reactions, and its MAN AND THE BATTLE OF LIFE principle is equality and the inner renunciation of passion and desire. The former is the fct impulse of Ayuiia recoiling from the calamitous culmination of all his heroic activity in the great cataclysm of battle and massacre, Kurukshetra ; losing his whole past principle of action, inaction and the rejection of life and its claims seem to him the only issue. But it is to an inner superiority and not to the physical renunciation of life and action that he is called by the voice of the divine Teacher.
No commentary for this page under the selected tracks.
There is commentary on page 1.