What message can a philosophical treatise like the Gita have for the common man? The Gita has a message for everyman for the simple reason that it is not a philosophical or a religious text. It is a spiritual guide and in as much as the Divine Spirit informs everyone in some way or other, the Gita has a word to say, a direction to give to each man, be he a philosopher scaling the heights of Knowledge or a seeker plumbing the depths of his soul or the common man who is caught in the vortex of the currents and cross currents of work-a-day life. No one is too high for its vision, no one too low for its consideration.
Do not leave your station in life, calls the Gita, in order to find your weal elsewhere. There is a purpose, a design, in your being where you are. You are being moulded in the crucible of Nature and those circumstances are chosen for you by the guiding Spirit which best promote your development. Regard the work that comes to your share as God given. Whatever the work, it can be utilized for your progress, outer and inner, if only it is done in the right attitude. All work is equal, the true difference in value arises from the spirit in which each work is done.
Work done ignorantly forges the chain of Karma that binds; work done in the spirit of the Gita is a force for liberation. And what is the spirit of the Gita?
All work that you do, do it as a sacrifice, as a loving offering to God. And the true test of this offering is whether you entertain a claim for its fruits. Give up personal desire for the fruit and accept what comes with equality. But all the while do your work with all the care, all the zeal and perfection that a sacred consecration calls for. Slowly your capacity for disinterested work will grow and you will be less and less involved in the consequences of the work. In place of desire and ego, detachment and selfless devotion will grow.
The first step is to offer the works to God.
The next step is to give up the fruits of work to God.
The third is to realize that what works is not your own force, but the Power of God. You perceive that you are only an instrument and the real worker is the Power of Him who is seated within the chariot of your being. The personal element is gradually replaced by an impersonal spirit and the first gates of inner liberation are opened.
It is not necessary for man to retreat from the world and leave his appointed work in order to attain liberation. The Gita prescribes a bold and practical discipline which can be successfully practiced by everyone in the midst of life, in the center of Kurukshetra.
(A chapter from Sri. M.P. Pandit ‘s - All Life is Yoga, Dipti Publications, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry)
Do not leave your station in life, calls the Gita, in order to find your weal elsewhere. There is a purpose, a design, in your being where you are. You are being moulded in the crucible of Nature and those circumstances are chosen for you by the guiding Spirit which best promote your development. Regard the work that comes to your share as God given. Whatever the work, it can be utilized for your progress, outer and inner, if only it is done in the right attitude. All work is equal, the true difference in value arises from the spirit in which each work is done.
Work done ignorantly forges the chain of Karma that binds; work done in the spirit of the Gita is a force for liberation. And what is the spirit of the Gita?
All work that you do, do it as a sacrifice, as a loving offering to God. And the true test of this offering is whether you entertain a claim for its fruits. Give up personal desire for the fruit and accept what comes with equality. But all the while do your work with all the care, all the zeal and perfection that a sacred consecration calls for. Slowly your capacity for disinterested work will grow and you will be less and less involved in the consequences of the work. In place of desire and ego, detachment and selfless devotion will grow.
The first step is to offer the works to God.
The next step is to give up the fruits of work to God.
The third is to realize that what works is not your own force, but the Power of God. You perceive that you are only an instrument and the real worker is the Power of Him who is seated within the chariot of your being. The personal element is gradually replaced by an impersonal spirit and the first gates of inner liberation are opened.
It is not necessary for man to retreat from the world and leave his appointed work in order to attain liberation. The Gita prescribes a bold and practical discipline which can be successfully practiced by everyone in the midst of life, in the center of Kurukshetra.
(A chapter from Sri. M.P. Pandit ‘s - All Life is Yoga, Dipti Publications, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry)
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